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10.23.2004
Saturday, October 23, 2004
My partner and I went to an international adoption orientation meeting today. We were the only gay couple there. When asked if they had ever assisted a gay couple with an international adoption they said "no," that the foreign governments with whom they work - Korea, China, Ecuador, the Phillipines, Guatemala, and others, don't allow it. In fact they have to represent to those governements that the adopting parent is definitely not gay.
This made us very sad. Apparently it is better that a child be abandoned than that they be raised by gay parents. The significance of this cannot be overstated. In their eyes, we are not human beings. John Steinbeck wrote in 1968 that, "Joseph McCarthy proved [that] the more ridiculous the charge, the less possibility there is of defense." I don't know how to defend the accusation that my partner and I are not capable of raising a child with love and care. The accusation is so fundamental that one cannot bring reason to bear against it. Martin Luther King spoke of converting, not annihilating one's enemies. I have to tell you my gut reaction is to annihilate anyone would make such a judgment, if not against me, then against my partner, who is the most loving and sweetest human being on the planet. Their arrogance and judgment fill me with anger.
To see the world from the eyes of another is not such an easy thing to do when they see a world without you in it.
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10.22.2004
Friday, October 22, 2004, SECOND POST
"Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar." - Julius Caesar, Rome 100-44 B.C.
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10.21.2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
I was re-reading Lincoln's second Inaugural Address a little while ago. It is actually carved in stone on the wall inside the Lincoln Memorial to the left of the statue - every single word of it. It was so beautiful. Poetic. There's not a sound bite in it. It contains not an ounce of spin. It is generous, humble, compassionate, and in awe of its own privilege to be uttered. It is the truth.
Why do we not hear inspiring speeches anymore? Because great speeches come from great thoughts, and we are a society that has lost appreciation for original thought. We adopt the thoughts of others without contemplating whether they represent the truth for us or not. The truth is hard to find. It takes silence. It takes reflection. It means challenging belief, and not just the beliefs of our opponents, but our own beliefs. We have no time for silence or reflection anymore. We prefer the adreniline rush of an agressive attack. We have no time for long walks that give our imaginations the room to consider things, to ask "why?", to hypothesize, to wonder, "what if?", to ask ourselves, "does that seem true to me?"
So rather than search for truth, whence original thought comes, we "secrete cliches," as Thomas Merton said. Our candidates do the same thing. Today George Bush's line was, "He can run, but he can't hide." John Kerry has had his share too. Today's political speeches are laundry lists of transactional mumbo jumbo - "I give a $2,000 tax credit to families earning $35,000 or less," or "I have a prescription drug plan for seniors that gives you 30% more benefits than his plan." There is no call to greatness. There is no consideration of what that call might sound like. There is noise where there should be poetry. Ugliness where there should be beauty. Emptiness where there should be the fullness of real thought.
When there comes a leader who thinks for herself or himself - when there comes a leader who has original ideas - when there comes a leader who draws power from solitude and speaks softly - the people will see what they have been missing. They will be connected to the marvelous universe of Lincoln, Emerson, Thoreau, Jefferson, Einstein, and Dickinson and it will stand in stark contrast to what passes today for leadership. They will embrace it. They will soak it in, for they are hungry for it.
In the meantime we have this noise all around us. Turn it off. Go for a walk. Think about things. Here's an original thought for you - there is absolutely no reason that the next leader could not be you.
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10.20.2004
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Go Red Sox. Imagine if humanity functioned as a team, down 3 games to none and resolved that together we would pull victory from the hands of a world headed toward its own destruction. The Red Sox acted as if they were all on the same team. Humanity, on the other hand, acts as if it isn't. If we could transform that simple perspective what a wonderful world it would be. Imagine the whole world celebrating at center field, church bells ringing and champagne popping the world over because we had changed the world forever. Imagine it. I know I do. The only way you come back from a 3 to nothing deficit to win is to imagine it.
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10.19.2004
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
I've been reading (well, actually listening on my IPod) this book by Deepak Chopra called, "The Book of Secrets." It reminded me of a great piece of advice today: don't know where you're going. At every conceivable opportunity our society tells us we should know where we're going, we should have goals, plans, ambition, drive. But the times that the most unimaginably beautfiul things have happened in my life were the times when I didn't know where I was headed - when I felt utterly lost - and when I decided to surrender to that. When I know exactly where I'm going there's no room to listen to anything else. But when I let go of the need to know - have the courage to wander in the vast mystery of uncertainty, where anything can happen and nothing is ruled out, then the imagination of God takes over, and transformative things occur that I could never have conceived.
So if you feel like you don't know where you're going, good for you. Have the courage to hang out there. It takes no courage to place a stranglehold on a self-willed set of plans. It takes no guts to force an identity on yourself. But to sit in faith without the comfort of a worldly identity - to say, "I have no idea" when someone asks what you're doing with the rest of your life - this is a sign of great wisdom and courage. Nothing but great things can come of this. The world is full of mediocre results born of insecurity. But true brilliance comes from nothing. If there is nothing in your future right now, you're way ahead of the game.
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10.18.2004
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
I came across this while looking for a quotation by Roosevelt on which Howard Zinn had commented. It is from something called the WMail Newsletter. Appears to be edited, and perhaps written by someone named G.E. Nordell. Anyway, I could not have said it better myself:
"WE NEED A FUTURE. There is no designed future out there for us to work on together, no equivalent to the Space Race of John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, or FDR's New Deal. We are rats fighting over a finite amount of garbage, in a societal and personal frenzy to survive, with no purpose in mind. War, pestilence, hunger and stupidity we have in abundance. We no longer look to any Dream to give us guidance, to live into. The future from here is an unavoidable nightmare."
I differ with this in that I do not believe that the future is an unavoidable nightmare. If we create a future worth living into, it will be a dream. Otherwise, everything this person says is accurate. WE NEED A FUTURE.
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Monday, October 18, 2004
The election is seductive. It draws us into this little funnel, the journey into which narrows down the choices to the margins, all the while conditioning us to believe that the differences are night and day. We forget our larger dreams, or the sheer repetition of, and focus on, the margins, makes us feel that our larger dreams are silly, naive, and dangerous. Look at what happens to the Dennis Kuciniches, the Al Sharptons, the Ralph Naders - the ones who call for fundamental redress. They are laughed off the ballot. Compared to the kind of leadership we dream about, wherein there is a platform that calls for the end of AIDS and hunger in five years, the development of an all-hydrogen transportation fleet in 10 years, a cure for cancer in ten years - in other words, incredible targets toward real progress and societal transformation - there is no difference at all in the two candidates. But the system obscures our real dreams and conditions us to believe that a victory in the margins would be euphoria. In other words, there is nothing more for which to hope. A little tweak becomes our wildest dream. This is how dreams die, and with them, the human spirit.
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10.17.2004
Sunday, October 17, 2004
I saw the documentary on Howard Zinn tonight - "You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train." I recommend it. Howard Zinn is one of the great social justice thinkers of our time. Might be hard to find, but make the effort - he's an inspiration.
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Saturday, October 16, 2004
"We never discover what it is like to make a success of our own work, because we do not want to undertake any work that is merely proportionate to out powers." Thoma Merton
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