Me or the Community?

Regardless of the deity we may believe in (the majority do believe in a deity) when we ask “Does God answer prayer?’ we usually mean: does God answer prayer positively? Does God give us what we want? The fact that those of us who pray don’t always get what we pray for is used as evidence that God doesn’t exist.

But a sympathetic deity would hardly give us what we want all the time. Does a good parent always give a child what the child wants? (Candy five minutes before a meal? “No, of course you can’t have candy now. Wait until after supper.”)

What about those cultures preferring sons to daughters? Some couples no doubt pray for a son. Yet the conception of males and females remains the same.

Suppose all those prayers were answered positively? We have only to consider China, experiencing problems because their one child policy (recently abandoned) led to sex-selective abortions of daughters. Many young men now lack marriage partners. China may experience a labor shortage in the future as fewer marriages take place and fewer children are born.

A son may give a parent status or ensure better care in old age in some cultures. Individually, having a son may profit. For the community, however, too many sons may bring disaster.

Why would God give me something I ask for if it would harm others, i.e., the community?

God, it would seem, cares for the community as well as for me.

The Hunger Games and Star Wars: Sacrifice, not Pleasure

The Hunger Games and the Star Wars franchises have risen during a period of world turmoil and suffering, of tragedy suddenly inflicted on innocents by angry malcontents, and of growing inequality.

They provide escape, as movies and books do when times are evil. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote much of The Lord of the Rings in Britain during the dark days of World War II. France had fallen with most of Europe. The United States was still officially neutral. England stood alone as German bombers rained death on the island nation, contested only by a few remaining British pilots.

The Hunger Games follows this tradition but is flavored with today’s anxieties. The leaders in the capital preside over the ultimate consumer society. The workers in the districts receive only crumbs, providing the capital with goods and, once a year, giving their blood for entertainment.

The heroes of this series are conflicted. The winners are not always pure. Evil is not completely banished, but must be guarded against, for humans are morally frail creatures.

Yet these kinds of stories forever show the little guy against the storm troopers, victims pushed too far, willing to risk all they are and have for the sake of a more just order.

When we are threatened, we are less interested in pleasure and more sympathetic to sacrifice.

Christmas: Lifting up the Lowly

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

(Luke 1:46-53; NRSV)

Library as Community

Within the comfort of my home, I can immediately download a book for my digital reader from my local library system.

Books are instantly available after the library closes and I find myself with nothing to read. Zip. I’ve got a book within seconds. (I’d rather go without chocolate than have nothing to read—and that’s saying a lot.) E-books also are useful when I travel.

But checking out a digital book skips the community experience. When I physically walk into my library, I nod to the librarian. She recognizes a steady customer and nods back.

We don’t talk as much as we used to, since we readers now check out our own books at a terminal. Still, the library remains a community. Sometimes I see people I know. I enjoy the children visiting with their parents over in the children’s section, maybe listening to a story.

Others use the Internet terminals, allowing online access to those without money to buy a computer or a smart phone, leveling the playing field a little. Of course, leveling the playing field in the book world is one reason libraries exist.

I browse the book shelves on my physical visits to the library. Infinitely more books are available in the digital library, but here I can take one down and flip through the pages to decide for myself if it suits me. I don’t have to depend on the review of somebody I don’t know.

My digital library is a useful tool, but I have a relationship with my physical library.

ISIS Plays to its Base, the Non-Belongers

The terrorist group known as ISIS brutally murders in digital time for all the world to see. Their actions shock most of us, but ISIS is playing to its base.

ISIS leaders know decent people will be appalled, but they are not recruiting decent people. They target the disaffected young person, the one who doesn’t belong. ISIS is similar to a youth gang, a way for members to belong and pay back the belongers by breaking their rules.

In the case of ISIS, its members work for a revolution to give them meaning and purpose, a revolution against established values. They don’t want freedom of religion or democratic elections because such practices imply that no man or woman is God, that we are all imperfect and need the input of the larger community.

ISIS prefers a state run by a few leaders who claim a divine mandate to decide issues, not one where citizens are given a choice.

The Nazi regime also spoke to its base, those Germans humiliated by their losses in World War I. Jews were a convenient scapegoat. Leaders convinced other Germans that the Jews diluted their society and kept it from reaching the heights of a world power, superior to others.

American politicians may choose to play to their base of followers as well. Political speeches today shock some for incivilities, even lies. But the speakers are not playing to those who cherish civility; they are playing to those who feel injured by the status quo, the disrespected, the non-belongers.

Until we find ways to disagree without denigrating, to take seriously the non-belongers, some will seek other ways to gain respect.

A Clash between Religions or between Religion and No Religion?

In the waning years of the twentieth century, a few years before the terrorist attacks of 9/ll, Samuel P. Huntington wrote a best seller, The Clash of Civilizations.

The Soviet Union had dissolved, and the Cold War was over. Americans reveled in the dawning digital age, freed, they believed, from fears of a global conflict. Huntington, a professor at Harvard University, did not share their optimism for the new age.

In the absence of cold war ideology, Huntington suggested, religion was becoming more important, not less. Secularization had disrupted communities and cultures. I saw this disruption in the Middle Eastern countries where I lived during the 1990’s. Oil wealth led to vast change in one, Saudi Arabia. A consumer society emerged in one generation from an isolated, desert kingdom, bringing in Westerners who got drunk and watched x-rated movies. Most of the 9/ll terrorists came from this shell-shocked nation.

Humans needed, Huntington said, “new sources of identity, new forms of stable community, and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose. Religion . . . meets these needs.”

Are the clashes and terrorist attacks since the publication of Huntington’s book only a struggle between religions or do they stem more from a struggle between religion and no religion?

Western societies have assumed an upward progress toward secular utopias with high rates of material benefits. In an age of rapid change, ordinary men and women may yearn for purpose and meaning. Where do they find them?

Sixty Mile an Hour Winds Crimp Digital Life

Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, I remember only a few power outages, usually from snow storms. Schools and many businesses shut down. During one of those times, after sledding for hours, I relaxed with my parents on the living room rug, finding quiet contentment as flames danced in the fireplace. The whole world seemed to pause and recharge.

Now I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest where wind storms roar in more frequently than those snow storms. The most recent one saw sixty mile per hour winds after days of torrential rain, toppling trees, flooding roads, and shutting off power.

Islanders powered up generators and brought in more wood for stoves and fireplaces. Yet the pauses for outages are less relaxing now, as our digital world is threatened. I could not work on my computer. Cell phone service for some of us disappeared. No internet service. No emails. No checking the weather. I read the news from a print version (still delivered by our faithful carrier).

Finally my husband figured a way to connect our digital notebook to the generator system. I managed to put out my bi-weekly blog. Then we went back to Scrabble on our iPad, charged up before the storm.

Later we enjoyed the stove’s fire, and soft reading under the kerosene lamp. Glad I have yet to become smartphone-addicted.

A Young Man Was Murdered in Our Community, But You Won’t Hear About It on National News

Four young men in this area have been arrested and charged with the gun murder of another young man, seventeen years old. The accused range in age from sixteen to twenty. The motive allegedly involved a $400 impound fee which the dead youth supposedly owed to one of the accused and hadn’t paid.

Murder rarely happens here. In previous years, immature anger between young men might end in fist fights. While regrettable, the fights were less likely to be lethal. However, as more guns are available, they now appear as weapons of choice for the angry.

In contrast to individual murders, mass killings do grab media attention. They have spurred calls for more citizens to carry guns to prevent them. However, this is not the era of Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the OK Corral. Even highly trained swat teams have difficulty not injuring the innocent while attempting to subdue shooters.

Mass killings, whether by those labeled terrorists or by others, result in headlines but are unlikely to be experienced by ordinary Americans. The numbers of those killed in mass attacks are dwarfed by other gun killings: suicides, accidents in which children find guns and accidentally kill themselves or their playmates, and, of course, immature young people who now use guns to settle scores and forever wreck lives.

A Hard Fought Campaign, But No Character Assassinations

The election results were certified after a close race between the two candidates. Generally, character or motive of the opposition candidate was not called into question by either group’s followers (other than one or two heated letters to the newspaper). Instead, the campaign stuck to the issues.

Campaign financing was not a problem. Neither candidate appeared to have wealthy sponsors.

The winner garnered 297 votes against his opponent’s 262. A difference of only thirty-five votes separated the candidates for mayor in our small Washington state town.

The current mayor, not standing for reelection, had endorsed the candidate who eventually won, as had most of the city council. Were those endorsements a factor in a closer race? We are told that voters today are disillusioned with anyone currently in political office.

Or perhaps it was the rabbit issue, pitting those for a solution (mostly humane suggestions, except one mentioning a falcon) versus those who wanted the increasing rabbit population to remain unmolested.

Or perhaps the election divided those who wanted a funicular or other mechanical means for moving tourists from the harbor to the town against those who favored keeping the status quo.

At any rate, the real test begins, now that the spirited but largely civil race is over. Can meaningful dialog remain between the elected and those who lost? Or will the work of the city now bog down in dysfunction, like that of government in the other Washington?

If the city government continues to work, the other Washington should study our example.

Give Them Food or Teach Them to Farm?

“To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.”
–Wendell Berry

Sometimes simple answers to world hunger lie in small improvements on old methods of agriculture.

Michael McClellan, a retired diplomat who has served in South Sudan and Yemen, says our objective in working to end hunger should not be “to feed the world” but “to enable the world to feed itself.”

As an example, he suggests the use of cattle to work as draft animals on small farms in places like South Sudan instead of expensive farm machinery. These animals cost much less than machines but increase output over hand labor. Animals also provide manure for fertilization of fields.

Some modern methods of farming have stressed chemical fertilizers, expensive machinery, and ever larger farms. These practices can lead to depletion of soil and the loss of land by small farmers to pay off debts.

When small farms become productive and a source of adequate income to their owners, farm populations remain stable. They do not flood into cities, adding to the unemployed poor.

Good farming, McClellan says, improves the land and keeps people on the land.

Whose Side Is God On? Wrong question.

A news analyst asked a panel of religious leaders: “How do you decide whose side God is on when each religion assumes God is on its side?”

Personally, I think the analyst asked the wrong question. The question is not: “Whose side is God on?” The question is: “Who is on God’s side?”

I doubt God is some kind of Santa Claus dealing in wish fulfillment. We don’t demand God’s blessing for “our side.” He sets the rules by which he decides. We accept them or not, but the rules stand.

I think those choosing qualities like compassion, mercy, and forgiveness are the ones on God’s side. Their choices may mean sacrifice, even seeming defeat at times. I believe, however, that they will ultimately be on God’s side, the side that wins.

How Many Peace Movies Have You Seen Lately?

“There are countless films about war, but so few about making peace.”
—David Holbrooke, speaking of his new film, The Diplomat, about his father, diplomat Richard Holbrooke (The Foreign Service Journal, “ A Love Letter to Diplomacy,” November 2015)

Perhaps war movies serve a purpose in forcing us to understand the horrors of war, but too many such movies, like all violent movies, anesthetize us to the violence they portray.

Study the young soldiers given medals for acts of heroism in war. We, most of us, have not known war. We choose to honor them as a way to show our appreciation. Yet, the honor frequently reminds them of friends they have lost. They survived and must deal with it, the lost years of their friends weighing on them.

Rather than being entertained by war movies, perhaps we should listen to those who have actually fought in war:

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
–From “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

“Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!”
–General William T. Sherman, speech, 1880

This holiday season, search for a peace movie—one portraying grace, courage, or forgiveness.

Give Me Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free?

Foreigners come to the United States for all sorts of reasons. Some come for temporary visits to conduct business, visit tourist sites, or study, to name a few. Others are immigrating, and still others are refugees.

The bar for entry is highest for refugees. Typically, a refugee spends a couple of years after applying for refugee status while the claim is considered and checks are made. These include interviews, electronic checks, fingerprints, medical exams, and investigation of past history.

Obviously, our borders must be protected as far as possible from those who hate us and want to do us harm. We rightly guard traffic into our country.

To protect ourselves from any possibility of terrorism, however, we would need to forbid basically all entries—no business or tourist travelers and no foreign students learning from American universities, for example. Our country would suffer major commercial damage, not to mention losing influence.

Odd that refugees, who are vetted more than all others coming to this country, would be so feared.

George H.W. Bush, Where Are You When We Need You?

George H, W. Bush, father of George W. Bush, may be the last gentleman in the American political maelstrom.

The gentlemanly qualities of the elder Bush sprang from self-discipline and a desire to serve others. He was a naval aviator in World War II, almost losing his life for his country.

As president, he did break his promise about not raising taxes and even expanded the government, considered unpardonable by some politicians. Perhaps he thought the purpose of government is to serve the people and believed that a complex age demanded more services.

One of the reasons he lost his bid for a second term as president, it is said, is that he hated campaigning and abhorred bragging about his accomplishments.

Bush understood foreign affairs better than most presidents. Perhaps that is the reason he brought the first Gulf conflict, liberating Kuwait in 1991, to a successful conclusion in record time, then had the wisdom not to extend the war into Iraq.

Bush, according to an article in The Economist, “never claimed that his side had a monopoly on wisdom. In his inaugural address as president, he deplored ideologues who question not just opponents’ ideas but their motives.”

Ah, for such a public servant today.

I Can’t Remember Not Voting in an Election

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in countries with no elections, no voting. Others have elections but in name only. The leader always receives an unbelievably high percentage of the vote, the results greased by corruption. In others, violence mars the election, and voters stay away from the polls for fear of losing their lives.

Apparently, my regard for voting is not shared by many of my fellow citizens. Only about forty percent of registered U.S. voters bothered to exercise the privilege in recent elections, not even half of those eligible.

I understand the temptation to walk away from what has become almost a blood sport, turned off by the partisanship, mud slinging, and outright lying. The amount of money spent on campaigns is what I can only describe as sinful, using that word deliberately.

It won’t change as long as we stay away. Elections with a high voter turnout tend to result in changes; lower turnout favors the status quo.

I’ve always cast a ballot, absentee in those years I lived away from home (beginning in college). I know how rare the privilege is in much of the world. Ask those fleeing refugees.

We Think Highly of Our Military Forces—But Are Unwilling to Serve

The United States went to an all-volunteer military force in 1973. The ill-advised Vietnamese conflict of that era made conscription—the “draft”—a symbol of protest.

Now, at first glance, military service has again gained in approval. Soldiers are stopped by strangers to thank them for their service.

Recently, however, a recruiter for the U.S. army told a reporter that “paying lip-service to the armed forces, as opposed to doing military service, is all most Americans are good for.” (The Economist, October 24, 2015).

For decades, military veterans have gone on to serve in Congress and other areas of public service, their knowledge of other countries an asset as the U.S. became a global leader. However, no president since George H. W. Bush has served actively in the military. Fewer of the power shakers and the big spenders for political campaigns understand the violence war entails.

The military, while popular, is distant from the country’s ordinary life. Few highly educated young people consider joining the military. Attempting to solve problems with military action becomes easier because the consequences are felt by fewer Americans.

We increasingly pay the poor to risk their lives to protect the more well-off.

November 1989, When the World Changed

In November, 1989, I was a planner for a regional commission in North Georgia. After years if dull jobs, I thought I had found my calling, work I enjoyed. I had laid aside my earlier dreams of finding an international job, one that would take me to other countries.

That autumn, I and most of the world watched, incredulous, as one Eastern European country after another threw off Soviet rule. The old longing returned. I wanted another job, somewhere in the middle of all those global changes. Silly daydreaming. No hope of that, of course.

A year later I prepared to leave for my job in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after finishing my orientation as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.

The year 1989 often appears in my novels, stamping the place of that momentous year for me and for the world. From A SENSE OF MISSION:

That fall the world changed.

From our peaceful island, as we stacked wood for winter, cooked apples into applesauce, and noted the sun rising ever further south, we watched the slow liberation movement that swept across Eastern Europe. We held our breath, for at first it looked to end as tragically as Tiananmen Square.

It did not. The prayed-for change materialized. The Berlin Wall fell without bloodshed. For good or for ill, Eastern Europe began meshing with the West.

This month, Germans celebrate the day the Wall fell, twenty-six years ago. This is the Germany that so many of those Middle Eastern, African, and Asian refugees defy death to reach today.

Should a Healthy Young Person Be Forced to Buy Health Insurance?

Should we require a healthy twenty-five-year-old to buy health insurance or pay a penalty if he/she doesn’t?

Let’s consider a young man we’ll call George. George is healthy, exercises regularly, eats right, and doesn’t abuse alcohol or drugs. He’s never been sick with anything but an occasional cold or passing stomach virus.

George is driving back to his apartment one evening from work. A drunk driver going in the opposite direction suddenly crosses the median and crashes head on into George’s car. The drunk driver, a repeat offender, has no driver’s license and no insurance.

George has serious injuries. He is rushed to the hospital where doctors save his life, and after several days, set him on the road to recovery. However, the immediate hospitalization in intensive care costs thousands of dollars. Rehabilitation will cost additional thousands of dollars.

George doesn’t have health insurance to help pay the costs, and, as a young man just starting out, has few savings.

Who pays for the costs associated with the accident? I do, along with other taxpayers.

We pay because a young man refused to acknowledge that he is as subject to mortality as anyone else. More importantly, we pay because too many of us see insurance as an individual issue, not as part of pooling resources for the community.

I have a right to insist that all buy health insurance because I pay when the uninsured need medical help beyond their means to pay.

Candidate With the Most Tweets Wins

The Cold War diplomat, George Kennan, a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, was an old-fashioned patriot who served his country because he believed in America.

Kennan influenced U.S. foreign policy as few diplomats or other public servants do. His policy of containment helped us avoid outright war with the Soviets, while waiting until the Soviet Union dissolved, surpassed by a politically and economically superior West.

Two trends in his beloved country bothered Kennan during his later years, For one, he feared its citizens were too involved in consumerism.

Secondly, he feared Americans were too prone to see complex issues in simplistic terms.

We might remember his admonitions when our political campaigns descend to tweetable sound bytes.

How Opportunity Fueled a Career for a Disadvantaged Young Person

Years ago at the age of eighteen, my husband graduated from high school. With no particular skills, he found work picking apples in the orchards of his home state of Washington. Then an aluminum plant opened in the area, and he applied and was hired. This new job allowed him to advance from entry level to levels far beyond the subsistence jobs his family had known.

Then he was drafted into the army. After his basic training, he was able to apply for officer candidate school. He was accepted and emerged from the additional training as an officer in the U.S. army, a professional, the first in his family. Eventually, he applied for more training and became a pilot, finding a career that challenged him and allowed him meaningful service. Along the way, he received a college degree, paid for by the military.

I use these examples, not to push for factory or military careers but as examples of how opportunity can inspire even disadvantaged young people to become useful citizens. The military and to a certain extent the factories of my husband’s day took uneducated youth and offered them training and the hope of advancement. The opportunity to enter a couple of careers where advancement and a living wage were a possibility changed my husband’s life.

Our careers today seem divided into well paying, professional jobs, open only to those few who can first afford an expensive education, and all the rest. Perhaps we need more apprentice type jobs, even in the technical field. Jobs with the promise of training and education, more responsibility, and the chance to advance professionally can fuel hope.