Category Archives: Journal

Instantly Available (What if Jesus Had a Smart Phone?)

Those we admire for spiritual teaching weren’t always instantly available. In the Christian scriptures, for example, Jesus often went off by himself to pray.

On at least one occasion, his disciples had a hard time finding him. At other times, Jesus sent the disciples away so he could be alone.

Contrast these examples with our own practice of being instantly available.

Perhaps it began with the telegraph, sending news or requests for action over wires. Overnight, the recently established Pony Express disappeared, obsolete in the face of this new communication network.

We graduated to the telephone, perhaps at first found only in the nearest general store. Then we decided each office and home needed one.

A few years ago, we discovered electronic mail, leading to the ubiquitous email. Finally, at this writing, we have graduated to portable availability with our smart phones.

We are available for personal messages but also for our boss when we are on vacation. And even perfect strangers assault our privacy with robocalls and spam.

Perhaps I run the risk of missing something important by never looking at email or messages until the middle of the day. Obviously, if I’m awaiting certain messages, perhaps from family, I make exceptions and am grateful for the devices that allow this. And, of course, some people’s work does require them to be instantly available, at least for certain periods.

Most days, however, I figure if even Jesus needed to limit his availability, how much more do I.

If Jesus had owned a smart phone, I bet he would have turned it off a lot. I can’t picture him interrupting the Sermon on the Mount or his acts of compassion to the sick and dying to answer the phone.

A Tale of Two Americans: John McCain and Donald Trump

In a forthcoming book, The Restless Wave, Arizona Senator John McCain is quoted as talking of a contest “between the high moral and the gutter.”

These and other ideas are discussed by Frank Bruni in “John McCain Battles Donald Trump with His Dying Breath.” (New York Times, May 5, 2018).

Says Bruni, “McCain’s final battle came straight to him. . . . not the one against brain cancer . . . the one against Donald Trump.”

McCain, Bruni writes, believes in “sacrifice, honor, and allegiance to something larger than oneself. Trump believes in Trump, and whatever wreckage he causes in deference to that god is of no concern.”

McCain, a Navy pilot, suffered torture after being captured by communist forces in Vietnam. Trump derides McCain for being captured. This absurdity comes from one who avoided any military service because of a “bone spur.”

When McCain and Barrack Obama ran against each other for president in 2008, McCain rejected the racial slurs against Obama. Trump participated in those slurs.

It’s hard to find a clearer example of patriotism versus selfish egotism.

Getting Away Freedom

One of the things I liked about my former job with the U.S. State Department were the trips to and from my assignments in other countries. I would hop on a plane and spend a couple of days away from daily duties.

True, I didn’t enjoy cramped airplane seating, squeezed next to strangers, but I usually lost myself in a book, avoiding chit chat with seat mates. I caught up with books and ideas and enjoyed the random discoveries. In the airports, often in foreign countries, I relaxed in my anonymity, letting my thoughts roam where they would.

I know hotel rooms can be lonely, and I certainly wouldn’t want to spend my entire life in hotel living. Nevertheless, when your work is extremely busy, as mine was overseas, the hotel evening provided an escape from the constant demands of the job, the twenty-four hour availability. I rested and took time to journal.

Today, my husband and I continue to “get away” occasionally. We spend a few days in a hideaway where we hike, read, write, and relax. We leave meetings and routine chores behind.

Getting away is a privilege not open to all. We are exceedingly thankful for the home we can return to. We love our everyday lives, the friends with whom we share, and the relaxed atmosphere of our small town, but as introverts we have always craved getting away times.

I’m also aware of uncounted numbers of refugees for whom travel is a nightmare. Would that all had a home to return to after “getting away.”

Wealth and Jubilee

Wealth in itself seems not to be a sin according to Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Indeed, Abraham and the other patriarchs owned large herds of animals, the wealth of that time, as well as land.

However, those scriptures forbade placing wealth ahead of others’ basic needs. In addition, long term accumulation of wealth was challenged.

Landowners in the Hebrew scriptures were told to avoid reaping to the very borders of their fields during harvest. They were to leave generous portions for the poor to reap for themselves. They were to forgo that extra wealth for the benefit of the less fortunate.

Every fifty years, the Hebrew scriptures called for a Year of Jubilee. Large landowners were to give back land purchased by them that wasn’t part of their original inheritance. They had use of all the land they could buy for up to half a century, but eventually all means to wealth was to be returned to original owners.

Though Jesus indicated the difficulty a rich person experiences in entering the kingdom of heaven (as difficult as a camel going through the eye of a needle), he also followed this observation by saying nothing is impossible for God. Others of his parables condemned the rich, not for their riches, but for centering their lives on wealth and for ignoring the needs of the poor around them.

What are modern equivalents of not reaping to the very borders and of returning land every so often to original owners?

A just society meets the needs of all citizens for basic food, shelter, and medical care.

For a Jubilee equivalent, consider taxing wealth as well as income (wages). The amounts collected might not only support basic needs of the less-well off, but also provide for job training and education, benefitting all of society—including, of course, the wealthy.

How Do I Fit My Faith Within My Nation?

The separation of religion and state, a bedrock of the U.S. Constitution, dawned in Europe after the devastating religious wars of the early modern age. This separation evolved as new nation-states tried to solve the problem of how to tie together differing faith communities.

Nations with Islamic majorities had their share of religious wars as well. Shadi Hamid (“Post-Liberalism, East and West,” Foreign Affairs; 11 April 2018) writes: “Islam, in its original form, assumed that one’s primary allegiance was to a religious community rather than a nation.” This might also be said of Europeans in times past.

Europe moved toward state churches but with toleration of dissenters. Later, the newly formed United States moved to disestablish religion from government altogether.

Well-established nation-states progressed in many areas: rule of law; public health advances; public education; transportation infrastructures; and hosts of others.

However, even within the centuries old American model of separation of church and state, conflicts have arisen between religious communities and government. Example: Should parents who believe blood transfusions are wrong be required to let their dying child be treated with them?

Protestors against the Vietnamese conflict included religious leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel. A continuing protest against excessive militarism involves present day religious leaders.

The growth of secularism in both Western and Middle Eastern societies has led to new conflicts between communities within nation states. New areas include abortion and gender issues.

These inevitable differences can be eased if those in conflict pledge civility and respect for those who differ from them. They agree that protests must be non-violent.

They recognize that no perfect society is possible. They accept tension as inevitable.

Searching for the Link Between Racism and White Poverty

Gray Dorrien teaches at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, but he grew up as a lower-class white youth in Michigan.

In his article about Martin Luther King Jr (“Redeeming the Soul of America,” Plough, Spring, 2018), Dorrien discusses King’s sometimes forgotten struggles against both militarism and capitalist excess. King opposed the Vietnam conflict. In addition, he called for a halt to extreme economic inequality.

Some of King’s mentors in his seminary studies believed “black Americans would never be free as long as large numbers of whites were oppressed by poverty.”

Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, Dorrien believes, “would not have been so successful among working-class whites had Democrats been known for caring about their plight. . . . Poor and working-class white Americans believe by overwhelming margins that the federal government is their adversary.”

The growing income gap between working class and the wealthy will haunt race relations unless addressed. Trump’s election was a wake-up call.

Showing Up on Easter

Jesus is crucified, his body taken away.

The religious rulers are satisfied. They’ve won. They’ve handled this challenge to their authority by hinting to the Romans that they could have an insurrection on their hands if they didn’t take care of this peasant leader. Their plan worked well, with the Romans handling matters in their usual efficient way.

The Romans are satisfied, too, with the possible exception of their man, Pilate, who expressed misgivings. He went along, however, understanding that it was in his interest not to upset the ones on whom his job depends, so no problem.

The disciples, all men, have fled, taking refuge in some out-of-the-way bolt hole.

Only a few women stay with Jesus, and they follow to see where his body is taken. They spend the next day, the day of rest, preparing for his burial. He must be taken care of, even if all they can do is carry out a proper burial. They’re only women, and no one pays them much attention.

So they come to the tomb on Sunday morning. They find it empty. They are the first to know and the first to tell. What no one else did, they did. They came. They showed up.

Not Welfare Housing but Worker-Owned Homes?

In this computerized age, labor has become more of an inanimate cost, like computers or office supplies. A business can determine its “core competency”—the main purpose for which it exists—and hire only those full time employees useful for developing that strength.

All other needs, like janitorial services, are contracted out. Unlike the full-time employees, contracted laborers are less likely to have health insurance or vacation time or even regular hours. This new efficiency has resulted in wealth creation for a few but wage loss for many others.

If this model continues, the two-tiered “have and have not” divisions promises to grow.

We could opt for a fairer system in several ways.

One, of course, is raising the minimum wage. Some say raising the minimum wage causes employers to hire fewer workers. Regardless, raising wages isn’t the only option. We could begin by asking what the wages are supposed to pay for.

Housing is a major expense for lower wage workers. A huge chunk of their salaries is spent on housing. We could consider a tax on wealth for a specific function: subsidized housing for the workers who contribute to that wealth.

In the past, public housing was built for “the poor.” The perception that it was for those who didn’t work, true or not, tarnished the image of subsidized housing.

A different kind of housing near job centers could be built or bought for workers to buy back at rates they could afford. Not rent—the workers have salaries, but house prices need to fit their wages.

The idea is to give workers decent housing and allow them to build up investment through ownership like workers did after World War II. The housing would be subsidized, but some of the costs would be recouped as workers bought the housing.

Some special regulations would need to be written into the deeds. Owners might be limited to modest increases in the amount for which they could sell their homes. Thus, this housing would continue to available at prices the working poor could afford.

If our job structure is changing toward high salaries for a few and inadequate salaries for many, we need to insure that even lower wage workers can meet basic needs. They then would have a stake in the system that so rewards the wealthy.

Blessed Silence

Nathaniel Peters names as a sin the “small desire to know more when we have no good reason for knowing it.” (“Saving Silence; Unlearning the Sin of Curiosity,” Plough Quarterly, Summer, 2017)

We don’t have to let the internet waylay us with juicy tidbits when we are merely checking the weather.

Peters quotes Rod Dreher in using the term “technological asceticism” to define the process of weaning ourselves from our devices.

Technological discipline (a term I prefer) requires more than lip service to our need for inward journeys and for building up our communities. Finding more time for these pursuits requires a positive act of limiting our time with technical gizmos.

We can hold as sacrosanct the ritual of meals and times with family and friends. We can limit our digital devices to certain times of the day.

Technology retreats can include weekends of silence and meditation. Another version is a time of dedicated face-to-face sharing with friends.

Weigh the value of following the latest scandal compared to needs for personal growth and community.

The Hunger Games: When People Are Desperate

Early in the first book of The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, Prim. In a post apocalyptic North America, Prim is marked by a “reaping” ceremony.

The ceremony chooses youth to participate in an obscene game where desperate teenagers are forced to kill each other for the amusement of a corrupt empire’s elites. (The series alludes to the “bread and circus” of the Roman Empire’s arena games.)

As Katniss ignites a resistance movement, she becomes the symbol of a downtrodden people finally rebelling against the sins of a bloated, selfish aristocracy.

In one scene, an old man defiantly raises his hand in the salute that came to define those resisting evil. He would be killed and so would many others, as the elite answered with the only weapon they knew—physical power.

But his defiance is a beginning.

Another scene begins with only a muttering, barely discernable. Then figures rise out of the mist, marching to what they know will be death for many of them. But they are desperate.

They carry their explosives toward a huge hydroelectric dam. They are not so much attacking people, though the structure’s guards will die in the dam’s rupture.

They are attacking a symbol of an evil wealth built on the backs of forgotten, powerless poor.

They march on, their front ranks decimated by the guards’ firing, but eventually their sheer numbers prevail. They set their explosives and try to escape, but regardless, the timers have been set.

The dam explodes, and in the capital, haunt of the wealthy, the lights go out.

The theme of The Hunger Games is not new: a people may overcome when hope ignites enough willingness to suffer for a greater good. The old narrative of helpless people resisting the overlordship of a corrupt elite entices us with its stark portrayal of injustice.

I’m uneasy with the violence of the series, if violence is intended as the ultimate answer to wrongs. Nonviolence, a part of countless protests from the American civil rights movement to others in eastern European countries and other parts of the world, mark a higher way to resist evil.

This kind of resistance wishes not to demonize but rather to change both powerful and powerless.

Capturing Time; Freeing Time

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”

—Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

We walk a fine line, some of us do, between wasting time and constricting time.

A properly scheduled life boots us from too much laziness. On the other hand, a time too constricted prevents us from the idle moments we need to wander and imagine and recuperate.

I’m a morning person. I spend a lot of the morning writing. Then the afternoon traps me. Neglected tasks stare me in the face, the tasks I need to do but hate.

Well, why not work on those tasks in the morning when I’m more enthusiastic about life in general and save writing, which I love, for the afternoon?

Because I end up bypassing the writing. By afternoon the demands of life have captured me, and I can’t return to morning’s freshness, when my imagination leads.

So, I set out an afternoon schedule: a group of chores from which I can pick one, or on good days, two. Enough time for exercise.

But—some days, or afternoons, I laze and do what I want. No hard and fast rule about them.

Perhaps I can incorporate the quote attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr: “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

In other words, to know when to push and when to let go.

Vacations by the Inch

My husband and I once took an Alaskan cruise. We felt like gilded age tycoons. We could relax on the deck or in sheltered salons with ocean views. Feasts were provided, all kinds of food, in myriad settings: buffet, sit down, café. Art sales. A library.

We decided this type of vacation, besides being too expensive, didn’t suit us. For the first day, it was okay, but after that, the luxury seemed artificial and unsuited to our frugal mind set. Besides, it was fattening.

If we ever wanted to experience life at sea again, we decided, we would sign up for a tramp steamer. Meanwhile, we opt for short vacations—a weekend at some out of the way (and affordable) lodging, close to hiking, for example.

Plus, after a time of intense activity with obligations and meetings, sometimes we take a day off. Eat out for lunch. Read all afternoon.

Almost every day, we stop in the late afternoon, enjoy tea, play scrabble, and read.

Vacations by the inch.

Born on Third Base

Chuck Collins, heir to a wealthy trust fund, decided at age 26 to transfer his wealth to four grant-making foundations. He made this decision after working with a group of mobile home owners struggling to raise money to buy the land where they parked their trailers.

Collins could no longer justify to himself his advantages over the “99 percent” (including those mobile home owners) because he was born wealthy. He had paid his college expenses out of his trust fund, yet had seen that fund double during his college years.

He likens being born wealthy to being Born on Third Base, the title of his book. He did not earn the education or the upper class home or the security and safety that would forever give him an advantage over the 99 percent, even if he gave away his money.

However, Collins is not interested in shaming the wealthy. His goal is to convince the wealthy to become partners in building a more just society.

He points out the benefits reaped by Americans of a few decades ago which grew the economy of the country: GI education bills, cheaper college tuition, affordable mortgages for homes, workers’ wages that were not so unequal to those of their bosses, higher taxation on the wealthy.

He believes some redistribution of income is only fair, since the wealthy have themselves benefitted from subsidies for years: tax breaks, for example, which amount to a subsidy for the more well off. He favors a “GI Bill for the next generation.”

He wants the help of the rich in creating a tax system in which the wealthy pay their fair share. He hopes to persuade them to understand “the shortsightedness of an economic system that funnels most income to the few.”

Thoughts on Reading Atlas Shrugged

I read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, several years ago. Granted I did occasionally skim through the dialog, some of which is not dialog but long speeches. (Presenters at writers’ conferences warn novelists to avoid this type of dialog like a mortal sin.)

The main characters are Dagny Taggart, a railroad magnate, and the mysterious John Galt, who, as it turns out, has established a hidden capitalist nirvana, for such people as Taggart. As the world collapses from the weight of the undeserving masses living off the work of the brave capitalists, true capitalism lives on in this heavenly retreat.

As I read Rand’s book, I wondered what happened to people who were handicapped or became ill. Unfortunate accidents do happen to people, rendering them unable to work. Do we leave such people by the side of the road to die? Kill them, resembling Nazis executioners?

Following World War II, capitalism defeated Soviet-style communism, which Rand knew as a child and rebelled against. Capitalism is an efficient way to run an economy, as long as capitalists are understood as humans like the rest of us. Any of us can become dangerous if we have unfettered power—whether we are socialists or capitalists.

Would some capitalists, being human, if given absolute power, not be tempted to worship wealth? To accumulate wealth with little regard for worker safety or clean air and water or the ability of their workers to afford decent housing or send their children to college with the wages paid them?

Read Adam Lee Alternet’s critique of this book in Salon (“10 (insane) things I learned about Atlas Shrugged,” April 29, 2014) for some interesting observations.

Then read other views of Rand’s philosophy in The New York Times.

When We Want the Good Guy/Gal to Win, but They Don’t

The good guy or gal traditionally wins in movies and books because we want him/her to do so. Most of us want good to win. We want fairness to win. We want the oppressed underdog to win. Stories that play to this deep-seated hunger satisfy us.

More books and movies today project a dark edge. Evil may win or, as in Gone Girl, the story doesn’t have a “good” protagonist.

Perhaps we are exhausted by the violence and hatred we witness in today’s world, the seemingly endless acts of anger: ISIS, school shootings, road rage, political hatred, slaughter of children in Syria—they go on and on and on. Perhaps the new stories cater to our pessimism.

Choosing hope while working for change during times of hopelessness requires courage. Those who do so are the placeholders. They keep hope alive for better times.

Leaving Our Tribe

Whenever we leave a “tribe”—a group of people we’ve been closely associated with for a period of time—we may feel we’ve lost our identity on returning to “normal” society.

One combat veteran who suffered post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggested that veterans of combat be sent back together when returning to civilian life. They had formed a unit. Perhaps return to society could be done together. They would confront “normal” life as a unit, just as they faced combat together. (What It Is Like to Go to War; Karl Marlantes)

In Saudi Arabia in 2003, where I served with U.S. embassy and consulate staffs during the second Gulf war against Iraq, we had experienced a prolonged period of increasing danger to Americans. Several terrorist incidents finally led to partial evacuation of staff.

As one of those sent “home,” I experienced a strange sense of loss. My disorientation was hardly worthy of the name when compared with someone returning from combat. Yet the sensation, half of sorrow for no longer having a “tribe” of fellow colleagues facing danger together, was real enough.

I incorporated them into one character’s feelings in Tender Shadows on her return to the States from a similar situation:

“ . . . she remembered last evening in her sterile apartment. Flipping through fifty television channels from sheer loneliness and finding nothing of worth. The country she’d come back to . . . offered twenty-four-hour food service, shop-‘til-you-drop malls, and movies filled with angst and black humor. Washington allowed no ready-made community like her foreign assignments.”

For this fictional character as with others in real life stressful situations, community is the missing ingredient.

Capitalism: Neither God nor Satan

Arlie Russell Hochschild’s incisive book, Strangers in Their Own Land, portrays citizens in Louisiana caught between watching the industrialized devastation of their beloved state and their need for jobs. “It’s the sacrifice we make for capitalism,” one says.

Some of us see capitalism as some kind of god that we must serve. One may also worship socialism or money or government. In fact, all, it seems to me, are neutral, capable of either evil or good, depending on the type of allegiance we give them.

A saying of the early Christian missionary, Paul, is often quoted as “money is the root of all evil.” That is not what he said. He said “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil . . .” It’s the love of money (or capitalism or government or whatever) that is the problem.

Capitalism is neutral. It can be used for good: money from individuals pooled to form companies and create jobs. Or it can be used for evil: the extraction of maximum profit no matter what ecological or human damage it causes.

Government, I believe is similar. It is neither good nor evil in itself. Rightly used, government protects us from foreign enemies, crime, and economic predators. It can create programs that serve its citizens, like social security, in a way that private industry can’t.

Wrongly used, it can take from workers in order to give to the wealthy. Without adequate oversight, its resources can be wasted or riven with corruption.

Workers, needing jobs, tend to worship capitalism and hate government. Others, seeing only the tragedy of ecological devastation, tend to reverse their worship.

In fact, worship is a poor choice for either. Better is a watchful use of both.

You’re Not From Here, Are You?

As I shopped in a supermarket in my northwest U.S. community, a woman asked me where she might find a certain item. I gave her the information.

“You’re not from here, are you?” she responded.

I admitted my birth and rearing in Nashville, Tennessee. It doesn’t matter that I’ve lived all over the United States and in several foreign countries for decades. The accent remains.

I was reminded of my origins when I read an article in The New York Times, “The Passion of Southern Christians” (April 8, 2017) by Margaret Renkl.

One paragraph especially moved me, reading it as I did after returning from a church service a week before Easter. The service had reminded us of Jesus’ disciple, Peter, and his actions following the arrest of Jesus by the authorities.

Fearful of consequences if he was seen as a Jesus person, Peter denied all connection with him. One person thought Peter had to be a follower, though, because his Galilean accent betrayed him.

Renkl wrote: “I have a lot of sympathy for Peter these days. Here it is nearly Easter, and for the first time in my life I don’t want anyone to know I’m a believer. To many, ‘Christian’ has become synonymous with angry white voters in red hats, personally responsible for handcuffing all those mothers and wrenching them out of their sobbing children’s arms.”

Yes, I’m a Southerner, still following Jesus, the person I first learned about in a church in Nashville, Tennessee. So it’s not just my accent but my religious persuasion that may mark me as “not from here.”

Despite the accent and the religion, I didn’t vote for Trump. As Renkl writes, “Watching Christians put him in the White House has completely broken my heart.”

On the other hand, with Renkl, I believe in resurrection. The accent matters no more in the Christian faith than those early differences between Jew and Gentile.

So What’s Wrong with Doubt?

In a thought provoking article, Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, spoke with a Christian pastor, Timothy Keller: ( “Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?” December 23, 2016).

Keller makes the argument that faith and skepticism are not necessarily opposites. Reasoning can, and probably should be, a part of faith. He also answers in the affirmative that he and most people of faith struggle with doubt at times.

Keller says, “Neither statement—‘There is no supernatural reality beyond this world’ and ‘There is a transcendent reality beyond this material world’—can be proved empirically, nor is either self-evident to most people. So they both entail faith.”

Useless wars, religious and otherwise, have been fought between groups, each certain of their reasons for killing the other. The author Ron Hansen was quoted as saying, “the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.”

Mystics, whom we hold to be especially close to God, have nevertheless spoken of a “dark night of the soul,” a moment of despair that they must work through.

According to the Christian New Testament, even Jesus prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” when he was suffering crucifixion.

Faith that is tested can be a stronger faith for that testing.

Ann Gaylia O'Barr

Culture and World Events from a Christian Perspective