Tag Archives: Ann Gaylia O’Barr

Wealth and Taxes

Communism as practiced by Stalin and early leaders of the Soviet Union included forcibly taking land away from owners to be run by collectives. Ukraine, now again in Soviet cross hairs, was a victim of Stalin’s ruthlessness.

For centuries, however, the problem of poverty next to great wealth was part of unrest and rebellion in many parts of the world, from peasant revolts in China to the French Revolution.

Both Hebrew and Christian scriptures allow wealth. The scriptures are filled with feasts and celebrations, often a product of wealth. The problem is not wealth—indeed wealth is seen as a blessing. The problem with wealth is the same as with many other blessings—musical ability, beauty, political success, for example. The problem is the hoarding or use of blessings for oneself alone.

Every so often, according to Hebrew scriptures, wealth is to be curtailed, with part of it returned to original owners or their descendants. Wealth is allowed and to be enjoyed, but within limits.

The problem is not the enjoyment of wealth but the hoarding of wealth. Wealth is to be both enjoyed and shared.

We might look at our taxation as a modern day version of scriptural righteousness. The rich should be allowed the use of their wealth for their own enjoyment, but a responsible portion of it should be taxed for the use of all—schools, child care, low income housing, medical care, and other uses that benefit all of us.

A Flapping of Wings

In the past century or so, Americans’ awareness of the world beyond our small communities grew as we fought in two world wars and endured the Cold War. Events opened our eyes to nations far beyond North America. The internet now overwhelms us with news of the world’s gigantic problems: ethnic warfare, global warming, pandemic, and Russia’s attempts to take over Ukraine.

Our own lack of power tempts us to give up. In a Facebook post, the writer Anne Lamott addresses this feeling of helplessness. She touches on the “butterfly effect”: the theory that big changes can begin with small changes: growth toward a hurricane set in motion with the flapping of wings by a small butterfly.

“Well, how does us appreciating spring help the people of Ukraine? If we believe in chaos theory, and the butterfly effect, that the flapping of a Monarch’s wings near my home can lead to a weather change in Tokyo, then maybe noticing beauty—flapping our wings with amazement—changes things in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It means goodness is quantum. Even to help the small world helps. Even prayer, which seems to do nothing. Everything is connected.” (Anne Lamott, in a Facebook post 4/5/22)

We still have the same callings as our ancestors. We are called to serve through the little and small ways given to us. We do the next thing. We shower the world with our own tiny bits of service and prayer and perhaps become part of a greater and better whole.

The Elected Dictator

A new crop of dictators has arrived on the scene, but, this time, by way of the democratic process:

“Around the world, from the richest countries to the poorest, a dangerous new crop of leaders has sprung up. Unlike their totalitarian counterparts, these populists entered office through elections. (Moisés Naím, “The Dictator’s New Playbook: Why Democracy Is Losing the Fight,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2022)

Until the past couple of decades, we hadn’t realized that keeping democracy is just as hard as gaining it. For this system to work, we have to be willing to lose to the side that has more votes than we do (whether popular or electoral.)

Losing is easier if the other side still looks and sounds somewhat like us. In the past few decades, more and more people, in the United States and elsewhere, don’t look like the white men who founded the country in 1776 or even the Greatest Generation who won World War II.

One of the playbooks for the new leaders, Naím writes, is vilifying those on the other side as some kind of dangerous force: “Populists work to collapse all political controversies into this ‘noble people’ versus ‘venal elite’ dichotomy, explaining any and every problem as the direct consequence of a dastardly plan by a small but all-powerful group harboring contempt for a pure but powerless people whom it exploits. Of course, if that is the case, what the people need is a messianic savior, a champion able to stand up to that voracious elite, to bring it to heel on behalf of the people.”

Court after court has upheld the election results of the U.S. 2020 election. Probably no voting in the history of the world has been as examined and certified as that election. Doesn’t matter. A myth will serve against hard facts if needed by a would-be dictator.

Gerrymandering districts to filter out any power to groups who might be opposed to the would-be dictator is standard practice.

At the same time, “a pseudo press” is crafted. A news outlet practices, not independent journalism, but political propaganda.

Such is the end result of the inability to abide by one of a democracy’s most important rules: you have to be willing to realize your human imperfection. You have to be willing to accept defeat when your side loses.

Family Time

No doubt Americans have left the work force in record numbers recently for many reasons. Their leaving, in what is called “The Great Resignation,” caused a surge in job openings after our recent Covid pandemic.

One reason may be a desire of some parents, often mothers, but not always, to spend more time taking care of their families, especially in the sometimes frightening era we now live in.

What would happen if we decided, as some have suggested, to actually pay parents to take care of their small children themselves?

In our haste to, rightly, give women the same chance for careers as men, perhaps we forgot that both fathers and mothers might like more time with their children, especially young children.

We supposed that equal job opportunities for women equated to day care for their children so they could do so. We seemed not to have thought of allowing fathers more time for their children and at the same time making it easier for mothers to share in work outside the home.

Somehow we assumed that the desire for equal work opportunities automatically equated to everybody taking a paid job away from home from the time they reached adulthood.

Perhaps we could instead offer payment for a parent to spend the first few years of a child’s life as a full time parent, if they desire it.

Guilt versus Confession

Some Americans fear remembrance of our past slave-holding days. We might be damaged by too much guilt if we dwell on the slaves and slave holders in our past. Even more, it might damage our country if we admit to imperfections. We certainly don’t want our children suffering guilt over our country’s racism, do we?

As a white American who had at least one ancestor who owned slaves, I don’t fear facing our sins. One of my privileges is to own my ancestor’s sins and to repent of them. I can also repent of those days in my childhood when blacks had to move to the back of the bus after entering and paying their fare like everybody else. Had to drink at separate water fountains.

How would I feel about those days if I had grown up black? The hurt surely is still there.

Somehow, the idea seems to be that the if the United States is deemed less than perfect, it’s like saying God is less than perfect. Somehow, we seem to think the United States is God.

To ascribe to God what is not God is, I believe, blasphemy.

Even more, we can never change for the better if we don’t recognize our sins and repent of them.

Christianity: Servant of the State or of Christ?

In a recent speech to the Russian people, Vladimir Putin “praised Russia’s army with words from St. John’s gospel: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’” This is the army that has killed men, women, and children by indiscriminate attacks on Ukraine’s towns and cities.

Putin attempts what many leaders do: rally a country around religion.

According to a briefing in The Economist (March 26, 2022, “The Cult of War), Putin has revived an “obscurantist anti-Western mixture of Orthodox dogma, nationalism, conspiracy theory and security-state Stalinism.”

To cloak Putin’s desire to revive the greater Russia of the czars in the words of Jesus Christ is surely a horrible repudiation of Christ’s life and message.

The temptation to tie Christ to political causes, however, has been dangled before his followers ever since his life on earth. Indeed, Christ himself was tempted, according to Christian gospels, to worship Satan by accepting Satan’s gift of all the kingdoms of the world. He refused, as his followers been called to do ever since.

Crowds of would-be followers lined up to cheer Jesus toward the end of his ministry. They hoped he would overcome Rome’s rule of their country. Instead, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, not on a charging war steed, but on an humble donkey. A few days later, he allowed himself to be killed by the Roman state.

Throughout the two-thousand years since that death, those calling themselves by his name have struggled with the militant temptation. When they have succumbed, as in the religious wars of the 1600’s, Christianity suffered, eclipsed by more worldly options like Stalin’s communism.

When Christians accepted the more lowly call of service—raising the status of women, freeing slaves, building hospitals, and feeding the poor, Christianity has been strengthened.

In every generation, Christians are confronted with this choice—God as state or God as Jesus.

More Than Democracy

Perhaps America’s climb to world power is due more to the ability of its ordinary citizens to make a decent living than simply because it practices a form of democracy.

Despite racism and other sins, for most of its history the United States has constantly been renewed by immigrants coming to make a new life, start new businesses, and provide their children with a good education. Yes, they became participants in our political processes, but they also took advantage of the ability to thrive economically.

Surely Americans cannot be faulted for encouraging democracy in other nations as a major part of our foreign policy. Yet our push for democratic institutions has worked best where we have also pushed economic incentives, such as the Marshall Plan for Europe following World War II.

In the Middle East and North Africa, democracy has stalled. Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins write: “It appears that the people of the Arab world have internalized one lesson above all from the revolts of the last decades: democratic change does not necessarily produce economic improvement.” ( “Why Democracy Stalled in the Middle East,” Foreign Affairs, March-April 2022)

Tunisia, where I lived for a few years, appeared to have perhaps the best chance for an Arab nation to develop a democracy. With a low birth rate, an educated population, and a generally homogenous society, Tunisians appeared set for a democratic awakening when the strong man ruler, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was overthrown in 2011 in a bloodless coup.

Unfortunately, in July 2021, the current popularly elected Tunisian leader, Kais SAIED, seized exceptional powers, fired the prime minister, and suspended the legislature.

Both Ben Ali’s earlier overthrow, and the powers assumed by the current leader, were occasioned by economic problems, including low job expectations for young people.

Here in the United States, even though our economy is growing, the change in job structure has led to the loss of good jobs for many. Geographically, some areas are thriving while others have suffered.

At the same time, our tax policies favor those who are already wealthy in keeping and growing huge amounts of their wealth, not in encouraging more equitable taxation. Such taxes could be used for programs like child care and education and job training to bring others into the mainstream.

Obviously, the wealthy have more money to invest in political campaigns for keeping the status quo than do the non wealthy. Some of those political campaigns may play on falsehoods about election counts rather than on needed changes to our tax system.

Nevertheless, if the U.S. is to endure as an influential nation, those changes must come. The country must be seen as economically fair as well as politically healthy.

China: Now the Senior Partner

China’s stance on Ukraine’s struggle for independence from Russia is of utmost importance. China has reversed its relationship with Russia from Cold War days: from junior partner to senior.

Linda Jaivin, in The Shortest History of China, recounts the multi- millennial history of the country from the beginning of human settlement to the current reign under Xi Jinping.

From shadowed beginnings, China rose and fell under various dynasties until the last one ended in the early twentieth century. Fighting between factions ensued, including the Chinese Communist party, founded in 1921. The other major faction, the Nationalists, opposed to the Communists, was led by Chiang Kai-shek.

The Japanese invasion of China before World War II, despite its horrors, did little to overcome the struggles between the Communist and Nationalist parties. After World War II, the Communist party became ascendant.

Through years of turmoil, including horrible self-inflicted famines, the Communists eventually overcame the disastrous years of Mao Tse-tung. They began to grow the economy into the giant it is today. Meanwhile, Russia stumbled from promises of a democratic government to the current kleptocracy under Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy.

How much freedom will countries enjoy who exist on the margins of Russia and China? Is it possible for Ukrainians to enjoy the independence they desire? To become a partner with the successful countries of Europe? Can Taiwan maintain its independence?

Checkpoint Charlie

October, 1961: Checkpoint Charlie: one of those barely remembered confrontations in the early days of the Cold War.

A few months before, the Soviets, against allied protests, had built the Berlin Wall, effectively sealing off East Berlin from the rest of the world. Western diplomats were refused free access to the area, against earlier agreements that they would be allowed such access.

The confrontation escalated when Americans moved tanks to the border to support the accord. The Soviets responded with tanks of their own on their side. Would someone begin firing, triggering World War III?

Fortunately, neither U.S. President John F. Kennedy nor Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wished to begin a war. Back channel negotiations were established. Eventually both sides began backing away their tanks. Diplomats on both sides continued to have access to the entire city.

Before these events, before the Wall was even in place, in the mid 1950’s, John Kerry was a school boy in Berlin with his father, a U.S. official there. Kerry, who would later become U.S. Secretary of State, likes to tell of the time he biked over into East Berlin, apparently using his American passport, to explore the area. His father was horrified when he discovered what his son had done and promptly grounded him. Apparently, he had visions of his son’s escapade causing an international incident.

Now, more than six decades later, the world is still subject to crises along that longer divide between east and west.

Overcoming an Attempted Coup

The picture of Russian politician Boris Yeltsin on the steps of the Russian parliament in August 1991 forever symbolizes his finest moment. He and a few supporters overcame a coup attempt to take over Russia’s first attempts at democracy.

Later, after the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down, Yeltsin became president of an independent Russia. He was never again as popular or as successful as in those heady days when he led the successful resistance to the attempted coup.

Eventually, Vladimir Putin took over Russian leadership and followed the path toward dictatorship.

A democracy is difficult to bring about and sometimes difficult to keep, once birthed, even in the United States.

During a hot summer in 1776 in Philadelphia, representatives from British colonies in North America declared their independence from Great Britain. They crafted their new republic with a Declaration of Independence.

As it was being declared, an onlooker in the crowd reportedly asked Benjamin Franklin, “What kind of government do we have now?”

Franklin is reported to have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

We may look back on January 6, 2021, as the day Vice President Mike Pence stood down an American version of a coup against that republic.

August 1991

From my job at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I watched with millions all over the world as a coup attempt played out in Moscow. Were the efforts to finally install democracy in countries of the Soviet Union doomed to failure? Were similar attempts in Russia itself to be overcome?

Mikail Gorbachev had become leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the youngest member of the Soviet politburo. He had attempted a loosening of the Soviet system, allowing some Eastern European countries to begin breaking away and forming their own governments. He also began instituting changes in Russia’s governance.

However, for a few days in August 1991, while Gorbachev was away from Moscow, hardliners placed him and his family under house arrest and attempted to wrest power away from him.

Countries in eastern Europe, having begun steps toward their independence, watched in horror, afraid that their new freedom would be taken back.

George Krol, a U.S. diplomat serving at a U.S. consulate in Russia was especially concerned. He had traveled into the Baltic republics as they began throwing off the Soviet yoke. Awakening now to the news of the attempted coup, he drove across to Riga in the Baltic republic of Latvia.

He found government officials there watching in horror as Soviet armored personnel carriers threatened their own country. Krol then met with leaders of the Latvian parliament. As they thanked him for being there, he realized, he said “what it meant to truly represent my country.” He was standing with them, as a representative of America in their darkest hour.

The world watched as resisters under Boris Yeltsin eventually overcame the attempted coup, a victory to be savored as former Soviet nations continued steps toward democracy.

No one, however, should think that some sort of ultimate victory was won. Not all Russians were happy to see their empire fading away. Economic hardships ensued for many.

This stage was part of an ongoing story, still being written, as Putin’s attempts in Ukraine attest.

It was, however, a most important step. As Krol wrote, “On that beautiful summer’s day, as I drove with the windows down through the idyllic Baltic country-side, I thought: I represent the United States of America; I can’t believe they pay me to do this.”

The Church Forever Decaying and Being Restored

Tom Holland, raised in the Christian tradition, but not, it would appear, a card-carrying Christian today, has written a unique history of Christianity’s journey: Dominion, How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. His book suggests that the main currents working for justice in the world today owe their power to the religion begun by a Jewish rabbi two thousand years ago.

Few today, including devout Christians, would claim a sinless Christianity. Yet the very people, Holland suggests, who malign it may themselves be carriers of the lessons of its founder.

Movements improving the lot of humankind have mostly occurred after Christianity began, and they often were begun by Christians. They include movements against slavery and for improving the status of women and children. They include the building of hospitals and measures to improve the lot of the poor.

Those who call out the sins of some calling themselves Christians—bigotry, support of slavery, and male dominance, to name a few—build on the lessons Jesus taught, also against the sins of religious leaders.

The gospel writer Luke records an incident of someone working in Jesus’ name who didn’t follow with the disciples: “‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.’” (Luke 9:49-50)

T.S. Eliot wrote in The Rock: “Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.
And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored.”

A Rekindling of Hope?

“. . . new coalitions are gradually forming, across many different kinds of Christians . . . who are rethinking old convictions, who are meeting, and mobilizing in the hopes of renewing the evangelical presence in America.”

So wrote David Brooks in an opinion piece for The New York Times, February 4, 2022: “The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism From Itself.”

Some would say that the nadir of American evangelicalism was on display in the support of Donald Trump for president by about eighty percent of American evangelicals in 2016. As Brooks pointed out, however, the election only displayed results of years of challenges faced by evangelicals. (Lately, some have questioned how many self-defining “evangelicals” actually are active church members.)

Brooks’ column reported on those evangelical leaders and lay people who are, in fact, appalled by the political decisions of evangelicals in 2020. It spotlighted efforts in opposite directions. “There are now many, many people who refused to be silent about abuses of power.”

This readjustment has resulted in denominational differences becoming less important. “These kinds of new connections constitute an important form of social capital that may turn out to be very powerful in the year ahead.”

American evangelicalism may owe any change in direction in some measure to its changing makeup—more “Korean, African and Hispanic” members, for example.

News stories are full of the decline of American Christianity. Stories of young people leaving the faith of their parents are legion.

But the history of two millennia of Christianity is full of dark nadirs when many calling themselves Christians failed to live up to the teachings of their founder. Yet, renewal always followed, sometimes arriving from the backwaters of civilization.

Perhaps the next renewal of Christianity may come from some combination of non-Western Christianity joining with a remnant of American evangelicals.

U.S. and Russia: déjà vu?

In 1946, George F. Kennan, a U.S. diplomat stationed at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, examined U.S./Russian relations in what is famously known as “the long telegram.”

The telegram, sent from the embassy to the U.S. State Department in Washington, outlined directions that greatly influenced our relations with the Soviet Union for the rest of the Cold War.

Kennan summarized Soviet ideology as based on its belief that capitalism is evil and will eventually be overcome by the triumph of the working class. However, the early Russian communists had to first overthrow the Tsarist regime. Since the majority of people in the first communist country, Russia, were not inclined to this “necessary overthrow,” a dictatorship had to be established to bring it about.

Indeed, any opposition to this firm belief in communism had to be fought, including any opposition in the rest of the world, including the United States. Soviet ideology must stress the menace of capitalism.

“It must invariably be assumed in Moscow that the aims of the capitalist world are antagonistic to the Soviet regime . . .” Kennan wrote.

Basically, the Soviets saw communist ideology as absolute truth. If democratic ideas inhibit the growth of this ideology, then democratic ideas must be destroyed.

However, whether the Soviet system would triumph would depend on the success of the different model chosen by the United States. “The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.”

The overthrow of Soviet rule by Soviet satellite states in the 1990’s obviously was a blow to the communist ideology outlined by Kennan. However, the cheering crowds in Germany and other places should not obscure the fact that dedicated communists like Vladimir Putin remained as dedicated to the communist ideology as ever. They bided their time and are now working their way back into power in Russia and other former Soviet states.

This is the background against which Putin operates today. A Soviet operator in the former East Germany, Putin saw the Communist regime in east Germany topple. His world suffered ignominious defeat.

With this background, we can see the challenge posed by a Ukraine desirous of democracy, including connections with democratic nations of Europe.

Yet the stakes are bigger even than Ukraine or a few former Communist bloc countries. The communism of Vladimir Putin is patient. It believes capitalism will eventually implode, overcome by capitalist selfishness.

Perhaps we should understand the importance of the choices we are making regarding the kind of capitalism we choose. That which plays into Putin’s hands, in which the rich get richer and the rest pay more of the country’s taxes? Or a more responsible kind which, among other choices, takes care of its children and vulnerable citizens and is upheld by a fair system of taxation?

Repeat a Lie Often Enough

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” is a saying often attributed to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Regardless of who first said it, the concept is a well-used strategy of those seeking power with little regard for truth.

Some practice it with respect to the U.S. 2020 election. Numerous cases have been brought before U.S. courts in an attempt to cast doubt on Joe Biden’s election victory. All have found Biden the legitimate winner over Trump.

Nevertheless, the falsehood continues to spread.

A sister lie also making the rounds is that the attempt to defeat the electoral count on January 6 was merely a demonstration of concerned Americans. That was not the case when huddled legislators hid in terror and those “concerned Americans” shouted for blood in the hallways of Congress.

Our system of government is not a pure democracy, of course. We have leftovers from the founding fathers, some of whom weren’t all that sure about allowing ordinary men (women were denied the vote) to have true power. Nevertheless, most Americans today probably think they believe in rule of the majority.

This expressed belief is threatened in times of great change, when what has been the majority view becomes the minority view. The test comes then: do we really believe in rule of the people when many of the people don’t believe as we do?

Easier, perhaps, to shout “fraud.” Easier to lie and spread falsehoods about stolen votes. After all, we must appear to believe in democracy. Thus, we must lie about stolen votes. The only way we can appear to believe in rule by the people is to lie about how the people voted.

I don’t think the founding fathers saw this one coming.

Perfect in Weakness

Plough magazine devoted an issue (“Made Perfect; Ability and Disability,” Winter 2022) to those with special challenges: physically and mentally, as well as one person suffering from a mysterious, intractable illness. The articles remind us of Christ made flesh, experiencing human suffering as we do. He knew the shortness of life, the little time left to accomplish whatever we are here to do.

In his long struggle with what turned out to be Lyme Disease, Ross Douthat talked of faith surviving (“Hide and Seek with Providence”). “To believe that your suffering is for something, that you are being asked to bear up under it, that you are being in some sense supervised and tested and possibly chastised in a way that’s ultimately for good. . . . God brought you to it. He can bring you through it . . ..”

The articles are a blessing at any time, but especially as the Covid pandemic is reminding us of our vulnerability.

I don’t think we are being asked to overcome Covid just so we can buy more stuff. What we’ve lacked most in the recent past, I think, is community. If we have any ability to learn from our long Covid night, surely it’s the need to grow our communities.

We are all vulnerable, handicapped in some degree or another. We are all in need of family, neighborhood, and spiritual communities. When our acquisitiveness runs rampant, as seems often to be the case in these latter years, the pandemic can be a reminder of our more basic needs

Pandemic? When Is the End ‘in sight’?

I loved the cover of The Week magazine on March 26, 2021. On the cover, Uncle Sam had discarded his face masks as he gazed out the window at springtime’s arrival. His solemnity was overcome by a posture of dared hope. The title was: “The end is in sight.”

Businesses might again hold face to face meetings, we thought. School children might return to classrooms. Houses of worship might reopen.

Then the pace of vaccines faltered. About the same time, a new strain of Covid arrived.

Just as we had planned, finally, a return to normal holiday celebrations of families and friends, the virus numbers reversed and crept upward. The new strain of the virus spread. We heard more about “break-through” cases affecting even the vaccinated.

We returned to Zoom. Normal social gatherings were replaced by carry out meals. (Though some workers were unwilling to risk more exposure to the virus and undertake the necessary service jobs.)

What is our path out of this second invasion?

Though Covid sometimes breaks through and infects vaccinated individuals, the vaccinated (especially including those with booster shots) appear, on the whole, to be less seriously ill than the unvaccinated. Vaccination is more important than ever before.

Another lesson is the sharing of vaccines. As some predicted, the new strain of Covid broke through in a country with less access to them. We don’t stop after vaccinating our own citizens but push harder for sufficient vaccines for every country.

Past history indicates our ability to overcome infectious diseases, even in undeveloped countries. In the past, diseases like smallpox ravaged societies. Today, because of worldwide inoculation campaigns, small pox has been eradicated.

We have reason to hope for development of better vaccines against Covid, even while the current ones decrease Covid’s strength. As newer vaccines are found, developed countries must share them worldwide.

By practicing common sense and sharing, we can one day have that delayed celebration we looked forward to in spring 2021.

All Politics Is Local

Grace Olmstead left her community in small-town Idaho for a job elsewhere, as did many, perhaps most, of her school mates. She now lives with her husband and family in Virginia. Her book (Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind) is a very personal study of the movement, of which she is a part, that so threatens the farms and small town communities of rural America.

From her childhood, she remembers small farms growing a variety of fruits and vegetables, surrounded by supporting small towns. Today, many of those towns have emptied out or become suburbs. Farms are larger and grow more monocultural crops. Monoculture is the sowing of one homogeneous crop instead of a healthy mixture of crops and orchards and tillage.

I sympathized with her writing. I grew up in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. My father and my mother’s father were part of the movement from the rural Southeast that left similarly challenged small towns and rural areas in that part of the United States.

One of my aunts owned a farm in middle Tennessee. She sold mineral rights to a phosphate company. I’m not sure how much she knew about business dealings. At any rate, the company mined the phosphate, but did not restore her land.

Olmstead interviewed many families in her hometown and elsewhere, attempting to understand what is at stake if America becomes a land of faceless suburbs and monocultural farming.

Her conclusions have to do with community. Toward the end of her book, she realizes that lack of community is one reason the farmers and small towns were unable to band together to protect their interests.

Even her own kin, she finally realizes, were not willing to exchange independence for community. Because of their unwillingness to stand together against vested interests of large agribusinesses, they eventually lost the battle.

The result, she writes, is that “for all of its libertarian claims of freedom and autonomy, Idaho and its resources are often chained to the whims and demands of vast economic interests and powers.”

Even governmental help in the form of economic handouts, she says, “emphasizes individual farming families without looking at their larger context and communities.”

In these days, when a pandemic has driven us even more into our own private enclaves, we might profit by taking a look into our devastating lack of community.

Different Rules for Outside the Box

A religious group once intended to trap their nemesis, the Jewish teacher Jesus. This particular group disagreed with another religious group over resurrection of the human body, taking the stance that resurrection violated what we “know.” As indeed it does, if one looks merely at what we know in a physical sense.

They purported to prove that Jesus’ belief in resurrection was untenable according to the laws of this world. If a woman is married, then is widowed, then is remarried and widowed six more times, with no children, whose wife is she in the resurrection? That question, they thought, should settle the idea of any resurrection.

Jesus replied that the inhabitants of heaven don’t marry. Marriage, so important in this life, isn’t a part of the heavenly kingdom. His questioners judged the future by present rules, but they left out the possibility that the future may operate by different rules. They left out the power of God to set up different rules for another time and place.

As science has increased our knowledge of this physical universe, we know things our ancestors didn’t: that the earth is round, not flat; that tomatoes are not poisonous; that bleeding the body during illness does not cure, but causes harm; and so on.

We live in a closed universe with set rules. We suppose that is all there is. From our little box, we presume things about what is outside the box. We judge the outside of the box by what we know of the inside of the box.

We are giants in the physical realm but pygmies in the spiritual.

 

Christmas: Jeddah Saudi Arabia 1990

Other than a few hours in Mexico and a few days in Canada, I lived my entire life in the United States until December 1990.

Exactly one year before that date, I was happily living in north Georgia, working as a historic preservation planner. Then in the spring, I received a telephone call from the U.S. State Department. A position was available in a State Department’s orientation class for the U.S. Foreign Service. I had applied a couple of years before, but lawsuits within the State Department over hiring practices had put most applications on hold. I had gone on to other interests. Now hiring was beginning again.

After thinking it over a few days, I accepted and spent several months in primary training in Washington, D.C.  Then, in August, 1990, as I went into the second phase of my training, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein conquered the country of Kuwait and threatened the nearby oils fields of Saudi Arabia.

I completed my training in December as the United States considered sending troops to protect Saudi Arabia, our oil ally, and I began the journey to my first foreign assignment. I found myself wheels down in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, just as the Christmas season began back home.

I was jet lagged, had picked up the wrong luggage while exchanging planes in Riyadh, and was soon to come down with a throat infection. Nevertheless, I immediately became part of U.S. consulate Jeddah’s team. What can I say? It was physically taxing but the most marvelously exciting time of my life.

I found friends in neighborly get-to-gathers and home church services. I was tossed into adjudicating visas of those wishing to go to the U.S., my official job, but the buildup to the war effort for what would be the first Gulf war thrust me into other positions.

The consulate organized a 24-hour control center in a nearby major hotel. I worked night shifts and performed other duties, including laying out briefing materials for news people arriving from major U.S. networks. I watched senior U.S. officials welcomed in the hotel lobby.

We, the working stiffs, established rapport known only to those joining together in crisis conditions.

Unfortunately, peace efforts failed, and war would come, though quickly over as Saddam was pushed back into Iraq. Eventually, a whole new age would begin, known as the post Soviet era, with its own difficulties and shortcomings.

Nevertheless, that Christmas, thrust into instant dependence and friendship with people I had never known before, remains possibly the best Christmas I have ever had.