Earlier this month two friends of mine who have been together for 35 years married each other. They have been together longer than any of my friends who are married. They identify as atheists and anarchists. Therefore they saw no reason to be spiritually or legally joined. But as retirement came into view, and one person went over the handlebars of a bicycle and wound up unconscious in the hospital, the idea of being able to share one's social security post death with one's life long partner loomed larger.
When they went to look at the vows that the justice of the peace would have them say they were distressed by certain verses which felt to them religious in nature. But primarily they were distressed by the fact that the Judge would marry them to each other. They both felt that they were marrying each other - that this is not something that another person could do "to" them. Having known me all their adult lives and having attended my wedding they were both very aware that Quakers are married neither by a Judge or a minister which is what they wanted. They began a dialogue with the CA Secretary of State about the fact that due to separation of state and church that the vows language could not be legal, nor could the requirement of either a Judge or minister to marry two people. They pointed to the example of Quakers that the law did allow for an exception to those requirements, but that the exception could not fairly be applied to only one religion. The Secretary's office wound up agreeing that this probably was not constitutional. They were issued a license to get married and were allowed to marry each other in their living room with two witnesses.
Most Quakers I know will proudly say that nothing compares to a Quaker wedding. I have to agree because their is something so beautiful and so democratic about any family or friend being able to speak of love, relationship, marriage, community and good wishes at a Quaker wedding. There is something so deeply right about the couple rising out of the silence to face each other and to say in vows that have not changed over 300 years "I take thee". What a joy to have a document hanging in one's home with the signatures of all the loved one who joined and witnessed your wedding!
But most Quakers do not know the actual history of Quaker weddings. Since Quakers did not have ministers in made complete sense that a wedding would take place inside of a Meeting for Worship and that the intention to marry, already tested and confirmed by a clearness committee was a public witnessing/honoring by the congregation of a connection that was believed already forged by God. Thus Quakers believe a wedding is an acknowledgement of a partnership God has already created. George Fox said: "For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests' or the magistrates'; for it is God's ordinance and not man's; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together: for we marry none; it is the Lord's work, and we are but witnesses" Therefore, when the laws of the society said that one had to marry before a preacher or a judge, Quakers saw no need to change their process to comply with marital laws. They were already use to going to jail for simply gathering to worship and used to being punished by the state for being faithful to their understanding of God. They were willing, as in all things, to stand with the Truth as they knew it.
Thus Quakers would marry each other and go on with their lives, unconcerned with whether this was regarded to be legal by the cities they lived in. But in the small towns and villages dotted across the US that they lived in, they were good neighbors and respected business people whose integrity and sincerity was well known to their fellow citizens. It did not sit well with their neighbors to consider them "living in sin". So not through their asking, many states passed "the Quaker exception" where instead of requiring them to be married by a minister, it was recognized that a ceremony witnessed by their congregation would be considered legally binding. Also many states developed legal precedents of "common law marriage", for any two people who for whatever reason lived together for more than 7 years were considered to be for legal purposes married. However, in the past decades common law marriages were swept away and domestic partnerships became a legal mechanism that allowed Gay and Lesbian couples, other wise unable to marry to share some of the legal advantages of marriage. In many states if Quakers want to be legally married they still have to go down to the court house and have their marriage officiated there.
My friends recent experience has caused me to reflect and to realize that Quaker Marriage is a case of what Gene Sharp, tactical non-violence expert, calls passive non-compliance. Where the failure of large numbers of people to comply with a law forces the law to change or become uninforceable. This is one of the many ways Quakers radically changed the society around them. The radical thing was that notion that we marry each other, that we are not married through some other authority figure. The original radical thing about George Fox's message was that we needed no inter-mediator between ourselves and God - that we could know God directly. And the radical thing about Quaker marriage is that it also says that we can know directly, discover inwardly God's intention for our lives and that we can live in the authority of that alone.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Monday, September 5, 2016
Discernment...A Quaker Gift for the World
Modern Quakers tend to see clearness committees as for
membership and for marriage. And I have
heard some Quakers complain that convinced Friends may see this as more of a
rubber stamp function because “of course we want this person to join our
Meeting or to get married.” In a life
time of Quakerism I’ve only twice known a clearness committee for marriage to
find a couple “not clear” to be married.
In both cases the couple did wind up breaking up, so presumably the
clearness committee discerned correctly that the proposed marriage was not
rightly ordered. Done right the
clearness committee can ask questions that prompt a deep and meaningful
self-reflection.
I would like to argue here that the tool of discernment is
one of the greatest gifts Quakerism has to offer the world and should be
applied more widely. So for example here
are some of the other uses of a clearness committee I have known people to use
a clearness committee for: whether to take a job (especially one that involves
moving away or maybe is ethically challenging.), whether to enter a certain
profession or change professions, whether one is called to commit holy
obedience, or whether one has a leading to work for a social justice
cause. One may also discern whether to
leave a marriage, whether to sue someone, whether to “come out”, whether to
have a baby and even whether it is time to die!
As you can see the sky is the limit, and think how rich it is to have
others to help discern God’s will about such serious and life changing
decisions.
Early Friends had Committees of Elders to support members
who had been found to be carrying an ongoing ministry. Their purpose was to make sure they stayed
faithful and grounded in their ministry – did not go up in their ego and
“outrun their leading.” Now a days we
call these anchor committees. Some
people call them support committees but I’m afraid that secularizes the process
and sees it as just “emotional support” – and overlooks the primarily spiritual
task of anchoring the person in spirit.
Rightly ordered a clearness committee is not a body to “just
listen” or to give advice. It is to
listen in a worshipful way – for each member to try to notice if the person is
rightly ordered, to ask questions to try to help clarify, and to reflect what
each member understands in the spirit.
Quite profound.
I have an anchor committee now for over 6 months which is
helping me discern the right steps for my ministry regarding climate
change. Recently I was at FGC leading a
workshop on Quaker practice – I was having to talk about and explain Quaker
practice. Somehow something came
together in my head and I realized that many of the non-Quaker activists I knew
(some spiritual, some not) were struggling to discern correct steps and some
were struggling because they have not discerned and are in the chaos of being
pulled hither and yon and everywhere with their concerns for our troubled
world. They do not have Thomas Kelly’s
wise words:
"I
dare note urge you to your Cross. But God, more powerfully, speaks within
you and me, to our truest selves, in our truest moments, and disquiets us with
the world's needs. By inner persuasions God draws us to a few very
definite tasks,our tasks, God's burdened heart particularizes His burdens
in us....
In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again. The times are too tragic, God's sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience. It maybe or it may not mean change in geography, in profession, in wealth, in earthly security." (Amazingly he was writing this during WWII because it is a timely now as it was then.) He goes on to say:
" Little groups of such utterly dedicated souls, knowing one another in Divine Fellowship, must take an irrevocable vow to live in this world yet not of this world, kindle again the embers of faith in the midst of a secular world. Our churches were meant to be such groups, but now too many of them are dulled and cooled and flooded by the secular.".
In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again. The times are too tragic, God's sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience. It maybe or it may not mean change in geography, in profession, in wealth, in earthly security." (Amazingly he was writing this during WWII because it is a timely now as it was then.) He goes on to say:
" Little groups of such utterly dedicated souls, knowing one another in Divine Fellowship, must take an irrevocable vow to live in this world yet not of this world, kindle again the embers of faith in the midst of a secular world. Our churches were meant to be such groups, but now too many of them are dulled and cooled and flooded by the secular.".
So I started explaining just a bit to my activist friends
and asking them if they would appreciate some help with discernment. They were quite interested in the idea and I
started having one on one meetings with people and simply asking the question “what
are you most passionate about in the work against climate change?” I listened and asked more questions to help
them explore. What emerged was a
wonderful flurry of creative and spirit led activism. My next move would be to teach a clearness
committee structure so they don’t have to be dependent upon me for this. I thus highly recommend that Quakers start
learning how to take the discernment process out into the world.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
BLM and Quakers
Last week was a bad week. Two Black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were murdered by police officers and then an ex-Veteran with mental health issues shot 12 police officers in TX killing 5, and then was killed by an armed drone. I was at FGC 90 minutes north of St. Paul where one of the murders took place. Already scheduled before any of this took place, was FGC's plenary speaker: Nekima Levy-Pound, an African American attorney who is one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter in MN. She in fact came from two days of protesting in front of the MN Governor's mansion to speak to us.
Nekima spoke very powerfully from her heart about her families journey with racism, her own path to becoming an activist and her faith journey. While her religious language is slightly different from that of Friends she very clearly described being called by God, over and over again being stretched, being asked to find courage and take risks and stepping forward and being faithful, and being protected. At the end of her talk someone announced that another person had been shot by the police (this turned out not to be true.) But concerned about that, I went back to my room and did a media search in order to try to find out.
I wound up instead doing something I never do (for people of any race): watching the videos that were posted of the two murders. I call them murders because when you watch them you quickly become very clearly that these were not people resisting arrest, they are people being killed in cold blood, for being Black and in the wrong place. After I watched these I wound up watching a press conference by President Obama right after we landed in Warsaw Poland, responding to the news of the second shooting. (This was before the shooting of police officers in TX.)
His press conference began with very polished prepared remarks which included the statistics about the number of black people stopped by cops 30% more likely than whites, 3x more likely to be searched, the number of arrests 2x higher for Blacks vs Whites, the number of black people prosecuted and convicted, etc. But a short while into his talk I listened to our normally very articulate President start to speak ex-temporarily and to travel in circles. He was doing this in the way people do when they are trying to find words to express a certain concept, but cannot quite find the right words. What he is struggling with is both expressing the tragedy of these Black deaths and also wanting to hold up that all Police are not bad and do a hard job on behalf of the community. He struggles because our society is literally thinking so black and white about this subject that people are just choosing up sides and picking who is good and bad. He is trying carefully to not take sides or be accused of taking sides. But he struggles with how to communicate the idea that we are all connected and that there is suffering on both sides.
Then I wound up watching a video by an African American police officer , Nakia Jones,(the only Black woman on the force she serves in Ohio). The media has reported this as a "very emotional response". Nakia starts out very calm but does become more emotional in her tone of voice and tearful, but she is also in Quaker terms eldering her fellow police officers. She speaks directly to white officers and tells them, "we have all taken an oath to serve our communities, to die if necessary to protect them. I take that seriously, if you are racist and you are serving in a community of color take off your uniform or transfer." Nakia's offering is very courageous as she will face those same officers in her work place. There have been false rumors that she was fired, but the Mayor's office confirmed there have been KKK threats since she spoke out.
Prior to all this I have felt that as Quakers, as a primarily white church, that we did not appropriately have something to say about Black Lives Matter. That it is not white people's place to speak to either what Black people's experience is or what actions they are lead to take. That much of our attempts to help, while well meaning, reflects an ignorance of the actually history of racism in this country or the experience of Black people. However, the day after hearing all these messages from Black people about present day racism, I found myself in Meeting for Worship reflecting upon the fact that during the abolition movement Quaker's first moved to get unity in the Society of Friends that the owning of slavery was wrong and to labor with Quaker slave holders to get them to give up owning slaves. The position taken was that slavery was morally wrong both for the slave and for the owner. That it was morally corrupting to own a slave.
It occurs to me that we, Quakers do have something to say to white officers about the racism that can consciously or unconscionably drive them to acts of violence around people of color. I believe that anyone wearing a blue uniform in this country should have to go through a week long training on racism (sexism) and oppression theory. But also as our national dialogue becomes literally black and white in its exploration of these events I think that the Quaker notion that there is that of God in all people is an important offering to the national dialogue. I do not mean that to be an "all lives matter" statement that inadvertently dismisses the important effort to elevate out of obscurity and indifference the routine killing of black people. I mean it to be a statement that confronts racism as a disease that is ripping our country apart and asks us to remember that the disease is destructive on both sides and that the way out of the killing and hurting is for us to join hands in confronting the mindset of racism as one that is an acid that burns everything it touches.
Nekima spoke very powerfully from her heart about her families journey with racism, her own path to becoming an activist and her faith journey. While her religious language is slightly different from that of Friends she very clearly described being called by God, over and over again being stretched, being asked to find courage and take risks and stepping forward and being faithful, and being protected. At the end of her talk someone announced that another person had been shot by the police (this turned out not to be true.) But concerned about that, I went back to my room and did a media search in order to try to find out.
I wound up instead doing something I never do (for people of any race): watching the videos that were posted of the two murders. I call them murders because when you watch them you quickly become very clearly that these were not people resisting arrest, they are people being killed in cold blood, for being Black and in the wrong place. After I watched these I wound up watching a press conference by President Obama right after we landed in Warsaw Poland, responding to the news of the second shooting. (This was before the shooting of police officers in TX.)
His press conference began with very polished prepared remarks which included the statistics about the number of black people stopped by cops 30% more likely than whites, 3x more likely to be searched, the number of arrests 2x higher for Blacks vs Whites, the number of black people prosecuted and convicted, etc. But a short while into his talk I listened to our normally very articulate President start to speak ex-temporarily and to travel in circles. He was doing this in the way people do when they are trying to find words to express a certain concept, but cannot quite find the right words. What he is struggling with is both expressing the tragedy of these Black deaths and also wanting to hold up that all Police are not bad and do a hard job on behalf of the community. He struggles because our society is literally thinking so black and white about this subject that people are just choosing up sides and picking who is good and bad. He is trying carefully to not take sides or be accused of taking sides. But he struggles with how to communicate the idea that we are all connected and that there is suffering on both sides.
Then I wound up watching a video by an African American police officer , Nakia Jones,(the only Black woman on the force she serves in Ohio). The media has reported this as a "very emotional response". Nakia starts out very calm but does become more emotional in her tone of voice and tearful, but she is also in Quaker terms eldering her fellow police officers. She speaks directly to white officers and tells them, "we have all taken an oath to serve our communities, to die if necessary to protect them. I take that seriously, if you are racist and you are serving in a community of color take off your uniform or transfer." Nakia's offering is very courageous as she will face those same officers in her work place. There have been false rumors that she was fired, but the Mayor's office confirmed there have been KKK threats since she spoke out.
Prior to all this I have felt that as Quakers, as a primarily white church, that we did not appropriately have something to say about Black Lives Matter. That it is not white people's place to speak to either what Black people's experience is or what actions they are lead to take. That much of our attempts to help, while well meaning, reflects an ignorance of the actually history of racism in this country or the experience of Black people. However, the day after hearing all these messages from Black people about present day racism, I found myself in Meeting for Worship reflecting upon the fact that during the abolition movement Quaker's first moved to get unity in the Society of Friends that the owning of slavery was wrong and to labor with Quaker slave holders to get them to give up owning slaves. The position taken was that slavery was morally wrong both for the slave and for the owner. That it was morally corrupting to own a slave.
It occurs to me that we, Quakers do have something to say to white officers about the racism that can consciously or unconscionably drive them to acts of violence around people of color. I believe that anyone wearing a blue uniform in this country should have to go through a week long training on racism (sexism) and oppression theory. But also as our national dialogue becomes literally black and white in its exploration of these events I think that the Quaker notion that there is that of God in all people is an important offering to the national dialogue. I do not mean that to be an "all lives matter" statement that inadvertently dismisses the important effort to elevate out of obscurity and indifference the routine killing of black people. I mean it to be a statement that confronts racism as a disease that is ripping our country apart and asks us to remember that the disease is destructive on both sides and that the way out of the killing and hurting is for us to join hands in confronting the mindset of racism as one that is an acid that burns everything it touches.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Spiritual Perspective
Just like in photography we can zoom in and have one perspective on something or we can zoom way out and with a little more distance see it as just part of a larger landscape. I am finding that this is
possible with spiritual perspective as well. Sometimes when we focus in closely on events that are happening in the world we are overcome by the sadness, the suffering, the cruelty, etc. But when I can step back into what I have previously described as the "River of God"... a perspective where I see at a distance the bustle of humanity, the cycle of birth, life and death...the multitude of human dramas: car accidents,falling in love, illness, small acts of kindness,evil bosses, parties, marital issues, bonuses, children squabbling, breathtaking beauty, jealousy and competition, art and creation, etc, etc. When I can see it all swirling in one unending drama that has gone on in slightly different forms and completely unchanged forms from the beginning of human history...I am able to see that even intense suffering, in this minute or da, will pass away again. I am able to see that even horrific
historic events occurring during this year in our society will also resolve Photos by Fay Anderson
(for better or worse and the
next series of events will arise and also pass away.) Even when I feel that climate change potentially carries in it the end of society as we know it, I am able to notice that the Black Plague and the nuclear arms race also felt that way...that we are not the first people to think they faced end times. This allows me to come to a place that Buddhist teachers talk about as "this too". It is a sort of seeing the suffering with an open heart, a heart of compassion. None of this invalidates or makes insignificant that which the close up view can show me, but it allows me to step back, to not be totally caught in that event, or that pain.
Please understand that I cannot always do this. There are times I am full of adrenaline or righteous indignation, or personal hurt and I am right in that close up shot and full of emotion. This is a relatively new spiritual development that is not always there. But I have had a glance of i,t and when I can do it I feel that I have entered the "peace that passes understanding."
This is also not to imply that from this farther out perspective one is able to just say: "Oh well". There is a beautiful passage in the bible where Jesus is looking down on Bethlehem from a hill and he sees the condition of mankind, and in the shortest sentence in the Bible it says of God incarnate: "Jesus wept." So there is a feeling of both love and compassion. Even God who has given us free will, is not completely in charge of what happens, but does care about it all.
Amidst all that human drama I described above there is still the possibility at every moment to use the evolving events for spiritual growth, and always the possibility to reach out to God and learn what God has for us to learn, to grow into a more profound relationship with God, and that is an even more profound spiritual shift!
historic events occurring during this year in our society will also resolve Photos by Fay Anderson
(for better or worse and the
Please understand that I cannot always do this. There are times I am full of adrenaline or righteous indignation, or personal hurt and I am right in that close up shot and full of emotion. This is a relatively new spiritual development that is not always there. But I have had a glance of i,t and when I can do it I feel that I have entered the "peace that passes understanding."
This is also not to imply that from this farther out perspective one is able to just say: "Oh well". There is a beautiful passage in the bible where Jesus is looking down on Bethlehem from a hill and he sees the condition of mankind, and in the shortest sentence in the Bible it says of God incarnate: "Jesus wept." So there is a feeling of both love and compassion. Even God who has given us free will, is not completely in charge of what happens, but does care about it all.
Amidst all that human drama I described above there is still the possibility at every moment to use the evolving events for spiritual growth, and always the possibility to reach out to God and learn what God has for us to learn, to grow into a more profound relationship with God, and that is an even more profound spiritual shift!
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Dancing with Trees
Do you have a tree you know personally?
I remember in grade school being taken on some sort of
nature walk with my class where we were out in the woods. The leader pointed to various trees and told
us stories about them as if they were people:
“This one is an old granny who thinks…
This one is a young and willful child who wants to trip people by
sticking out its root, etc.” The she
encouraged us to go up and down the path and find a tree that we understood its
story. For the next hour we took each
other to various trees and told their stories.
As an adult many of the photos I have taken are of unique
trees whose stories I feel. Here are
some examples:
These two trees became lovers young and grew up together and their lives are wound together and infact imbedded in each other. When one dies the other will as well – they
cannot live without each other.
This tree could not withstand the wind storm and
finally let go of its hold on life, but it was caught in the arms of this younger
tree who holds its mourning, apparently forever.
This tree was touched by human love
This ancestor's life nourishes the next generation.
This off spring is a little "non-traditional".
This tree took what humanity threw at it and worked with
it…undaunted.
My Meeting sits at the top of hill with a road that spirals up to the top through a grove of second growth, old growth – we look out the
picture window at the beauty and grander of these trees. Once, during a windstorm, if memory serves me
right during Meeting for worship, one of the bigger trees came down…with a
rather loud thud. Someone gave ministry
wondering what the other trees thought about this. I have recently learned about mycelium, the
white fibers that come off of roots.
Apparently science is learning that plants and trees communicate in some
sort of way with each other through the mycelial path. So in fact perhaps the trees did mourn for
their elder who had died.
Shortly thereafter one of the founding members of our
Meeting died. At the memorial someone
recalled the big tree that come down and the ministry that had been given
suggesting that the other trees were effected.
They likened this elder of the Meeting’s death to the loss the trees has
suffered, changing the whole landscape. At the time I felt concerned
both that there are not enough young Quakers and that it seemed to me that we
only had big old trees, no little trees.
Then I walked through the woods and discovered hundreds of little
seedlings and was able to notice other 10 year saplings not that tall obscured
by the bigger trees. I realized “oh yes
the big ones take up all the attention but the little ones are there quietly
growing.” I was reassured.
The trees of my Meeting
The first response of our group was to feel like “we had to”, for the practical reason of not getting a water leak. But when I gently prodded us to examine this some more – was there no other way? Were the pipes really at risk or just a “bigger and better” mentality, was there a different path that would effect less trees, etc. We began to slow down and ask more questions of the city. It became clear the city planner who made the plan had never left his office, had just made the plan from a map – did not even know about these woods. Our member on the street got an arborist to come out. He told her among other things that it was thousands of dollars worth of trees and would detrimentally affect the woods. He gave her a little courage to fight and when the Meeting learned she was going to, we said we would stand in unity with her. So she and the clerk asked the city to come up with some other plan. They then came up with the plan of boring through the ground to get the pipe in which will not kill the trees! (which I suspect will be equal or less than the cost of all that logging.) So the sillium of the woods are communicating their relief to each other.
I wish this were the end of the story, but it is not. At the bottom of our spiral drive is a lot
that a woman who was mentally ill lived in till the end of her life. She did not care for her home, nor pay her
taxes. So the house needs to be torn
down and the city seized it for back taxes last year. We knew it would be sold and just hoped a
developer would not buy it. Around the
time we thought to tell the real estate agent that we would oppose any development
that took the trees on the property down…it was too late. It was sold. Nothing has happened for quite a while, and
it was possible to forget about this. I
had imagined they would leave all the perimeter trees and take down the center
of the plot ones to build. But the
member of our Meeting who lives on the street announced last Sunday that she
had heard they were coming to cut them down…all of them. I’m scared that the loss of about 1/6 of the
entire woods will be such a shock to the surviving trees as to weaken and
damage this whole interwoven forest eco-system.
over 3 centuries ago a philosopher named Descartes made
treaties which much of western civilization was built upon, that said things like
body and mind were separate, and earth and “man” were separate. We are now facing a crisis so severe, climate
change, that it threatens all life on the planet. We arrived at this severe place out of just
this Descartian error of viewing nature as separate from us: as something to
use, to take advantage of, of something we had dominion over, or control
over. We failed to see ourselves as
part of it or to understand that what we did to the earth we did to the host
body of which we were one cell, one life form within a larger life form. Regarding trees we have seen them as lumber
(an object to use), scenery (something outside ourselves to view), or an
obstruction to somewhere we were trying to get or to build and thus something
to cut down/remove. We have not seen
them as part of our ecosystem, or as carbon sink protecting our air, or as living
forms. We most certainly have not seen
them as personalities like my nature guide did.
This weekend at Quarterly Friends Meeting we were invited in
query to ask what if all life (not just humans) had a Light within? For myself I know it would mean I could not
just cut down a tree to suit my own purposes.
I have never understood people who chained themselves to trees and
risked arrest to protect them, but I am starting to understand them. But more profoundly I would have to learn to
think about myself as part of network of life with reciprocal life
relationships.
Friday, March 25, 2016
US party realignment
What? Politics? This usually spiritual blog is about US presidential politics? Well, yes. True confessions: your author was a poli sci major in college. Quaker's are people who are deeply concerned about social concerns and social justice. Who is elected president greatly effects us, and I have something to say about this that I have not seen any pundits saying. (Amazing since they drone on endlessly about the elections, but usually saying little of actual substance or usefulness.)
The main thing I want to say is the reason this primary season has been so utterly bizarre is because the US is attempting to have a party realignment. This has happened many times in our history, at least 5 times probably 6...usually about every 32 to 36 years. So for example from 1792 -1824 we had two parties, neither of which exist now: the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans (what a party with the name of both current parties?) The Federalist party came to be viewed as to elitist and died. But at the time it did the Democratic- Republican party split into two new parties for the next 31 years: the Whig party and the Jacksonian Democrats.
It was the lead up to the Civil War and then the war itself that cause the next realignment. The Whig parties leadership died out because they had splits between them. (sound at all familiar Republicans?) The Republican party was born out of the ashes of the Whig party and the first ever Republican president was Lincoln. His legacy gave the party a lot of respect and legitimacy long after his death. At the same time the Jacksonian Democrats morphed into just the Democratic Party for a 36 year period of the third party alignment. Notice this is the 3rd set of two parties. Now if you go just by names there have only been 3 realignments. But most historians agree there have been a total of five or six realignments. And you can tell that is true because if you think about how Lincoln conducted himself - if he came back now and had to pick a party....he would be a Democrat. (For one thing the Republican strong hold is the South which would not have been friendly to his anti-slavery policies.)
So coming out of the reconstruction period, starting in 1896 was the next (4th) party realignment. At this point in history the Republican strong hold was the North , some farm states and the NE (notice that is what the Democrats currently hold.) This 4th alignment saw the rise of Labor who went to the Democratic party. The Republican's heavily blamed the Democrats for the bank panics of 1893. Teddy Roosevelt was the very popular populist Republican President. He was a Trust breaker and a conservationist - not positions we would not associate with Republicans. But he became very upset by the policies of his former Vice-President, now elected President Taft. He ran against him for the next election and when he lost in the primary, he ran as a third party candidate for the Bull Moose party (This will be like when Trump looses the brokered convention and then forms a third party which will be called the Trump party. Bull Moose was an already existing nickname for Roosevelt.) His running against Taft split the Republican party and the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson was elected as the first Democrat since Lincoln in 50 years (other than a split two terms of Grover Cleveland). Wilson was also helped by the fact that the Democratic party had solidified its hold on the south by disenfranchising most Black voters (tactics now familiar to us from the Republican party.)
When later FDR ran as a Democrat there was consternation on Teddy's Republican side of the family,but the truth was both Roosevelt's were tough against monopolies and graft and corruption and saw themselves as champions of the "little guy". In fact Teddy was more progressive than the Republican party he has served as president for and his splitting of the party shifted more liberal members of the party to a Democratic party that elected Woodrow Wilson for 8 years. Wilson's poor settlement of WWI ensured Republican victories until FDR was elected as a response to the Republicans disastrous handling of the economy resulting in the great depression. Thus this fourth realignment shifted progressives to the Democratic party and left a more conservative Republican party.
So the 5th realignment began with the election of FDR, who was elected 4 times (there were no term limits then - those were passed after his presidency ended. But he died shortly into his 4th term.) Between his 12 years and his VP who served out his 4th term and was re-elected this meant there was a Democratic lock for 20 years! Dwight Eisenhower's 8 years as President was the only Republican serving during the 36 years of this 5th alignment - just as Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat to serve during the Republican 4th alignment till Wilson was elected by the disintegration of that formation of the Republican party. During this 5th alignment the Democrats controlled the whole country other than the Republican farm states and the NE.
Not all historian's agree that the election of Nixon represented the end of the 5th alignment...some say we are still in the 5th and that it has been longer than all others. Others argue that Lyndon B Johnson's disastrous handling of the Vietnam War and failure to bring it to an end - in combination with the continued big spending of the whole FDR 5th period caused voters to forsake the Democratic party and bring in Nixon. The republican party had been split under the very conservative Goldwater half and the more moderate Rockefeller half. Nixon appealed to both halves. However, the civil rights movement under Johnson and Kennedy's administration enfranchised Black voters and moved them in as Democratic voters. The conservative Christian right that surged during this whole 6th realignment moved the South from being a democratic voting block to being a republican voting block.
During this 6th realignment we have seen: 8 republican years (Nixon - Ford completing his second term) 4 Democratic Carter years, 12 Republican under Reagan followed by his VP Bush Sr, 8 Democratic years under Bill Clinton and then 8 Republican years under Bush jr. and now 8 years of Obama. For a two party system this period has seen the greatest back and forth between parties of any previous alignments (besides possibly the third alignment). What has gone on in these two parties in this time? Reagan, the most clearly popular Republican president of this group took his party in a more progressive direction. Clinton took the Democratic party in a more conservative direction with the dismantlement of the welfare system, doing away with the bank regulation of Glass-Steigal act which had been in place since the Great Depression and with the passage of NAFTA. This is a direction that Obama has continued with the passage of a health care act that places insurance companies in the center and with his bail out of the banks and his attempts to pass TTP. This sort of support of big business and selling out of the poor is frankly what one had come to expect of Republicans.
It is only since 1968 that we see the electoral map shift from the Democrats controlling the South to the Republicans controlling it and also from the NE being Republican controlled to becoming predominantly democratically controlled. During this period we have seen approval ratings of Congress and both parties Presidents hit record lows as the public has become utterly disgusted by the grid lock created by the ugly fight tactics of both parties keeping them from getting anything done. It is no wonder that the public is voting in droves for outsiders to both parties during these primaries.
So if the rise of the fundamentalism Christian voice inside the Republican party has given rise to the right wing Tea party republicans - splitting the Republican party so badly that the angry Republican voters actually are forsaking it for a party outsider: Trump, then we see the much decried implosion of the Republican party - into three branches - the far right tea party - the center party traditionalists and the vanquished Trump folks.
However, the Democratic party is in no better shape. The Clinton/Obama move to the right (in an attempt to respond to 12 years of Republican rule) has moved the party towards the center and Bernie Sanders, an actual democratic- socialist who has not identified ever as a Democratic, represents a far left of the traditional Democratic party. So while the pundits have been happy to describe the implosion of the Republican party and wonder why Trump is popular and note some effect of the Tea party - they mostly just assume Hillary Clinton will continue the consolidation of the new more conservative Democratic party and win over the Republican mess. They however, have been too quick to ignore what Sanders represents and to ignore in general that America appears to be trying to enter its 7th Party alignment. To the degree that the pundits see a three way race they see it as being between two Republicans and Hillary. If that happens we will not have a party realignment - we will have the consolidation of more conservative Democratic party and a dangerously oligarchic moment with no real distinction between the Republican party we have had under the 6th alignment and the new Democratic party.
However, the exciting scenario under which a new party alignment could indeed take place is with a 4 way race! (Due credit to my daughter for first pointing out to me the possibility of a 4 way race.) Check out this scenario: In a brokered Republican convention the traditional party pushes out who they rightly see as a landslide loss scenario and then, being the narcissist he is, Trump refuses to quit and runs as an independent Trump party. Bernie Sanders is right now on course to lose to Hillary in the primary by a very narrow margin. The media keeps reporting that Hillary has won another state, but they fail to report the very narrow margins by which she wins most of those states. There is still a very believable scenario by which Sanders could surpass her in more liberal states which are coming up - but if not, finish a very close second to her. In a scenario where the Republicans actually give Trump the nominations, I believe that Sanders understands well enough the fascist threat of splitting a vote against Trump and he would defer to Clinton's nomination. However, if the Republican party splits there is no reason on earth why Sanders should not run as an Independent which he truly is anyway. The Republican convention is one week before the Democratic one.
What would happen in a 4 way race? The Republican candidates would split the traditional (6th alignment) Republican strong holds which is where Clinton has also fared best...but she would not win those over Republican candidates. Sanders has fared best in traditional (6th alignment) Democratic strong holds (Republicans that have won those in their primaries have already dropped out.) Polls do show Bernie winning over Trump, but not Hillary wining over Trump. And one could argue that in a 4 way race, it is really anyone's guess. But one thing which is for sure is Americans would have more real and distinct choices than have happened certainly in my whole life time. The other thing that is for sure is the results would be a party realignment. Two years later would a Tea party be campaigning against a right leaning Democratic party? Or would a Democratic Socialist party be running against a Democratic-Republican party? Stay tuned for these and other exciting developments....Oh and go to the polls for Heaven's sake!
The main thing I want to say is the reason this primary season has been so utterly bizarre is because the US is attempting to have a party realignment. This has happened many times in our history, at least 5 times probably 6...usually about every 32 to 36 years. So for example from 1792 -1824 we had two parties, neither of which exist now: the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans (what a party with the name of both current parties?) The Federalist party came to be viewed as to elitist and died. But at the time it did the Democratic- Republican party split into two new parties for the next 31 years: the Whig party and the Jacksonian Democrats.
It was the lead up to the Civil War and then the war itself that cause the next realignment. The Whig parties leadership died out because they had splits between them. (sound at all familiar Republicans?) The Republican party was born out of the ashes of the Whig party and the first ever Republican president was Lincoln. His legacy gave the party a lot of respect and legitimacy long after his death. At the same time the Jacksonian Democrats morphed into just the Democratic Party for a 36 year period of the third party alignment. Notice this is the 3rd set of two parties. Now if you go just by names there have only been 3 realignments. But most historians agree there have been a total of five or six realignments. And you can tell that is true because if you think about how Lincoln conducted himself - if he came back now and had to pick a party....he would be a Democrat. (For one thing the Republican strong hold is the South which would not have been friendly to his anti-slavery policies.)
So coming out of the reconstruction period, starting in 1896 was the next (4th) party realignment. At this point in history the Republican strong hold was the North , some farm states and the NE (notice that is what the Democrats currently hold.) This 4th alignment saw the rise of Labor who went to the Democratic party. The Republican's heavily blamed the Democrats for the bank panics of 1893. Teddy Roosevelt was the very popular populist Republican President. He was a Trust breaker and a conservationist - not positions we would not associate with Republicans. But he became very upset by the policies of his former Vice-President, now elected President Taft. He ran against him for the next election and when he lost in the primary, he ran as a third party candidate for the Bull Moose party (This will be like when Trump looses the brokered convention and then forms a third party which will be called the Trump party. Bull Moose was an already existing nickname for Roosevelt.) His running against Taft split the Republican party and the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson was elected as the first Democrat since Lincoln in 50 years (other than a split two terms of Grover Cleveland). Wilson was also helped by the fact that the Democratic party had solidified its hold on the south by disenfranchising most Black voters (tactics now familiar to us from the Republican party.)
When later FDR ran as a Democrat there was consternation on Teddy's Republican side of the family,but the truth was both Roosevelt's were tough against monopolies and graft and corruption and saw themselves as champions of the "little guy". In fact Teddy was more progressive than the Republican party he has served as president for and his splitting of the party shifted more liberal members of the party to a Democratic party that elected Woodrow Wilson for 8 years. Wilson's poor settlement of WWI ensured Republican victories until FDR was elected as a response to the Republicans disastrous handling of the economy resulting in the great depression. Thus this fourth realignment shifted progressives to the Democratic party and left a more conservative Republican party.
So the 5th realignment began with the election of FDR, who was elected 4 times (there were no term limits then - those were passed after his presidency ended. But he died shortly into his 4th term.) Between his 12 years and his VP who served out his 4th term and was re-elected this meant there was a Democratic lock for 20 years! Dwight Eisenhower's 8 years as President was the only Republican serving during the 36 years of this 5th alignment - just as Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat to serve during the Republican 4th alignment till Wilson was elected by the disintegration of that formation of the Republican party. During this 5th alignment the Democrats controlled the whole country other than the Republican farm states and the NE.
Not all historian's agree that the election of Nixon represented the end of the 5th alignment...some say we are still in the 5th and that it has been longer than all others. Others argue that Lyndon B Johnson's disastrous handling of the Vietnam War and failure to bring it to an end - in combination with the continued big spending of the whole FDR 5th period caused voters to forsake the Democratic party and bring in Nixon. The republican party had been split under the very conservative Goldwater half and the more moderate Rockefeller half. Nixon appealed to both halves. However, the civil rights movement under Johnson and Kennedy's administration enfranchised Black voters and moved them in as Democratic voters. The conservative Christian right that surged during this whole 6th realignment moved the South from being a democratic voting block to being a republican voting block.
During this 6th realignment we have seen: 8 republican years (Nixon - Ford completing his second term) 4 Democratic Carter years, 12 Republican under Reagan followed by his VP Bush Sr, 8 Democratic years under Bill Clinton and then 8 Republican years under Bush jr. and now 8 years of Obama. For a two party system this period has seen the greatest back and forth between parties of any previous alignments (besides possibly the third alignment). What has gone on in these two parties in this time? Reagan, the most clearly popular Republican president of this group took his party in a more progressive direction. Clinton took the Democratic party in a more conservative direction with the dismantlement of the welfare system, doing away with the bank regulation of Glass-Steigal act which had been in place since the Great Depression and with the passage of NAFTA. This is a direction that Obama has continued with the passage of a health care act that places insurance companies in the center and with his bail out of the banks and his attempts to pass TTP. This sort of support of big business and selling out of the poor is frankly what one had come to expect of Republicans.
It is only since 1968 that we see the electoral map shift from the Democrats controlling the South to the Republicans controlling it and also from the NE being Republican controlled to becoming predominantly democratically controlled. During this period we have seen approval ratings of Congress and both parties Presidents hit record lows as the public has become utterly disgusted by the grid lock created by the ugly fight tactics of both parties keeping them from getting anything done. It is no wonder that the public is voting in droves for outsiders to both parties during these primaries.
So if the rise of the fundamentalism Christian voice inside the Republican party has given rise to the right wing Tea party republicans - splitting the Republican party so badly that the angry Republican voters actually are forsaking it for a party outsider: Trump, then we see the much decried implosion of the Republican party - into three branches - the far right tea party - the center party traditionalists and the vanquished Trump folks.
However, the Democratic party is in no better shape. The Clinton/Obama move to the right (in an attempt to respond to 12 years of Republican rule) has moved the party towards the center and Bernie Sanders, an actual democratic- socialist who has not identified ever as a Democratic, represents a far left of the traditional Democratic party. So while the pundits have been happy to describe the implosion of the Republican party and wonder why Trump is popular and note some effect of the Tea party - they mostly just assume Hillary Clinton will continue the consolidation of the new more conservative Democratic party and win over the Republican mess. They however, have been too quick to ignore what Sanders represents and to ignore in general that America appears to be trying to enter its 7th Party alignment. To the degree that the pundits see a three way race they see it as being between two Republicans and Hillary. If that happens we will not have a party realignment - we will have the consolidation of more conservative Democratic party and a dangerously oligarchic moment with no real distinction between the Republican party we have had under the 6th alignment and the new Democratic party.
However, the exciting scenario under which a new party alignment could indeed take place is with a 4 way race! (Due credit to my daughter for first pointing out to me the possibility of a 4 way race.) Check out this scenario: In a brokered Republican convention the traditional party pushes out who they rightly see as a landslide loss scenario and then, being the narcissist he is, Trump refuses to quit and runs as an independent Trump party. Bernie Sanders is right now on course to lose to Hillary in the primary by a very narrow margin. The media keeps reporting that Hillary has won another state, but they fail to report the very narrow margins by which she wins most of those states. There is still a very believable scenario by which Sanders could surpass her in more liberal states which are coming up - but if not, finish a very close second to her. In a scenario where the Republicans actually give Trump the nominations, I believe that Sanders understands well enough the fascist threat of splitting a vote against Trump and he would defer to Clinton's nomination. However, if the Republican party splits there is no reason on earth why Sanders should not run as an Independent which he truly is anyway. The Republican convention is one week before the Democratic one.
What would happen in a 4 way race? The Republican candidates would split the traditional (6th alignment) Republican strong holds which is where Clinton has also fared best...but she would not win those over Republican candidates. Sanders has fared best in traditional (6th alignment) Democratic strong holds (Republicans that have won those in their primaries have already dropped out.) Polls do show Bernie winning over Trump, but not Hillary wining over Trump. And one could argue that in a 4 way race, it is really anyone's guess. But one thing which is for sure is Americans would have more real and distinct choices than have happened certainly in my whole life time. The other thing that is for sure is the results would be a party realignment. Two years later would a Tea party be campaigning against a right leaning Democratic party? Or would a Democratic Socialist party be running against a Democratic-Republican party? Stay tuned for these and other exciting developments....Oh and go to the polls for Heaven's sake!
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Faithfully Effective
At the Delta 5 trial in order to prove the necessity defense the 5 defendants were asked repeatedly to tell the other things they had done and to say whether these things were effective. They said no they were not effective as that was part of proving that the act of breaking the law was necessary. I think this is a very confusing message for our movement.
In reflecting upon this I think it is an incorrect question. I think in fact that everything we do to fight climate change is somewhat effective and also not successful. But I think the correct question was: but is it faithful?
In facing the greatest moral challenge of our lifetimes we can only listen for God's guidance and be faithful. Joanna Macy famously says: "We must realized that the ancestors, the descendants, and the other life forms on this earth and the earth itself are all trying to help us." I was deeply moved when I heard Joanna say this. I have struggled with the feeling of the weight on the world on my shoulders as we face this grave crisis. But when I heard that I realized "hmmm yes why do I assume it is a human brain that will think of the solution or even create the movement for change? Or that we can even recognize the solution as it emerges?"
When Shell was here in Seattle last year with their arctic rig - hundreds of people came out in their kayaks and tried to stop them. They basically pushed us aside like flies and proceeded. However they ran aground outside of Bremerton (while evading only 3 kayaks) and were stuck there for a few hours. I could not help but think of Joanna and believe the earth itself had reached up and grabbed the rig.
Later their one required ice breaker, sprung a leak (apparently from ice slashing the steel) and therefore had to come back to Portland for repairs. While they were there,was when the world watched them be delayed for several days by protesters dangling off the bridge stopping them from going forward. The leak itself cost them several weeks, the protesters several days. In the end their short window for drilling was shortened enough that they got only one hole drilled instead of two as they had planned. And because of that their very expensive mission failed and they therefore have given up on arctic drilling. In my mind the earth is helping us...the ice reached up and in its own act of vandalism, slashed, and said no!
It would seem to me therefore in God's universe it is unknowable what the outcome of climate change will be, but we all must be not so much effective as faithful in the fight against climate change because we do not know how life will act to protect life!
In reflecting upon this I think it is an incorrect question. I think in fact that everything we do to fight climate change is somewhat effective and also not successful. But I think the correct question was: but is it faithful?
In facing the greatest moral challenge of our lifetimes we can only listen for God's guidance and be faithful. Joanna Macy famously says: "We must realized that the ancestors, the descendants, and the other life forms on this earth and the earth itself are all trying to help us." I was deeply moved when I heard Joanna say this. I have struggled with the feeling of the weight on the world on my shoulders as we face this grave crisis. But when I heard that I realized "hmmm yes why do I assume it is a human brain that will think of the solution or even create the movement for change? Or that we can even recognize the solution as it emerges?"
When Shell was here in Seattle last year with their arctic rig - hundreds of people came out in their kayaks and tried to stop them. They basically pushed us aside like flies and proceeded. However they ran aground outside of Bremerton (while evading only 3 kayaks) and were stuck there for a few hours. I could not help but think of Joanna and believe the earth itself had reached up and grabbed the rig.
Later their one required ice breaker, sprung a leak (apparently from ice slashing the steel) and therefore had to come back to Portland for repairs. While they were there,was when the world watched them be delayed for several days by protesters dangling off the bridge stopping them from going forward. The leak itself cost them several weeks, the protesters several days. In the end their short window for drilling was shortened enough that they got only one hole drilled instead of two as they had planned. And because of that their very expensive mission failed and they therefore have given up on arctic drilling. In my mind the earth is helping us...the ice reached up and in its own act of vandalism, slashed, and said no!
It would seem to me therefore in God's universe it is unknowable what the outcome of climate change will be, but we all must be not so much effective as faithful in the fight against climate change because we do not know how life will act to protect life!
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