Not all that is Islamic is Islam

There are so many threads being woven into a tapestry of narrative about the shootings in Paris.  Here is another that should be considered before the picture is decided upon:

"On the Islamic principle of justice and law, libel, even if this is proven to be libel, it's not a capital crime," he told host Michaela Pereira. "So on every single count, from justice, law to ethics, these terrorists have acted outside the aegis of Islam."
....
"What they're doing is categorically un-Islamic. They are jihadists and as experts have told us, all acts of terrorism are politically motivated. This is about advancing their political agenda," he added.

Azhar Usman, an American comedian and Muslim, offered similar sentiments.

"I think it's almost disingenuous to say these guys are upset about some cartoons," he told CNN. "These guys are jihadists. They're motivated by political gripes."

There are a lot of comments out there about how "evil" Islam is, how Muslims are responsible for this crime, how this proves religion to be the root of all evil, etc., etc., etc.  There has actually been a lot of condemnation of the attacks in Paris by Muslim leaders and Muslim organizations.  And as for depictions of Mohammed:

[M]uch has been written about Islam's prohibition against physical representations of the prophet of Islam. In fact, the Muslim world abounds with magnificent images of Mohammed. (In general, Shiites and Sufis tend to be more flexible on this point than Sunnis). In some, the prophet's face is obscured by a pillar of fire that rises from beneath his chin in a veil of flames. In others, he is unveiled and glorious, a golden nimbus hovering over his head. While some Muslims object to these well-known and widely distributed depictions, there has never been any large-scale furor over them for the simple reason that although they depict the prophet, they do so in a positive light.

Further:

The Quran does call for condemnation of speech and actions that insult Allah, his prophets, and their relatives, but it also specifically warns against violence as a form of retaliation:

"Repel evil with whatever is better; there is chance that evil may bellow down, if you repel evil with evil, the conflict flares up and both sides will dig in their heels."

The Quran also specifically states that “there shall be no compulsion in the religion.” And there is a whole Quranic chapter calling for the tolerance of different faiths.

Or you can listen to Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins.  I've seen several comments about intolerance in "Muslim countries."  Seldom do the commenters provide the names of the countries where these acts occur, especially where non-Muslims are executed (a frequent claim).  I doubt they could list all the Muslim dominant populations in the world by country, much less identify any country outside of Saudi Arabia with official policies regarding the treatment of non-Muslims or punishment of "blasphemy."  The murderers in Paris were not state actors; they were apparently trained by Al Qaeda, a group about as Muslim as a gang of Christian white supremacists are.

At this point, I'm looking for whatever rational thought I can find.

...and nobody is Bill Maher

Yeah, he hasn't improved any since then.

Bill Maher answers the questions FoxNews raises:

"That's my question about these guys because if we know they were speaking unaccented French and they had, you know, ski masks on, do we even know what color they were," Bream said. "What the tone of their skin was. I mean what if they didn't look like typical bad guys?'

Maher's answer, of course:  ask if they are religious.

Because all religions "are stupid and dangerous."    Dangerous enough to make all religious believers bad guys.

See?  You don't have to see the tone of their skin, or even know what color they were!

And you know it's true, because Maher is "...the liberal in this debate."

Glad we could solve that problem for you.

Je suis Ahmed

Bill Maher is more stupid and dangerous than Islam.   Jeffrey Tayler is far more problematic than religion.  Richard Dawkins is simply a babbling fool.  And "Western values" can be defended by those who are denied value by people like Maher and Tayler and Dawkins.

Dyab Abou Jahjah‏@Aboujahjah

I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed

Of the 12 people killed in Paris earlier this week, two were police officers.  One of them was Ahmed Merabet, a French Muslim.  As one French mourner wrote: 'Ahmed Merabet died protecting the innocent from hate. I salute him.'

In other news, Bill Maher does the work of Al Qaeda

Nope.  Not even close:

“No, I’m not turning on them,” Maher continued. “I’m asking them to turn toward the truth, as I have been for quite a while. I’m the liberal in this debate. I’m for free speech. To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. It’s not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world.”

Maher contended that most Muslims would not carry out such an attack, but claimed that “hundreds of millions of them” support attacks of this manner.

If you'll permit me to return to Juan Cole for a moment:

The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.

Or, as Charb, the editor of "Charlie Hebdo," who was among those killed the other day, told the BBC in 2011 after the offices of the paper were attacked:

Mr Charbonnier, also known as Charb, said he did not see the attack on the magazine as the work of French Muslims, but of what he called "idiot extremists".

There is wisdom to be found in this story; but it won't be found in the blatherings of Bill Maher.

"I am he as you are he as you are me/And we are all together"

Yup; still talkin' 'bout "Charlie Hebdo"

Juan Cole presents me with an interesting question:  "Who are the 'Muslims'?"

I've gotten used to identifying Jews as a race, if only because there are Jews by birth who are Jewish (Woody Allen springs to mind) but non-observant or even atheists (which is why Woody Allen springs to mind).  Being Jewish has not always been about being religious, in other words.

Then again, is "Christian" about being religious?  Or is "Muslim"?

The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.

The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion. French Muslims may be the most secular Muslim-heritage population in the world (ex-Soviet ethnic Muslims often also have low rates of belief and observance). Many Muslim immigrants in the post-war period to France came as laborers and were not literate people, and their grandchildren are rather distant from Middle Eastern fundamentalism, pursuing urban cosmopolitan culture such as rap and rai. In Paris, where Muslims tend to be better educated and more religious, the vast majority reject violence and say they are loyal to France.

Or are they more properly, as with Judaism, about heritage?  At least in the contexts of populations, of generalized groups?

Cole's point is not to raise this issue, but to point out how "sociopaths and totalitarians" use the strategy of "sharpening the contradictions" to "unmoor[...] people from their ordinary insouciance and prey[...] on them, mobilizing their energies and wealth for the perverted purposes of a self-styled great leader."  In this context the murders in France truly become a criminal act, and not the act of a religion, or even of religious people.  And that sharpening of the contradictions is not limited to leaders of Al Qaeda.

But the question our discourse needs to consider is:  who is "Muslim"?  Only the fanatics, a la Sam Harris?  Only those who pray 5 times a day and attend a mosque regularly?  Or can it be a matter of heritage, like Judaism or even Christianity?  How do we define Christians, even?  Adherents to the basic tenets of Christianity:  Jesus is Lord, baptism is in the name of the triune God, the eucharist is a sacrament? Church attendance?  Adherence to principles of Christianity?  Fanaticism and political action?

You could replace the word "Muslims" in Cole's sentence:  "Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam" with "Christians," and "Islam" with "Christendom," or just "Americans" and "America" for "Islam."  The vast majority of Christians in America reject violence, at least the personal kind of violence inflicted on 12 people in Paris (and more today).

What are these distinctions we insist on?  And why do we insist on them?

Nous sommes tous Charlie

I'm reading more than a few comments about how Muslims are responsible for what happened in Paris, especially if they don't disavow what happened in Paris in terms acceptable to the commenter (and, as well, presumably communicate that disavowal to the commenter personally.  In a media-saturated world, if you make a protest but my news sources don't report it, did you make a sound?).

This is the best response to that attitude that I have found.  It's short; read it all.  See if you don't agree with me.

ADDING:  This is very good, too.  I always prefer to complicate the picture, rather than simplify it.

....Charb, the director of Charlie Hebdo, declared: “It may sound pompous, but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.” Should a cartoonist become some kind of priest, leading a sacrificial ritual on the altar of freedom of speech? To what avail?

Good questions.

Lagniappe:  Juan Cole also answers those who declare Islam responsible for what happened (and is happening) in Paris:

For those who require unrelated people to take responsibility for those who claim to be their co-religionists (not a demand ever made of Christians), the al-Azhar Seminary, seat of Sunni Muslim learning and fatwas, condemned the attack, as did the Arab League that comprises 22 Muslim-majority states.

We have a model for response to terrorist provocation and attempts at sharpening the contradictions. It is Norway after Anders Behring Breivik committed mass murder of Norwegian leftists for being soft on Islam. The Norwegian government launched no war on terror. They tried Breivik in court as a common criminal. They remained committed to their admirable modern Norwegian values.

I think these arguments and ideas deserve wider dissemination.

Je suis Charlie

Richard Dawkins blames it on Islam.  Charlie Pierce says it's another part of the fight with modernity:

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that the witnesses make the murderers sound like Bond villains straight from central casting, this was unquestionably an assault on the right of free expression, probably committed in the name of religious fanaticism. It was an act of medieval, anti-Enlightenment barbarism, and the fact that a lot of people who aren't usually so tender toward France and its leftists -- or towards the Enlightenment itself, for that matter -- have attached themselves to the horror in order to proclaim their righteousness atop a pile of corpses ought not to obscure the truth of it. There are genuine values -- honored only in the breach by some, but no less genuine for that -- under armed assault here. Charlie Hebdo's staff was murdered to stifle the publication's voice, no less than Elijah Lovejoy was murdered to stifle his. This is the mass, unbridled, brainless Id of the barbarian at war with modernity in all its expressions.

And he's right.  This isn't a pure expression of religious sentiment, as Richard Dawkins insists it must be seen.  It's a reaction against modernity, against change, against a wider world of which we are all only a part.  Seek out comments and articles on the web about religion, and the ones from America almost uniformly consider fundamentalist Christianity normative for all religious belief, and violent extremists acting in the name of Islam as the only "real Muslims" on the planet (despite the fact the majority of the world's Muslims don't live in Arabic countries).   Mr. Pierce points out we haven't even seen the faces of these attackers, yet.  Does anyone expect them to be Asian?  And yet, the majority of the world's Muslims are Asians.

Yet still we expect "fanatical" Muslims to be Arabic, and we expect all Muslims to be from an Arabic country.  If these fanatics are angry with a world that doesn't look the way they expect it to, what is to be said of us, except that our violence is done by drones, which is to say by remote control, and done by people we don't even associate with, by people we can't even identify.  It is done by people who, we are assured, get to come home every day to their suburban middle-class American lives, after raining down hellfire and destruction halfway across the world from the comfort of a padded chair and an air-conditioned control room.

Our violence is no more part and parcel of our lives than theirs is; or maybe it is, but it's our violence, so it's okay.  It is their violence which is the more heinous.  And no, this kind of murder and mayhem has no justification.

But it doesn't happen in a vacuum, either; or merely represent a clash of ideologies between "ours" which is good, and "them" who are deluded, and are deluded because they are "bad."

ADDING:  BBC World Service tells me the picture I chose above led to a firebombing of the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" in 2011.  At the time the editor (who died in the shooting) told the BBC it was the work of "idiotic extremists" and did not represent the majority of the Muslims living in France.  He also called it an assault on freedom.  We could repeat those words today.

Mark Fiore, interviewed by the BBC, said there are centuries of depictions of Muhammed, that only recently had it become forbidden.  If true, that tells me Mr. Pierce's analysis is again much closer to correct than that of Dawkins.  The three suspects have been identified, two of them Algerians; which further underlines my argument that this is a clash of cultures, even a political act (as many on the streets of France were reportedly saying), and not a religious act at all.

Certainly not an act of "Islam" or of all Muslims around the world, anymore than a drone strike in Pakistan is an act of democracy, or one for which I am personally responsible.

And one last thing:  NTodd, as usual, makes an excellent point (despite quoting me in my full typographical error-prone glory!).

No, really: what is church for?

The interesting thing about this story is not that it lays to rest the myth of my childhood, that heroin addiction is both immediate and unbreakable, but that it explains something else:

Outsourcing control over your behavior sounds a little funny. But consider what happens when you perform a very basic everyday behavior like getting into a car.

"Of course on one level, that seems like the simplest task possible," Neal says, "but if you break it down, there's really a myriad set of complex actions that are performed in sequence to do that."

You use a certain motion to put your key in the lock. And then physically manipulate your body to get into the seat. There is another set of motions to insert the key in the ignition.

"All of this is actually very complicated and someone who had never driven a car before would have no ability to do that, but it becomes second nature to us," Neal points out. "[It's] so automatic that we can do it while we are conducting complex other tasks, like having conversations."

Throughout the process, you haven't thought for a second about what you are doing, you are just responding to the different parts of the car in the sequence you've learned. "And very much of our day goes off in this way," Wood says. "About 45 percent of what people do every day is in the same environment and is repeated."

In this way, Neal says, our environments come to unconsciously direct our behavior.

This is one of the reasons people regularly attend church; or go on spiritual retreats; or pilgrimages; or enter convents or monasteries.

Environment influences our behavior.

I'm not inclined to say it "directs" our behavior; I'm not enough of a behaviorist to go that far (although I agree with Auden's assessment of behaviorism: yes, he said, it works; but then, so does torture.)  But environment clearly influences behavior, otherwise we wouldn't worry about what schoolchildren wear at school, or how quiet and passive they are supposed to be (or energetic and engaged, depending) in the classroom.  And pilgrims would not go on pilgrimages, nor would people enter a church once a week, or even go further in their devotion and retreat into a monastery like Abbey Gethsemane.*

The modern tendency is is decry behavior we won't approve of as "ritual," meaning it is form without shape and gesture without motion.  But what is more ritualistic than getting into your car to drive to work, or the grocery store, or to a movie?  Complicated actions which are second nature to us.  I moved my car this morning in the driveway, and the actions were as automatic as my fingers typing this out right now (though thankfully I make fewer errors in driving than I do in typing).  Typing and driving are not strictly rituals, but they are complex actions we learn to do because the environment requires, or at least encourages, them.  I need to get to my job; I need to get to the grocery store; I just need to get out of the house and away from my neighborhood.  Even the actions of driving to work or the store are almost automatic; if I don't think about it, when I need to go somewhere I don't ordinarily go I'll turn the wrong direction, automatically steering toward the most familiar destinations.

And that, in part, is what church is for; is what worship is for:  an environment that directs our actions in directions we don't go in daily life.  If you want your actions truly guided, you retreat into a monastery like the Trappist monks, with an environment that encourages and enhances the approach to God.  But if you want your actions directed at all, you need an environment which encourages that direction; it is, after all, better that you at least repeat the actions, than that you don't do them at all.

*Which really makes sense in terms other information in the article, where it was established that some 95% of the Vietnam soldiers who became heroin addicts in Vietnam and then were treated before returning home, broke their addiction.  This is attributed to the radical change of environment from war in Vietnam to civilian life in America.  Monasteries and convents provide an equally radical change of environment, especially a cloistered one like Abbey Gethsemane.

25 years and $1.7 billion later.....

I grew up in a town with a "mansion" identified as "the Hunt mansion."  It was one of many around East Texas owned by H.L. Hunt where, it turned out, he stashed his many wives.  I mention that because that connection made me pay attention to the Hunt family at one time; out of curiosity more than anything else.  That, and I remember when the price of silver began to shoot up, and it later turned out the Hunt brothers, the sons of H.L., had tried to use the family fortune to corner the silver market. I cared about that mostly because they were from Texas, and I was trying to buy jewelry at at the time.  The price of gold rose, and then, inexplicably, silver followed.  You may have noticed the price of gold is still astronomical, but the price of silver has remained fairly constant.  I didn't realize it was because Nelson thought Jesus was coming, though:

A Texas billionaire remembered mostly for his business exploits, Nelson Bunker Hunt bankrolled the religious right. He underwrote many Campus Crusade’s projects, including the 1967 “Berkley Blitz,”the $6 million Jesus film in 1979, and a $30 million campaign to evangelize the world by 1980. He gave $1 million to help start the Moral Majority and financed the founding of Tim LaHaye’s Council for National Policy in 1981. Hunt also tried to buy all the world’s silver as a hedge against the financial collapse he believed the Bible predicted. He lost $1.7 billion and went bankrupt in 1989. He died at 88.

And I reprint this obituary not because I mourn or otherwise think much of the passing of Nelson Hunt, but because it is almost a time capsule of my youth.  Campus Crusade for Christ is probably still around, but what impact did it have?  I don't mean to imply it failed, but to put it in context today.  Neo-Atheists scream on-line about how "religious" people and "Christians" (I use the term advisedly in this context) are ruining America by defying the teaching of evolution in schools.  Campus Crusade was as bold in its day, and was funded by an earlier version of the Koch Brothers (who don't fund much in the way of religious groups, so far as I can tell).  A Jesus film in 1979?  Don't even remember it.  A campaign to evangelize the world by 1980?  And how did that work out?  Moral Majority has disappeared into the history books, a product almost entirely of the personality of Jerry Falwell (and has anybody heard from Liberty University lately, or Falwell's old church?).  Tim LaHaye?  Even his books aren't on bookshelves anymore, and they were best-sellers at one time.

By 1989, Hunt was bankrupt, and what of his efforts to change the world through Christian fundamentalism?  When you stop and put it in historical context, what we are seeing now is pretty clearly the blush on the cheek of a dying age.  This doesn't mean Bruce Feller is right, but it is clear the age of reactionary Christianity has all but run its course.  It will soon be as unremarkable, and as forgotten, as the efforts of Nelson Bunker Hunt.

The Library of Babble

I try to be open minded about these things, but the question put to Bruce Feller was to distinguish between "spirituality" and "religion," and what I hear is:  "Spirituality is all about me."

Well, I think that organized religion is more threatened than ever before. Attendance is down, membership is down, but it’s not down that much. Here’s what I think is going on. The idea that you would go to a building at the time of the building’s choosing and sit in a pew while someone stands up on a high platform like a mountain and tells you what to think and believe from a text that has been closed for hundreds or thousands of years–every part of that is completely anathema to how we live today.

People want to be more interactive, they want to do things on their own schedule, they want to tell their own story, they don’t want to just listen to other people’s story. So what’s going on is that people are pulling away from formal institutions, but they’re not giving up on these core questions about who am I, how do I get through difficult times in my life, what does it mean to have values, how can I serve my community and is there a higher calling in some way. So what happens is people are breaking away from the institution but they are still asking the big questions, and that’s exactly where pilgrimage fits in. Because a pilgrimage is at its core a gesture, or an action. It’s saying that I’m going to take a step. I’m going to figure out what I really believe and I’m going to determine for myself how I want to live my life. Whereas traditional religion is much more passive, going on a sacred journey is much more active. That’s why pilgrimage is so popular today.

Funny that he says pilgrimage is about breaking away from the institution, when pilgrimage is, and has been for centuries, about the institution.  The word "chaplain" came from the one keeping the chapel, along a pilgrimage route.  Those chaplains were authorized by the Roman Catholic church.  The very idea of pilgrimage he promotes on his PBS series is connected, each and every time, to a major religion (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism).  One of his trips was to the Ganges, where one of the largest gatherings of human beings on the entire planet occurs on a regular basis.  Lourdes is operated by the Roman Catholic church.  The pilgrimage to Mecca is to a set of places carefully maintained by institutional Islam.

Most religious institutions are an attempt to answer the question "How can I serve my community and is there a higher calling in some way?"  You can serve your community by passing out blankets on the street, or offering food to the homeless.  Well, in some places you can; in others, you can't.   Religion is an attempt, among other things, to be more effective about that service.

Most religions are the products of institutions; without institutions, no religion is passed on to the next generation, or even the next group of people.  All pilgrimages are the products of institutions:  if other people aren't doing it, it isn't a pilgrimage.  If it isn't recognized by an institution, it isn't a pilgrimage, either.   But of course, we all know today that institutions are 'bad,' and only individual people are 'good.'

Microsoft is bad.  Steve Jobs is Apple, so Apple is not an institution; and Apple, therefore, is good.

What part of this is "completely anathema to the way we live today"?  The self-awareness to appreciate the contradictions?

As for church:  yes, attendance is down and membership is down, and yes, it's not down all that much.  Church attendance hit an historical high following World War II, and it's been in decline since the early '60's (at least), returning back to normal (historical) levels.  Just like the Baby Boom is the demographic bulge in the python that distorts all around it, the post-war increase in church attendance distorted our idea of who goes to church, and especially how many go to church.  And, of course, that decrease is visible only in America and Western Europe.  There are parts of the world where church attendance is so active America (and Western Europe) are actually seen as mission fields (a situation predicted by the late Evelyn Waugh, IIRC).

Got to be very careful how you generalize about these things.

Happy New Year! (No, seriously, this time!)

A magnetic Jesus for a magnetic Pope.  (Sorry!)

Speaking of St. Ignatius (the founder of the Jesuits), we turn to the Jesuit Pope, already in progress:

The magnetic pope has sparked new enthusiasm around the world for the church and has flexed his political muscles internationally, most recently by helping to engineer a new relationship between the United States and Cuba.



But Francis’s agenda, which also includes calls to address income inequality and limit climate change, is putting him at odds with Republicans, including GOP Catholics in the United States.



It's not the first time Francis has clashed with conservatives.


..... Since his papal inauguration in March 2013, the pontiff has publicly made policy remarks about income inequality and the environment that many American Catholics weren't used to hearing coming from the Vatican, and not just from the pulpit.

“Inequality is the root of social evil,” Francis tweeted in March, after months earlier slamming “trickle-down” economics as a “crude and naïve” theory.

Next year, as part of a speech he’ll give to the United Nations General Assembly, Francis will issue an edict urging the world's 1.2 billion Catholics to do what they can to fight climate change.


“He's modeling the church as a place for open disagreement,” said Vincent J. Miller, who chairs the University of Dayton's Catholic theology program. “In that sense, one of the most important changes he's making is that conservative politicians are now openly disagreeing with him,” Miller said.

....
Francis himself enjoys a high favorability rating of 78 percent among all Americans, with only 11 percent disapproving of him and the remaining having no opinion, according to a Dec. 11 poll from Pew. Among Catholics, his favorability spikes to 93 percent.

Miller said Republicans are no longer able to use issues like abortion and gay marriage as the defining issues for American Catholics.

But Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the conservative U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, said that by injecting his beliefs, Francis has alienated Cuban-Americans who are deeply opposed to the communist Castro regime in Cuba.



 “I don't want the pope running the foreign policy of the United States, just as I don't think the president wants the pope running the social policy of the United States,” said Claver-Carone, referencing the pope’s anti-abortion rights views.

Progressive Catholics, however, such as Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice organization, are cheering Francis on as he calls for the world's elite to do more to help the poor.

“Oh my gloria, this is a definite change in tone from being a 'scolder-in-chief' to being the one who identifies with the pain in our world,” said Simone, who organized the “Nuns on a Bus” cross-country tours.

“Pope Francis's message and tone are making Catholic Republicans a little uncomfortable,” Simone said. “He's stirring the concern on issues like poverty and the economy.”

I left out of that the political analysis on Catholic voters, and most of the comments about the rapprochement with Cuba, equally political stuff.  I'm not interested in that.  I would note that, to the extent the Pope is making people uncomfortable, is garnering their critique rather than their praise, he seems to be doing something right.  Not that simplistically angering people is the path to God's will, but the Pope has shown no particular interest in pleasing Sister Simone Campbell, yet he's doing so anyway.

Pleasing me, too.  I understand the Jesuits praise a "free person," a term of art for them; and they consider Pope Francis such a person.

There is a good article at Religion Dispatches about protest as theology.  "This is what theology looks like," the author argues.

I would say the same about Pope Francis and what he is doing.  Theology is especially doing; it is words about God, and God is active in human history.

No way to start a new year....

It's a basic tenet of civil law, going back to the common law of England in the misty reaches of time, that there are no accidents, no situations in which "shit just happens."  Any incident not an act of God (of nature, if you prefer) is the result of a causal chain set in motion by human beings, if only because human manufactured products are involved, or even if only because humans claim ownership of the land upon which a dangerous feature appears (ice on sidewalks, for example).  This, then, was no "accident":

On Tuesday morning, that was exactly what Veronica Rutledge’s son did — with the most tragic of outcomes. Veronica, 29, arrived at a nearby Wal-Mart in Hayden with her three nieces and son, her gun “zippered closed” inside her new purse, her father-in-law said. Then, in the back of the store, near the electronics section, the purse was left unattended for a moment.

“An inquisitive 2-year-old boy reached into the purse, unzipped the compartment, found the gun and shot his mother in the head,” Rutledge said. “It’s a terrible, terrible incident.”

It is a horrible story, as the grandfather and father-in-law of the deceased, explains:

“My son is terrible,” Rutledge said. “He has a 2-year-old boy right now who doesn’t know where his mom is and he’ll have to explain why his mom isn’t coming home. And then, later on his life, as he questions it more, he’ll again have to explain what happened, so we’ll have to relive this several times over.”

He doesn't think this story should be fodder for a discussion of gun control, however.  In that, he is wrong.

The article details how the mother grew up around guns, was comfortable with them, understood how to handle them.  Except, obviously, she didn't, or a two year old would never have found a deadly weapon in his hands.  Would we think her any less culpable had she left an 8 year old in a car with the keys and the ability to shift into "Drive"?  As I said, there are no accidents, not where human beings are involved.  This gun was in a purse in a zippered pocket; but apparently no safety was set?  Or it was, and it was easy for a two year old to release it?

And she carried a loaded gun for what reason?  Everything I ever learned about gun safety was that you never carried a loaded gun on a hunt until you were ready to fire.  You didn't carry a loaded weapon out of your house, put it in your car, drive to the hunting site, leave it loaded until you went out to hunt, and then re-loaded for the trip home.  Why is it reasonable to carry a loaded weapon into a store?  Even if you are comfortable with guns, the people who taught me gun safety knew a loaded gun was dangerous, and every gun was to be treated as loaded, at all times.  Which meant you always treated a gun as extremely dangerous.  Leaving a loaded gun within reach of a two year old, is not treating that weapon as extremely dangerous.

I have a family member who learned gun usage in the military.  He kept a loaded pistol in his house because it was broken into once (his wife came home as the burglar was stepping through the window).  He kept the pistol in a holster, with a trigger lock, in the back of his closet on a shelf.  His children couldn't get to it without a ladder and longer arms than they had when they were young enough to be dangerous around guns.  He never carried it with him.  He knew how dangerous guns are.

 So there are only two reasonable conclusions possible from this sad story:

 1)  She was irresponsible, because a two year old got his hands on a deadly weapon and killed his own mother with it.

2)  Guns are so inherently dangerous there is no safe way to carry them around in public, even in a "gun culture" and among "gun people."

And it isn't even a matter of either/or; in this sad incident, I think it's both/and.

O brave new world, that has such creatures in it!

So many servants for so few family

I have seen the future, and it's pretty disgusting:

The vision of Travis Kalanick, Uber’s colorful and often audacious CEO, goes even further. He sees Uber as the forerunner of a comprehensive on-demand economy, one in which the push of a smartphone button triggers the almost instantaneous arrival of any physical thing. “If we can get you a car in five minutes,” he has said, “we can get you anything in five minutes.” In 2014, Uber didn’t inch so much as leap and bound toward that goal.

If technology reaches that goal, Lord help us all.  Because getting you something in 5 minutes means several other somebodies must become servants to you in order to make it happen.

Think "Downton Abbey" on a world scale.

The goal of living in those mansions populated with as many as 40+ servants was to make the rooms look like no one lived there.  That's what kept them busy:  cleaning a room as soon as the family left it, so it continued to resemble a stage setting no character had entered yet.  Technology didn't directly replace that labor; shifts in the social order did.

Now technology is racing us back to that goal:  service for me, of anything in the world to me, as rapidly as possible.  Armies of warehouse employees for Amazon slated to be augmented by drone operators delivering your package directly to you!  How many people will it take to get you anything in 5 minutes?  And who is getting them anything they want in five minutes?

Do you need to ask?  Does anybody even care?  They're too busy getting it for us!  Maybe we can give 'em Sunday afternoons off, and Boxing Day once a year.

When Jesus said his followers must be servants of all, this isn't what he had in mind.

Refusing all comfort....

Because I have commented before on prosecutions for torture, I just want to say:  Yup.

This is probably the best we can do; but we should do it.

Of knowledge and comprehension....

I have this framed, reproduced in cross-stitch.  I'm only sorry I can't give you a picture of that.

I reference this because it is an excellent article.  More and more I think the "conflict" between science and religion is a product of mistake and deliberate misconception (dating back to the 19th century idea that "reason" must replace the "superstition" of religion, an idea that actually has its roots in the 16th century Puritans, who used it to distinguish themselves from the Roman Catholic church).  But read the article, and draw your own conclusions.

Myself, I would like to ponder more on the final sentences:

“There is a certain value, as St. Ignatius says, in preferring scorn to praise,” he told RD. “That sense of humility—you’re better off when people hate you. I’m not there yet. But I get what he’s talking about.”

I think Ignatius was on to something.....

Fourth Day of Christmas

T'he Holy Innocents

When Herod realized he had been duped by the astrologers, he was outraged. He then issued a death warrant for all the male children in Bethlehem and surrounding region two years old and younger. this corresponded to the time [of the star] that he had learned from the astrologers. With this event the prediction made by Jeremiah the prophet came true: 'In Ramah the sound of mourning and bitter grieving was heard: Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled: They were no more.' " (Matthew 2: 16-18, SV)

But then consider how the medieval drama called "The Play of Herod" ends: the escape to Egypt, the hasty retreat of the magi, then the intrusion of the military into the village. The children are murdered and Rachel - the biblical mother - weeps and laments. A comforter is sent by God, but she refuses to be comforted because her children are no more. But this is not the end of the play. Did they somehow invent a happy ending? Nothing of the kind. The ending is not happy, it is a great mystery. For there is a Te Deum sung: "We praise you, God, we confess you as Lord." The greatest chant of praise. This is sung by Mary and Joseph, processing through the audience, but they are joined in their song and procession by the animals and the angels, by the shepherds, by the lamenting Rachel and the parents of Bethlehem, and they are joined by the soldiers and their victims and by Herod. Knowing that (Hopkins again)


we are wound
With mercy round and round. . . .


they all, incarnate God and all creation, even death, tyrants and martyrs, all process and all sing praise. And we sing too, and find ourselves in the procession.

Today we can't imagine it. We take our Christmas with lots of sugar. And take it in a day. Though we've been baptized into his death, we have little time for or patience with how that death is told at Christmas, a death that confuses lament and praise forever. And no wonder we are careful to keep Christmas at an arm's length. What is Herod in these times?"--Gabe Huck

WE remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

--Book of Common Prayer

The Third Day of Christmas

Well, as long as we're cribbing from "The Bells of Dublin".... This one is certainly on it's way to being a modern Christmas classic. That's a good thing.

St. Stephen's Day

A day late (barely), but still, another fitting song for the season (we have 12 days of this. I can keep it up if you can!)

The mensch, a virgin, and a god

I especially like to listen to this after watching something like "It Happened on Fifth Avenue," or even "It's a Wonderful Life."  For me, this is a new Christmas classic.

"Let us say for these twelve days, put the measurements away...."