Green Oasis

Five Things

2009-07-06T20:53:43Z

I am grateful for…

… a helpful highway patrolman who stopped and lent me a lug wrench to change the flat tire that I had on the way to work.
… the color green.
… the opportunity to make choices.
… a good night’s rest.
… the opportunity to be a father.

Garden of the Church

2009-05-07T21:04:21Z

A recent Newsweek article made a point about separation of church and state that often goes unnoticed by the religious among us: that religion flourishes in the minds of the people when it avoids trying to influence their government.

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thingâ€”good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called “the garden of the church” from “the wilderness of the world.” As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America’s unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedomâ€”not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right’s notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

Coercing people to follow your religious tenants by force of law makes them push back. Given the explicit mingling of church and state under the latest Bush administration (one of our most disastrous presidencies), is there any wonder that people are turned off by religion. The religiously motivated attacks on September 11 also changed some minds about religion. Many churchs’ involvement in the fight against same-sex marriage turns even more people off. For many, religion became the public face of hatred, violence, and fear.

At the same time, many of us are seeking out even more fundamentalist religion. I guess these are polarizing times. Let’s hope for their sake that they learn from recent history. It would be better for religion observance in America if they took a live-and-let-live attitude toward other people’s behavior.

(via Mind on Fire)

Don’t Divorce My Parents

2009-02-21T16:15:08Z

If you want to protect marriage, add your name to the list of those urging the California Supreme Court to reassert that this is a land of freedom and protect 18,000 marriages, because we need to encourage more committed, nurturing relationships, not fewer. I did.

Civil Liberties Lost Since 9/11

2008-07-08T18:30:29Z

Timeline of civil liberties lost since September 11, 2001

Sometimes the commenters on reddit are surprisingly insightful:

Yeah, but it was totally worth it when the government used that extra power to find Osama, cure cancer and solve world hunger… all while balancing the federal budget and growing the economy to levels of mass prosperity the world has never witnessed.

(via reddit)

Muhammad Comics

2008-02-15T20:57:40Z

Remember the Muhammad comics from Denmark that got some Muslims in an uproar? Here they are just in case you haven’t seen them yet because newspapers in the U.S. don’t want to take the heat (I don’t really blame them).

Jyllands-Posten (the newpaper that originally published the comics) reports that “all of [Denmark's] major dailies decided to re-print it on Wednesday after it was discovered that Muslim extremists had plotted to assassinate the man who drew it, Kurt Westergaard.”

We have a conflict of ideas: the idea that a person’s religious sensibilities must be respected under penalty of violence versus the idea that we must all be free to say what we want within very liberal bounds. Tolerance of opposing viewpoints in a liberal democracy must find its limit when people plot murder, yet the freedom of conscience of innocent Muslims must be respected. Religious extremism like this might be the poison pill that kills democracy if we can’t strike a proper balance in response.

Having said that, the whole point of this post was just for me to stick up for freedom of speech in my little way.

(via Jesus and Mo)

Birthing Pangs

2007-10-23T20:00:50Z

Some of my recent posts have been rather angry and bitter. This isn’t an apology because I feel justified in my anger, but I recognize that it’s not healthy to center my life around that anger. It was disturbing my peace.

I compare my bitterness and anger to the birthing pangs required to bring a new person into the world. To confuse the metaphor, it’s like when you’re a teenager and you start asserting your individuality as separate from your parents. This individuation sometimes manifests itself as anger, but this anger is part of the natural order of things. It helps us to create our individuality by breaking with the old. The same with leaving Mormonism.

Some of those of us who leave Mormonism go through an angry period that helps us leave Mormonism behind. Some of the bitterness that you saw on my blog recently was only temporary. On the other hand, I foresee many parts of Mormonism angering me for a very long time. Maybe I will see Mormonism with a more temperate attitude in the future, but to refuse to be angry about the bad things in Mormonism would only delay my maturation as a post-Mormon person.

I just hope that I don’t get obsessed and intoxicated with my anger. I hope that Mormonism (the bad parts of it anyway) can play an increasingly insignificant part in my life.

Blind Obedience

2007-09-27T18:28:11Z

I never realized the origin of the idea that if you follow the counsel of your Mormon priesthood leaders, even if it’s wrong, you will be blessed:

President Marion G. Romney tells of this incident, which happened to him: I remember years ago when I was a Bishop I had President [Heber J.] Grant talk to our ward. After the meeting I drove him home….Standing by me, he put his arm over my shoulder and said: “My boy, you always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.” Then with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “But you don’t need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.” [In Conference Report, October 1), p. 78]

This is as quoted in Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet which was quoted from during last Sunday’s sacrament meeting. I was actually shocked to hear someone say that. The idea is so bass-ackward that I thought I had just imagined it. “People couldn’t be that wrong headed. I must have been dreaming that up.” Never underestimate the power of religious fundamentalism, I guess.

Combine that with the belief that priesthood leaders of all levels are inspired and the following gem (via Talking to God) and you have a perfect recipe for blind obedience and another Mountain Meadows Massacre.

What’s the point of personal revelation then? Just follow the prophet. He knows the way.

The Kingdom of God is Within You

2008-08-01T19:20:48Z

A prescient Charlie Chaplin on the hope for a better world. (via Truthdig)

Why Should I Vote?

2007-08-11T17:00:28Z

I’ll admit it. I was this close to drinking the Kool Aid. I was starting to believe that Obama as President would make a difference. Then I found out that Obama is opposed to impeaching Bush or Dick.

“There’s a way to bring an end to those practices, you know: vote the bums out,” [Obama] said, without naming Bush or Cheney. “That’s how our system is designed.”

Bzzzt. Wrong answer. Our system is also designed with a system of checks and balances between the branches of government. Congress is shirking its duty to check the power of the presidency. Simply letting Bush and Dick leave office as their term expires doesn’t send the right message to future presidents. We need to kick them out and let the world know we won’t accept criminals in our White House.

The Democrats were voted into office because the people wanted the troops to come home and the President to have a real opposition party. Since taking power, the Democrats have managed to rubber stamp Bush’s warrantless domestic spying and escalate the war (and they have the worst confidence rating since Gallup began keeping record—14%). But they still don’t get it.

Obama is more of the same ol’ same ol’. His PR has painted him as the charming new face of political change, yet he refuses to admit that our soldiers are dying in vain the war on an abstract noun.

I’m feeling broken-spirited and powerless to protect myself from the slow attrition of my liberties. I’m beginning to see that my vote doesn’t matter. Whether Republicrats or Demicans are in office seems to make no difference. There will be more of the same. Those in power trot out some new faces every couple of years to reassure us, the voting masses, that we have the power to affect change. Too little do we suspect that it’s all a sham.

Both parties largely represent the same goals and agenda. Abortion, war, civil liberties, education are nothing more to the politicians than flags to wave to distract us from their real concern: power and the status quo. The better to serve their corporate masters.

I could vote for someone in another party who I believe would make real changes, but they don’t have a real chance of winning (yet?). To my recollection, no candidate that I have voted for has ever won a national election. Not a single one. Does that mean all my votes have been wasted? Have I been tricked into believing that my vote matters?

So tell me again: why should I vote?

Daydreaming

2007-08-01T23:08:50Z

When I was a kid, I used to love to daydream about being really small, like the Borrowers (or the knockoff The Littles who were Borrowers with tails), only a little bit smaller. I would imagine how I would survive, what I would eat, where I would live, etc. In my mind’s eye, I would build tree forts, or burrows below the bushes, or holes in the walls. I imagined harvesting food and re-purposing human trash. Everywhere I went, I could look around and wonder what it would be like to live there as a tiny human being. My everyday surroundings assumed a new, exotic dimension.

My imaginings served no great purpose that I could see. I would never be that small, no matter how much fun I thought it would be, so my daydreams weren’t preparing me just in case I got zapped by cosmic rays or bitten by radioactive spiders. My thoughts weren’t exploring the frontiers of human thought or helping anyone to find meaning in life. My thoughts weren’t for a purpose; they were just for fun.

Now that I’m an adult, I spend a lot of time doing things. I use my thinking time to accomplish something. I only have so much time as a conscious being on this planet, so I have to learn and do as much as I can while I can. I have to do and think Important Things. I have set Important Goals. My dreams have to be about contributing significantly to the world, leaving behind a memorable legacy.

As I took a quick walk across campus (to clear my head so I could finish up some reports), I looked around and remembered those hours spent daydreaming as a child about being a little person. I wondered what I would do to survive if I lived over in those bushes below the pine trees. What would I make my house out of? How would I defend myself from the birds and the feral cats? Where would I get food? How would I avoid people?

I let go of doing and thinking significant things for just a moment. For a moment, I thought trivial thoughts just for the fun of it and felt a weight lift off my shoulders.