Conserving Comm[on]Unity

Here's Wendell Berry's manifesto for conserving community through localism. Berry argues persuasively that: "the great, centralized economic entities of our time do not come into rural places in order to improve them by 'creating jobs.' They come to take as much of value as they can take, as cheaply and as quickly as they can take it.... They are structures in which, as my brother says, "the buck never stops." The buck is processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to "the shareholders," who characteristically are too widely dispersed, too poorly informed, and too unconcerned to be responsible for anything. The ideal of the modern corporation is to be (in terms of its own advantage) anywhere and (in terms of local accountability) nowhere."

Our experience calls us to action. Says Berry, "We are now pretty obviously facing the possibility of a world that the supranational corporations, and the governments and educational systems that serve them, will control entirely for their own enrichment-and, incidentally and inescapably, for the impoverishment of all the rest of us This will be a world in which the cultures that preserve nature and rural life will simply be disallowed. It will be, as our experience already suggests, a postagricultural world. But as we now begin to see, you cannot have a postagricultural world that is not also postdemocratic, postreligious, postnatural-in other words, it will be posthuman, contrary to the best that we have meant by "humanity."

The work, says Berry, is to recognize the emerging "party of local community." The membership of this party is scattered, but increasingly self-aware, he writes. "They are people who take a generous and neighborly view of self-preservation; they do not believe that they can survive and flourish by the rule of dog eat dog; they do not believe that they can succeed by defeating or destroying or selling or using up everything but themselves. They doubt that good solutions can be produced by violence. They want to preserve the precious things of nature and of human culture and pass them on to their children. They want the world's fields and forests to be productive; they do not want them to be destroyed for the sake of production. They know you cannot be a democrat (small d ) or a conservationist and at the same time a proponent of the supranational corporate economy. They believe-they know from their experience-that the neighborhood, the local community, is the proper place and frame of reference for responsible work. 'They see that no commonwealth or community of interest can be defined by greed. They know that things connect-that farming, for example, is connected to nature, and food to farming, and health to food-and they want to preserve the connections. They know that a healthy local community cannot be replaced by a market or an entertainment industry or an information highway. They know that contrary to all the unmeaning and unmeant political talk about "job creation," work ought not to be merely a bone thrown to otherwise unemployed. They know that work ought to be necessary; it ought to be good, it ought to be satisfying and dignifying to the people who do it, and genuinely useful and pleasing to the people for whom it is done."

Berry continues with a 17-point charter for governance of the local common wealth, and thoughts about growing local food supply as a core process in the system.

Break the chains to Wal-Mart

Speaking of returning the holy to the holidays, here's a national campaign to "buycott" Wal-Mart and the other "big box" stores in favor of local, organic, sustainable. Includes a directory of eco-friendly products.

May WalMart merchandise the holidays without us

Here's a wonderful essay by Meredith Jordan that reminds us to treasure the holy in our upcoming holidays.

Clergy decry the co-opting of religious values

In a clarion letter to our weekly newspaper in Amhest, Mass., local Christian and Jewish clergy call us all to do more than passively watch the current administration destroy our world and the lives of our fellows, and in the name of God.

Does Wal-Mart support "familyvalues"?

The conversation about how to best protect the family will be expanded formally Nov. 13-20 during a "Wal-Mart Week of Action" sponsored by the United Church of Christ.

The actions don't include boycott, but rather seek to open a conversation about whether Wal-Mart's employee treatment is good for the families and communities it serves.

"Does Wal-Mart really support strong, healthy families with its employment practices? Does it seek to contribute to the long-term economic health and stability of the regions where it does business?" [UCC President] Thomas asks. "Thus far, Wal-Mart has not been able to demonstrate that it really says 'yes' to these critical questions."

A centerpiece of the week's actions will be coordinated screenings for UCC congregations of "The Wal-Mart Movie" by Robert Greenwald.

Flowers of Kauai and friend

Flowers are everywhere on Kauai. Here are a few, and a green friend...

Becoming Like Sheep

My Sermon on Good Shepherd Sunday is more about the sheep than the shepherd.

A Short History

From Richard Wilbur:

"Corn planted us; tamed cattle made us tame.
Thence hut and citadel and kingdom came."

- Mayflies, Harcourt 2000

Centering Meditation

Here is a centering meditation I like from Marcus Borg. Note: though the preceding linked page ignores it, I find an essential aspect of Borg's theology to be his recognition of the validity of paths outside Christianity. He points out, for instance, that though creeds and scriptures may appear contradictory, it's hard to tell one tradition from another when one reads their mystical poetry.

Eyes closed,
breathe slowly,
in through the mouth
and out through the nose,
repeating the words internally.

Inhale: Lord Jesus Christ,
Exhale: you are the Light of the World.
Inhale: Fill our minds with your peace
Exhale: and our hearts with your love.

Born Again

As Marcus Borg said a couple of years ago in Hartford, we need to reclaim the phrase "born again" from conservative interpretation only. I tried to do this in my sermon February 20.

Godspeed, Hunter Thompson

An exotic bird was lost last night when Hunter Thompson shot and killed himself. Our environment is poorer for the loss. Thompson was among a very small group of people who told the truth in ways that the royal consciousness would consider utterly distasteful, even depraved, and who attained prominence despite their eccentricity. Who else can we think of? Jack Kerouac. Lenny Bruce. John Lennon. All dead before their time.

One of Thompson's unique values, I think, was that his gonzo-eccentric form was the perfect extension of his content. His voice was powerful because it told the truth in a way that embodied R.D. Laing's aphorism that (pardon the paraphrase), "in an insane society, only those considered insane can possibly be sane."

In the end, his exoticism was too fragile to be sustained in the pressures of our times. He took too much on his own shoulders. I'm sorry he didn't receive the help he so clearly needed, and I will pray for him.

According to The National Ledger, Thompson "was particularly dejected with the results of the 2004 presidential election and wrote this in his Page 2 column for ESPN on November 9th:

"The Summer is over
the harvest is in,
and we are not saved."
-- Jeremiah 8:20

Well, the election is over now, and I was pitifully wrong on my public prediction about the outcome. George W. Bush won handily; and my friend, John Kerry, lost by three percentage points -- which was every bit as big in a vicious presidential election as it was on the football field last night when the low-riding Indianapolis Colts kicked a last-second field goal to beat Minnesota 31-28.

I am no stranger to the anguish of losing a presidential campaign, and this very narrow loss with John Kerry is no exception. It hurt, as always, but it didn't hurt as much as that horrible beating we took with George McGovern in 1972. That was by 22 points, the worst defeat in any presidential campaign since George Washington ran for a second term in 1787.
And the winner that year was a conquering hero named Richard Nixon, who got whacked out of office two years later because he was a crook. We had a very angry Democratic majority in the Senate that year, which is not the case now.

No. Today, the Panzer-like Bush machine controls all three branches of our federal government, the first time that has happened since Calvin Coolidge was in the White House. And that makes it just about impossible to mount any kind of Congressional investigation of a firmly-entrenched president like George Bush.

There's a decent obituary in the Washington Post. Michelle Malkin's blog has a memorial roundup.

And we all know how this turned out...
Thanks to Bill for this awful déja-vu:

"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam."

- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled 'U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,' September 4, 1967.