[Oe List ...] Healing Energy for LouAnne

[Sharry Lachman]

Dear friends and colleagues,
LouAnne has just received a diagnosis of cervical cancer. We won't  
know anything more for a couple of weeks (British healthcare system).  
We ask for your healing energy, light, candles, prayers, etc. Her  
email is 	loulachman at yahoo.com  if you'd like to correspond with her  
directly. Lynde's email is  	lynde at uoregon.edu	Thanks for whatever  
you can do.
Sharry & Wesley
On Jun 12, 2007, at 8:47 AM, LAURELCG at aol.com wrote:

Joan Chittister responds to the recent interview of Democratic   
candidates
about their religious lives

The baptism of a president
By Joan Chittister

Created Jun 7 2007  - 08:15

> From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB

June 7,  2007
Vol. 5, No. 5

Frankly, I thought the questions not only  completely missed the  
mark, they
trivialized the very subject they purported  to talk about.

"How do you pray?" they asked Hillary Clinton, Barack  Obama and John  
Edwards
on national TV. "What's the biggest sin you've ever  committed?" the
interviewer wanted to know. "Do you believe in evolution?"  she  
asked, "And
if so are the churches that believe in it wrong?" she  prodded. "What  
got you
through marital infidelity?" she went on. "Is this a  Christian  
nation?" she
asked while millions of people listened for right  answers with bated  
breath.

It was not a local faith sharing group we were  watching. It was part  
of the
televised process of electing a president in the  United States of  
America.

So where were the rest of the questions? Like:  Do you sleep at night  
knowing
that the longer you do nothing about ending the  war in Iraq that  
more people
will die? Or, does it bother your conscience  that the more money we  
spend on
war, the more children in this country will  go without food or  
education or
medicine? Or, do you ever pray that we'll  start spending money on  
child care
so women won't feel a need to have an  abortion? Or, do you ever ask  
God to
forgive you for supporting torture in  the name of security?

Religion, indeed, has become the flavor of the day.  The religion of
Democrats, at least, since Republican candidates were  woefully  
missing from
moral scrutiny. To be elected president these days, not  only must  
Democratic
candidates be able to promise that their religions guide  their personal
lives but they must be able to prove that they will work hard  to see  
that
their religious beliefs determine how they deal with everybody  else's
religion, as well.

Analyzing the question of faith in the life  of presidential  
candidates after
the televised debate, Ralph Reed, past chair  of the Christian  
Coalition,
made the point: quoting scripture is not enough.  Democrats, he  
inferred,
aren't really sincere about religion. "Liberal  Democrats," he  
insisted, with
their commitment to reversing tax cuts, to  universal health care and to
"cut-and-run policies in Iraq," cannot be  accepted in the polling  
booth by
Evangelical voters for whom "action speaks  louder than words."

The idea was that moral actions, not spiritual talk,  is what really  
counts.

The question is: What moral actions?

The  behaviors that matter, it seems, have more to do with personal  
positions
on  personal moral issues -- homosexuality, stem cell research, same-sex
marriage  and abortion -- than actions having to do with the moral  
dimensions
of the  public behavior of the nation.

And Ralph Reed may well be correct. Polls  tell us that the more  
frequently
people go to church, the more conservative  they are on social  
issues. For
those people, apparently, private morality  outweighs the social
responsibilities emphasized in scripture and  demonstrated by Jesus  
over and
over again.

Republican candidates  generally have run on issues of private  
morality. On
the other hand,  Democrats have built their platforms more on social  
issues.

Frequently,  therefore, the religious character of Democratic  
candidates is
suspect while  the religious character of Republican candidates seems  
to go
without  question.

As a result, the issue of what constitutes the kind of  religious  
commitment
that is equal to the political questions of the time  becomes paramount.

If the questions we are asking our presidential  candidates are any  
sign of
what we think religion is all about, Jesus would  not do well in these
elections.

The woman taken in adultery -- the  woman about to be stoned for sexual
behavior forbidden by the law -- Jesus  dismisses with a wave of the  
hand and
an exhortation.

But the cripple  -- in a world where sickness is seen as punishment  
for sin
-- Jesus cures.  The marginalized woman -- in a world where women were
invisible and  discrimination was rank -- Jesus raises from the dead.  
The
outcast leper --  in a world that shunned the wounded -- Jesus  
touches. In a
world where  Sabbath laws superseded individual discomfort, Jesus  
feeds the
disciples by  gleaning on the Sabbath.

"The blind see, the deaf hear, the poor have the  Good News preached to
them," he gives as a sign of the coming of the Kingdom.  In a world  
where
such as these are not only social outcasts but considered  morally  
unclean as
well, he takes responsibility for the marginalized of the  society. No
questions asked; no punishments imposed; no exceptions  made.
He does not demean them. He does not deny them entry into the social   
order.
He does not criminalize them. He does not call them  sinners.

Which gets us to the irony of it all.

What kind of a  society does each of these presently contrary moral
definitions produce?  Which is really the most religious? Whose  
religious
values should really be  in question: those who preach the Gospel of  
power
and wealth for the wealthy  and powerful or those who proclaim the  
rights of
the poor, both here and  everywhere else, in a society where wealth is
worshipped?

We're  beginning to see it happen.

An otherwise little touted but surprising bit  of information gives  
us a clue
to the answer to that question in contemporary  USA.

According to the Global Peace Index released by The Economist   
magazine May
29, the United State is among the least peaceful nations in the   
world. (See
www.visionofhumanity.com [1])

Of the 121 nations  evaluated, the United States ranks 96th, between  
Yemen
and Iran. Iraq the  report ranks as the least peaceful of all, right  
after
Russia, Israel and  Sudan.

This new Global Peace Index, rather than simply measuring the   
presence or
absence of war as an index of harmony and public security, is  based  
on 24
indicators designed to explore what its creators call "the  texture of
peace."

The study's domestic indicators include "the level  of violent crime,  
the
level of respect of civil rights, the number of  homicides per 100,000
people, the level of its military expenditures, its  ease of access  
to small
arms, its relations with neighboring countries and  the level of  
distrust
among citizens."

Using grand words to glorify  war, making war and personal morality the
measure of the moral fiber of a  nation while ignoring the domestic  
climate,
the human needs and the civil  rights of the nation itself does not a  
moral
nation make.

There is, it  seems, a question about the quality of religion in this  
country
on both sides  of the divide.

Those who would lead us in the future may rightly be asked  whether  
or not
religious principles will guide their public behavior. But  those who  
are
leading us now have questions to answer, too -- which, if the   
quality of
life in the United States for all its citizens and the character  of our
behavior toward the rest of the world is any measure -- certainly   
equals, if
not far transcends, our concentration on private behavior as a   
determinant
of our public morality.

> From where I stand, the model of  Jesus is a clear one: A religious  
> life is
defined by more than personal moral  choices. It demands actions  
designed to
make the world better for everyone.  Those who claim to be Christian  
might
want to remember that when they start  choosing presidents on the  
basis of
their "Christian  principles."
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