Musings

The Church Confesses

 

churchconfession  by Jim Burklo

 

"I am the church, and this is my confession.  My last confession was 500 years ago.  I have oppressed women and kept them out of leadership positions.  I have oppressed gay and lesbian people.  I have judged people pointlessly for having normal sexual urges and relationships, treating sex like a disease instead of lifting it up as a precious gift from God.  I have failed to see the absurd irony of being the church of Jesus, a humble servant, while pridefully claiming that my religion is the only true faith.  I have twisted the Bible to claim that it endorses slavery, wars, greed, and cruelty.  I have resisted social and scientific progress by claiming to interpret the Bible literally, when it was never intended to be read that way.  I am sorry for these sins and for all the sins of my past life.  I commit myself to turning from the errors of my ways.  I will follow Jesus’ way of unconditional love.  I will joyfully and creatively practice my Christian tradition without claiming that it is the only way to God.  I will praise and worship God as Love, instead of as a capricious, supernatural “guy in the sky”.  I affirm the sexuality of LGBTQ people, and will celebrate their marriages.  I will honor women as equals to men in church and society.  I will work with people of other faiths, or of no faith at all, to protect the planet, promote peace and social justice, and create a heaven of kindness on earth.  More about my commitment to change at ProgressiveChristianity.org and ProgressiveChristiansUniting.org.   Amen."

 

Make your own Church Confession!  Get a model of a church.  And get an  EZSound Box with 10 inch extension play button.  Record the words above into it.  Put sound box inside or near the model of the church, with the button out front.  Use at events, coffee hour, or make your own video as a playful way to spread the message of our progressive Christian movement.

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

The Shape of Christmas

"The Pink Moment", Ojai, CA, 12/1/18

 

The Shape of Christmas

By Jim Burklo    12-3-18  

(See my many other Advent/Christmas poems here. Use freely with attribution.)

 

My mind is a maze with the turns of the journey

The wise men wandered while aimed at the star

Their ears had the form of the wings of the angels

Attuned to the music they sang from afar

 

The shape of my spite looks a lot like King Herod’s

The innkeeper’s answer describes my disdain

My fear is the terror first felt by the shepherds

The birth-pangs of Mary give voice to my pain

 

My soul is a hole in the shape of a manger

A silence that begs for a baby’s soft cry

A darkness that yearns for a child’s wide-eyed wonder

On seeing that blaze in the evening sky….

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Hope in the Ashes

 

The sharp tang of ash made my nostrils flare as I walked on the powdery dirt of the trail in the mountains above Malibu.  Apocalypse came to more than one California paradise in recent weeks.  Blackened branches of scrubby sumac reached vainly into the air.  Green blankets of chaparral were reduced to grey dust.  Oaks on steep slopes were scorched, sycamores in the arroyos were singed.  96,949 acres of stunning wilderness went up in smoke, obliterating the plant and animal life along many of the trails most loved by Angelenos, including myself.

 

I was not supposed to be hiking on the Backbone Trail.  Only later did I learn that the whole National Recreation Area was closed.  When I got to the trailhead, there were no signs to that effect, so up the steep path I climbed.  Some of the vegetation on the trail was intact, some was stained red with fire retardant dropped from planes, and some was blackened.  As I hiked higher, I could see that the Castro trail on the ridge was burned over.  Same with the trail to the site where the M.A.S.H. shows were filmed.  Same with the trails in upper Las Virgenes Canyon and on Simi Mountain.

 

When I was in high school in Santa Cruz, CA, our biology teacher, Ed Borovatz, taught us about the "greenhouse effect" - an early term for what we now call "human-caused climate change" resulting from CO2 emissions.  Through Ed's intervention, I was appointed, at the age of 16, to the Student Council on Pollution and the Environment.  It was an advisory group set up by the Nixon administration to monitor and co-opt student environmental activists.  I was by far the youngest student on the Council.  Most of the others were leftist graduate students.  We traveled on federal vouchers, meeting with government officials.  The grad students were wise to Nixon's machinations.  They arranged for us to visit universities on each of our trips and radicalize students into the ecology movement, at government expense! 

 

On one of our trips, we had a private meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, Wally Hickel, an affable fellow who had served as the governor of Alaska.  It violated my innocent assumptions that, for a big shot, he was so short in stature.  I asked him a question based on my new-found knowledge about CO2 in the atmosphere.  "Mr. Hickel, shouldn't the government tax gasoline at a very high rate, in order to reduce consumption and lower emissions?"

 

Wally Hickel looked me right in the eye and said "Young man, you're absolutely right.  That is exactly what should happen.  But it is politically impossible."  I was upset at the answer, but had to respect the forthright manner in which he delivered it.

 

The year: 1970.

 

Forty-eight years later, the current Secretary of the Interior is on a mission, head-bent and hell-bound, to pump more oil and blast more coal out of the ground.  The President maintains his denial of the reality of human-caused global warming even as he tours the devastation left by the worst fires in California history.  This week in Paris, where the French government fully recognizes the climate threat, people are storming the streets to protest a gasoline tax increase imposed to mitigate the effects of CO2 emissions. 

 

Gazing at mile after mile of denuded peaks and scorched hills, I felt despondent that half a century later, Wally Hickel's answer could still be true. 

 

"Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."  (St. Paul in Romans 8: 24-25)  From the Backbone Trail, hope definitely was not seen.  What hope remains within me for rectifying our collective damage to the planet lies buried by thick layers of ash.  Yet like the seeds of California chaparral plants that lie dormant until cracked open by wildfire, germinating to green the mountains once again, I must wait with patience for hope to spring up.

 

My hike was preceded by weekends spent knocking on doors in northern Los Angeles County for Katie Hill, a young Democrat.  Gazing at the massive turnout of other volunteers on the last day of canvassing, my eyes filled with tears, sensing that the impossible might be possible after all.  She - and we - eked out a victory.  But that was just the beginning.  There are so many more doors to knock, and so little time. 

 

So may holy hope rise out of the ashes, grow big, and move us to action.....

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natural Spirituality

 

THE NEW SCIENCE OF NATURAL SPIRITUALITY

Lisa Miller, professor at Columbia University, is a leading researcher into the new scientific field of “natural spirituality”, which she describes in her 2015 book, “The Spiritual Child”.  There are now separate neurophysiological metrics for the human relationship with the transcendent, a realm that until recently was folded into psychology and sociology.  Miller has popularized awareness of spirituality as a distinct developmental process, to be taken as seriously by parents and scientists as physical and psychological growth. 

Miller calls for parents, regardless of their religious or non-religious orientations, to nurture actively the natural spiritual inclinations of their children.  The awe and wonder of children deserve the awe and wonder of adults.  An observant Jew, she is very “religion-friendly”, but she assumes that the non-religious can be just as helpful in their kids’ spiritual growth as those who follow formal faiths. 

This new science opens the prospect that public education may someday include active nurture of students’ spirituality, but in a pedagogical form that makes no mention of traditional religions.  The new field of developmental natural spirituality may result in a secular replacement for the functions of religion.  My boss and I started a big program called Mindful.USC.  The classes we offer have no religious content.  But mindfulness is certainly the content of a lot of religion.  So here we are, the Office of Religious Life, replacing religion with a secular substitute!  A kind of Stevia for the soul?  And yet I find that our program has inspired many students to take greater interest in the contemplative traditions of Christianity.  Mindfulness is now liberated from religion.  But it also has the potential to liberate religion from the confines of dogma.

Meanwhile, other research is revealing the neural pathways and brain processes of healing.  Research demonstrates that the “placebo effect” works even when the subjects of the research are told that the medication they are taking is indeed a placebo.  Believing that the pill is real medicine, even when it is not, is not required.  It appears that the “active ingredient” of the placebo effect is going to the doctor, getting attentive care, getting a prescription, and taking the pill.  “This is the specific effect of the ritual of medicine,” says a researcher, Ted Kaptchuk, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston.   It is fair to extrapolate from his findings that there can be a similar positive effect from the rituals of religion. 

Further research is beginning to reveal the chains of neurochemical events in the brain associated with the positive placebo response.  It is deeply ironic that this might lead to the development of drugs that could mimic the effect of placebos!  Apparently, people differ in their positive responses to the rituals of medicine.  This suggests that certain genotypes might derive more or less benefit from the gestures of caring offered by doctors and nurses.  This finding could lead to the tailoring of medical caring rituals to the genomes of particular patients.

"Entheogens" are chemicals that reveal God.  Important research was done on the benefits of hallucinogens in the 50’s and 60’s.  Then came the Electric Koolaid Acid Test and the images of young people turned into zombies by drugs in the late 60’s.  The reputation of these drugs was badly damaged.  But now there is a resurgence of interest in them.  New research is underway into their potential for treating addictions and depression.  And there is a resurgence of excitement in the mysticism-inducing effects of these drugs. 

Imagine that you come to church for the first time, and when you get in the door you are given a quick prick on your finger for a blood test.  Depending on your genotype as revealed in the test, you’ll be sent to a specific part of the church, where a worship service will be conducted in a manner most beneficial for you.  When you take communion in that worship service, the bread comes in a cellophane wrapper and the wine comes in a little zip-top container.  These have been dosed with neurotransmitter drugs specifically designed for your genetic makeup.  While the choir sings music most appropriate for your spiritual genotype, you eat the wafer and drink the shot of wine, and in a few minutes you have entered the sublime realm of the divine. 

This scenario was the substance of a story I wrote about 35 years ago:  “The First Theochemical Church”.  The protagonist was a woman declared a heretic because she refused to take communion laced with designer entheogenetic drugs.  She was shunned for trying to experience God directly without the intervention of pharmacology. 

Which is what we've been doing all along!  Science is just now confirming what we've always known:  our religion, when practiced wisely and deeply, is good for us.  At least some of our spiritual practices actually, objectively benefit our natural spirituality as well as enhance our mental and physical health. 

 

We progressive Christians are humble about our version of the faith.  (Which is why so few people know that we exist!)  We don’t think our way is the only way, nor even that our way is better than all other ways. But it might be time to re-think our humility.  In our progressive congregations, the communion ritual of stepping forward to dip a piece of bread into a cup of wine, and then eating it, may be health-inducing.   We don’t think of the bread and wine as the active ingredients: we don’t take “transubstantiation” literally.  But the neural pathways activated by the ritual of communion with bread and wine may well make a palpable difference in enhancing our natural spirituality and mental and physical well-being.   

Brain science is beginning to explain or at least describe and confirm our spiritual experiences.  We’re at a point where we can isolate the neural pathways that correspond with mystical religious awakenings.  Atheists may conclude that this is proof of that God is nothing more than a human construct built around our genetic propensity to create meaning out of our experiences.  The discovery of a discrete developmental process of the unfolding of universal natural spirituality might suggest that religion is optional, unnecessary, and perhaps even a hindrance to this process.  We may be able, finally, to explain religion away as a product of our innate spirituality.  But why do we have this propensity?  Who or what etched it into the very structure of our brains?  If we’re hard-wired for transcendence, doesn’t that suggest that the experience of union with Ultimate Reality is hard-wired into the cosmos?  Holy awe appears to be a feature of our human nature.  So what does that say about the nature of Nature as a whole?  Through us and other sentient beings within it, is Nature in awe of itself? 

Progressive Christians are perfectly positioned to embrace and employ these new scientific findings.  We made peace with science long ago.  The more we learn from the new science of natural spirituality, the better we'll be able to refine our spiritual tradition so it can be more effective in serving souls. 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Microdosing on Christianity

It's been a thing for a while in Silicon Valley.  Computer engineers, seeking a creative edge, take small doses of hallucinogens on a regular basis. They claim it enhances their problem-solving capacities without impairing their ability to function.  (Having lived in that part of the world for over two decades, I can attest that while IQ's are high in Silicon Valley, EQ's - emotional intelligence quotients - are often not up to par.  Folks in that business already get away with odd behavior, so who notices or cares if they microdose on the job?)

 

Hearing about this phenomenon got me to thinking.  What else could people microdose, to good effect?  Then it dawned on me that Christianity might well be a candidate.

 

I'm into a strong dose of Christianity every day.  Works for me!  But people are different.  Some folks can't deal with full-strength Christianity - not even the progressive kind.  So they forget the whole thing.  But some of them might find that microdosing on the faith could do them good, and serve those whose lives they touch.  I don't believe anyone goes to hell for failing to accept all or any of the Christian tradition.  But I am enthusiastic about welcoming into it those who have any level of interest.

 

So in this spirit, here I offer some perfectly legal microdoses of Christian spiritual practice:

 

1.)  Mystical contemplative prayer.  For twenty minutes, daily or at least weekly, pray like Jesus did in the desert before he started his ministry.   Go to a quiet place – a metaphorical desert, if not a physical one - and get into a physical position in which your body will be comfortable but you'll be unlikely to fall asleep.  (The “lotus position”, seated with legs crossed and tailbone slightly elevated on a little pillow, is just one way to achieve this balance.)  Close your eyes, and in silence, observe whatever arises to take your attention.  The object of your observation can be anything at all.  A thought.  An idea. A sensation – something your body feels, something you hear.  A memory.  A scheme for the future.  It can be an urge – a desire – a sense of needing or wanting to do something.  Just watch the urge.  Let it be.  Watch all that arises and passes, observing with non-judgmental, caring attention.  Be a quiet presence, like a friend who stays close in silence with a loving attitude toward you.  As you enter into deeper and deeper present awareness of your physical and mental experiences, ask yourself:  who is doing the watching?  Who is paying loving, non-judgmental attention to your experiences?  The answer of the mystical teachers of the church is that God is doing the watching within and through you.  Awakening to the presence of God within you is the moment of your spiritual union with the divine.

 

2.)  Adore the sacrament.  This is an adaptation of a very old Catholic spiritual practice of contemplative prayer in front of a "tabernacle" box containing the wafer of bread for communion, blessed by the priest as the "body of Christ".  Take a cracker or a loaf of bread or a piece of bread.  Place it on a table or mantel or other surface where you can comfortably gaze at it.  Look at the bread for ten minutes.  The ritual of communion, or eucharist, has many meanings in Christianity.  What are its meanings for you?  A simple one to consider is that by mindfully observing and appreciating everyday things like bread and wine, we enter into spiritual communion with the universe.  We can experience the whole by fully embracing the particular.  The bread becomes a window through which we are able to see and experience the Ultimate Reality.  Look at the bread, admire it, consider its origins in fields of wheat tended by farmers, in the hands of bakers and shop-keepers.  Love the bread with your deep attention.  Then, slowly and with reverence, step forward and take it and eat it, savoring the experience.

 

3.)  Listen to the Christ.  At least once a day, as you are listening to another person talk, imagine that the person is the Christ.  The name "Christ" has layers of meaning and significance in Christianity, but you don't need to know them all.  Just go with one of those meanings, such as this:  the Christ appears in our encounters with other people where unconditional love is shared.  When you are with another person, and you are paying deep attention to them, and releasing judgment toward them, and/or they are doing the same toward you, then that person becomes the Christ.  First imagine that the person is the Christ, and then "love your way" into that reality through deep listening - which is one of the highest forms of service we can offer each other.

 

4.)  Choose your focus in worship.  When you are in a church for worship or another occasion, and feel some trepidation about it, just choose one thing as your focus.  Maybe you can't handle a full dose of the Lord's Prayer, for example - so just pick out a word or phrase from it that speaks to you, and meditate on it.  Pick out some feature of the worship space and focus your attention on it.  Let an image or a snippet of a hymn or a phrase from the sermon become the "mustard seed" for your contemplative prayer.  Christianity should be a gift, not a burden.  So reverently receive the gift from the church that most speaks to and for you, and leave the rest alone for the time being. 

 

5.)  Turn acts of service into sacred offerings.  Our ability to give is itself a gift.  Our ability to serve others comes from a Source beyond ourselves.  So when we do any act of kindness for others in our jobs, our homes, or our communities, we can dedicate it in silent prayer:  "I serve in the name of the Christ."  It's a way of acknowledging that true service is "selfless", given while releasing any expectation of reward, as Jesus taught us in his Sermon on the Mount.

 

You don't have to identify as a Christian to microdose on Christianity.  But if taking it a small step at a time begins to work for you, don't be surprised if you start taking more!

 

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

A Story to Tell

A Song In Search of A Tune....

Every so often, I'll have a dream in which I hear music.  I'll wonder: who wrote that song?  and wake up and realize that I had dreamed it up.  Though it never feels like I had anything to do with it. 

That happened again a few nights ago.  Heard a country song, a slow oom-pah-pah, ooom-pah-pah -- and woke up remembering some of the words.  Later I finished the lyrics.

I am hoping that one or more of you with musical inclinations will have fun with this and go public with it.  I'm imagining a female country and western vocalist belting this out with feeling.  I have no interest in making money from this - it is my free gift to the Resistance - just asking for attribution.  Play with it - pass it along!

 

A Story to Tell

By Jim Burklo

 

So drunk you enjoyed it

So drunk you forgot

Years passed and you never

Much gave it a thought

 

But I still remember

Your hands on my neck

You wrestled and choked me

And left me a wreck

 

And now you'll deny it

And brush it away

Cause men who have power

Will have the last say

 

Who'd want to forget it?

Who's forced to recall?

Let these be the questions

In front of us all

 

I may get no justice

It won't turn out well

But I'm finding my courage

Got a story to tell

 

It’s not fair and balanced

What’s his and what’s hers

It won’t come out even

My word against yours

 

But my story will haunt you

Get a grip on your soul

Like what you did to me

On that night long ago

 

So I'm finding my courage

Got a story to tell

And I'm finding my courage

Got a story to tell... a story to tell.....

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

 

Votivator: How I'm Voting in LA, CA, Nov 6, 2018

 

A VOTIVATOR is a person who researches candidates and propositions for every election, and votes every time - and lets her/his friends and neighbors know about his/her voting choices.  Copying a trusted votivator's votes is an honorable way to participate in democracy.  Over time, people who follow votivators can become informed votivators themselves! 

Rituals to use and spread, to encourage people to vote:

Ask someone you are encouraging to vote: "With which hand will you vote in the upcoming election?"  With both of your hands, clasp that hand, look the person in the eyes, and say:  "May love guide your hand to vote for the common good."

 

A silent or spoken ceremony for individuals, in the ballot box, after filling out an absentee ballot at home, or when putting the absentee ballot into the mail.... Salute your ballot and say aloud or silently: “I thank God for all the Americans who risked their lives defending my sacred right and duty to vote.”

 

Remember to wave the flag - put one in front of your house on voting day, and wave one when you march/demonstrate.... The American flag belongs to us.  If we are to have any hope of bringing this nation together again with shared values and larger purpose, political progressives must wave the flag. 

 

Put a "Christians for" bumpersticker on the yard sign or on your bumper next to the candidate of your choice. 

 

Sources of info for California voters:

I always read the LA Times endorsements – and take them seriously, even though I don’t always agree with them.   The LA Times’ list is particularly useful for making choices about judges – about which there is very little information, which is a real problem.  For judges, to be sure the candidates are even qualified to serve, it’s good to look at the local bar association’s report:  LA COUNTY BAR EVALUATIONS .  Here's a way to compare judge candidates to find out which ones better support criminal justice reform from the ACLU...
https://www.votesmartjustice.org/candidates?state=CA&congress_district=28&assembly_district=50&state_senate_district=24

Next Ten/ California Choices  is a statewide organization that is a coalition of “good governance” groups.  I admire their perspective – this site is full of good analysis, particularly of the ballot propositions.

https://votesmart.org – good source of non-partisan info about candidates .

Easy Voter Guide. Breaks down the Propositions clearly, lists pros & cons. Defines offices that affect all of California. 5 languages available.
https://www.easyvoterguide.org/

Voter’s Edge California. Neither supports nor opposes political parties, ballot measures, or candidates for public office.
https://votersedge.org/ca

League of Women Voters of California Education Fund:   https://lwvc.org/vote/elections/ballot-recommendations

COOL TOOL: Use your address to get a personalized ballot.  Get info on candidates, measures, and who supports them.
https://votersedge.org/ca?fbclid=iwar0pmwy0mr7_isjw_9bkoemwwhz4kgjvitj1hmojkflgwaxgiiklc1yez2i 

 

 

My choices for 11/6:

 

Governor: Gavin Newsom.  He's got huge shoes to fill.  I have a hard time imagining life after Jerry Brown, but, sigh - here we are.  The state faces huge challenges which Gavin has been able to avoid discussing much because he's so far ahead in the polls.  His feet must be held to the fire, from day one, about the state pension fund crisis, the bullet train confusion, and the tough choices coming re: health care... for starters.

 

Lieutenant Governor:  Ed Hernandez - much more seasoned than his fellow Democrat opponent.

 

Secretary of State:  Alex Padilla. Doing a fine job, fighting the Trump/Republican efforts at voter suppression.

 

Controller:  Betty Yee.  She's destined for greater things in state government - impressive.  She's taking the lead on making proposals to rationalize the state's antiquated and inefficient taxation systems.

 

Treasurer:  Fiona Ma - also destined for greater things - She also is taking the lead in making proposals to improve the state's systems of financial investment.

 

Attorney General:  Xavier Becerra.  He is our state's leader in the fight against the excesses of the Trump administration.  28 lawsuits and counting!

 

Insurance Commissioner:  Ricardo Lara, a state senator.  His opponent, Poizner, ran for governor as a Republican in 2010 on an anti-immigrant platform- but this leopard is trying to change his spots by recently registering as an independent and swearing-off his previous rhetoric.  Poizner was a capable insurance commissioner when he had that role before - but I don't trust him anymore, after his run for governor.

 

Board of Equalization:  Tony Vasquez.  This candidate is qualified but not squeaky-clean.  But his Republican opponent claims to be a fierce defender of Prop 13 - and that is a big problem for me.

 

US Senator:  Dianne Feinstein.  So she's old.  So maybe she retires before her term is out.  Meanwhile, till then, she's an awesome senator.  She's a leader and a fighter against the Trump agenda.  And she is my heroine for preserving so much of the California desert.

 

Member of Congress:  Adam Schiff.  His high-profile these days is well-deserved. 

 

State Senator:  Ben Allen.  Doing a fine job -

 

State Assembly:  Laura Friedman.  Also doing a fine job.

 

Superintendent of Public Instruction:  Tony Thurmond.  Both candidates are worthy, but Tuck is way too cozy with the charter school movement, which is harming our public school system.  Charters need much more oversight.  Regular schools need to be protected from the de-funding and depopulation that charters have inflicted on them.   I think Thurmond will deliver more than Tuck on these fronts.

 

County Assessor:  Jeffrey Prang.  Doing a fine job.

 

Sheriff:  Jim McDonnell - incumbent.  I wavered on this one.  Serious reform is needed in the department, and he's delivering on it - but slower than we would like to see.  But he has momentum and now is not the time to lose it by changing leadership.

 

State Measure 1:  Yes - bonds for affordable housing projects. It's far from adequate to the task of meeting the demand -- we're 500,000 housing units short of what is needed in the state today - but this little bit will help.

 

State Measure 2:  Yes - makes Prop 62 mental health funds available for housing projects for homeless mentally ill.  Fits with the smart public policy trend toward "housing first" for the homeless - once they have stable housing, it's vastly easier for mental health, etc, treatment to "stick".

 

State Measure 3:  No - Bonds for needed water infrastructure.  This is a mash-up put together by special interests, particularly agri-business.  It's a grab-bag of funding for disparate projects, assembled to create "sweeteners" that appeal to a variety of constituents. Most of the goals are reasonable, but this should be broken up into separate bills in the Legislature or separate ballot initiatives.  Back to the drawing board!

 

State Measure 4:  Yes - Bonds for construction for children's hospitals. This is needed because so many children in these hospitals have their care funded by Medi-Cal, which pays rates that are not high enough for hospitals to use for capital construction and repair.

 

State Measure 5:  No.  Portability of property tax for senior or disabled homeowners, enabling them to keep paying the same tax rate when they buy other properties - even more expensive ones - elsewhere in the state.  This would benefit my wife and me, if and when we sell our house, but I think it just adds to the worsening disparity between those who can afford to own homes and those who cannot.  Schools and local governments would lose money if this passes.  What we need is a major overhaul of  Prop. 13 from 1978 - a disastrous ballot initiative that has distorted taxation and land use ever since it passed.

 

State Measure 6:  No.  Voting yes would eliminate the gas tax increase that funds road repair and construction, which was necessary because of increased fuel efficiency reducing the in-flow of gas tax revenue.  Contrary to Republican rhetoric, God will not miraculously repair roads for us.  We actually have to pay for them.

 

State Measure 7:  Yes.  Daylight Savings Time should be over for good!  What time is saved?  Time to keep our clocks steady, year-round.

 

State Measure 8:  No.  Controls pricing, etc, for kidney dialysis.  I'm going with the recommendation of the LA Times on this one.  The two companies targeted by this proposal are indeed villainous, raking in millions in bloated profits.  But this proposal is too blunt of an instrument.  More targeted legislation is needed to correct their predatory practices and get prices for dialysis out of the stratosphere.

 

State Measure 10:  Yes.  This allows for local jurisdictions to impose substantial rent control ordinances.  I do not believe in rent control.   It is bad public policy, generally.  It creates artificial incentives for people to "stay put" in their housing when otherwise it makes no sense for them to do so.  It discourages the already-inadequate incentive for developers to build rental housing.  It does nothing to make housing more accessible or affordable.  It is a bad idea, in most cases.  But the Costa-Hawkins act was an outrageous power-grab by landlords to deny local governments the ability to make these kinds of decisions.  Rent control should be a local decision, not a state matter.  Let local governments find out the hard way, if they must, that rent control is counterproductive.

 

State Measure 11:  Yes.  Another issue that should have no business appearing on our ballot - but alas, here it must be.  Just as public ambulance operators must do, this bill would require private ambulance workers to respond to emergency calls even when they are "on break". 

 

State Measure 12:  Yes.  Banning cages/close confinement for farm animals.  A refinement of Prop 2 ten years ago, which banned certain kinds of cages for hens.

 

County Measure W:  Yes.  W for water.  Part of the ongoing county/city effort to capture what little water falls from the sky and make the best use of it.

 

City Measure B:  Yes.  Allows LA City Council to create a City-owned bank.  This could be a model program that could lead to something I firmly believe to be necessary:  a State Bank of California, which would make better use of state funds and serve lots of different social benefits.  This idea has its great risks.  Such a bank would need to be independent of city politics - insulated from temptation to use it as a cash-cow, like we do with our DPW.  The state bank of North Dakota is a long-standing, well-run operation that should be emulated.

 

City Measure E:  Yes. Cleans up the recent ballot initiative that lines up city elections with state elections, reducing costs and hopefully increasing voter turnout.

 

School Measure EE:  Yes.  Does the same thing for LAUSD.

 

Judges:  I'm going with the LA Times on these choices.  YES to Supreme Court justices Carol Corrigan, Leondra Kruger  -- YES to Second District Court of Appeal judges Anne H. Egerton, Carl H. Moor, Dorothy C. Kim, Gail R. Feuer, Halim Dhanidina, Helen Bendix, John L. Segal, Lamar W. Baker, Luis A. Lavin, Martin J. Tangemen, Thomas Willhite, Victoria G. Chaney, Victoria M. Chavez, Arthur Gilbert, Elwood Lui, Nora M. Manella and Patricia A. Bigelow.   Superior Court: #4 Alfred Coletta, #16 Sydne Michel, #60 Holly Hancock, #113 Michael Ribons.

 

 

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

 

 

 

Resisting With Our Feet

-- and our hands and hearts....

 

A week and a half ago, I walked a precinct in Palmdale, in support of Katie Hill, the 31-year-old Democrat running for Congress in the 25th district of California.  We started at the Antelope Valley campaign headquarters.  The great majority of the volunteers were women, many of them young.  The enthusiasm was palpable.  There's real hope that this historically Republican district will flip in November. 

 

Knocking on doors in a suburban neighborhood, I got an ear- and eye-full of "retail politics".  Most folks weren't home, so I slid pamphlets with my handwritten notes under the doors.  Some would not open their doors.  Maybe it was the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses got to their doors before we did.  We saw pairs of them walking on the sidewalks, Bibles in hand.  These ubiquitous door-to-door canvassers are out there every weekend, pushing a message in opposition to ours:  they teach their members not to vote.

 

We were sent to the doors of Democrats.  One grumpy guy, the apparent spouse of a Democrat, slammed the door on me.  The encounters were otherwise friendly, but only a few folks seemed to realize who Katie was and what she was running for.  So it was time well-spent just to get her name in people's heads.

 

The angry hyper-partisan rants of Senate Republicans and of Brett Kavanaugh in response to the calm and credible allegations by Dr. Ford - the crowd chanting "lock her up!" after Trump insulted her integrity at his rally in Mississippi - provide all the inspiration we need to resist with our hands, hearts, and feet between now and November.  Here's how:

 

Walk precincts.   In "swing" districts, this will make a real difference.

 

Wave the flag.  The American flag belongs to us.  It represents democracy.  But too many folks have allowed it to be claimed as the exclusive symbol of the patriarchal oligarchy that controls our government today.  The flag represents our country as a whole.  Not just part of it.  So if we are to have any hope of bringing this nation together again with shared values and larger purpose, political progressives must wave the flag.  Take a big one with you to any demonstration or march you attend, and wave it.  Hang one in front of your house in the days running up to the election.  Poke a flagpole into the ground next to the yard sign of your local progressive candidate.   Put a "Christians for" bumpersticker on the yard sign or on your bumper next to the candidate of your choice.  Identifying progressive politics with patriotism and faith makes it easier for people to shift their political loyalties "leftward".

 

Bless the hands that vote.  Ask people you meet: "With which hand will you be voting in November?" Grasp that hand, look the person in the eyes, and bless them: "May love guide your hand to vote for the common good."  Voting is a ritual.  By putting even more ritual into it, by getting people to implicitly commit to voting, we engage them in the ritual and increase the likelihood that they'll show up and do it.

 

Follow - or become - a VOTIVATOR.  It's about voting on the "buddy system".  Copying the votes of politically-aware people you know and admire is a perfectly legitimate and appropriate way to participate in democracy.  The greater the number of people who vote, the more politicians must pay attention to all voters and respond to their concerns. Voting with your votivator increases his/her influence with politicians and political activists. As your votivator's profile is raised, your influence on the political process increases with theirs.  And in time, with more exposure to public affairs, you may become a votivator yourself.  Make your voting choices, and, with brief comments explaining them, email them out to your family and friends, or post them as an "event" on Facebook.  (I invented the word "votivator", and I hope people will use it freely!)

 

May love guide your hand to vote for the common good, and votivate others to do the same!

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern Californi

 

Bumperstickers and Campfires

A lot of people think they know what Christians are against:  gays, lesbians, the right to an abortion, other religions - and the list goes on.

 

Do they know what Christians are for? 

 

Given public perceptions, progressive Christians have a lot of explaining to do.  We have to go out of our way to make explicit that we're about full LGBTQ inclusion, women's rights, and cultural and religious pluralism... for starters.

 

That's what our new Progressive Christians Uniting bumpersticker is about.  It's bumpersticker season!  Put our sticker on your bumper - or elsewhere - above the other stickers that show where you stand on candidates and issues.  Show the world that there really are Christians who are FOR justice and kindness, and for the candidates running for office that share our spiritual values. 

 

Here's how to order your own: 

 

Go to this website.  Go to the upper right corner area and click Sign In - My Account.  There, enter this email address:  [email protected] .  Click "Yes, I have a password."  Enter this password:

christiansfor .  That will take you to a page where you will find our bumpersticker listed as a product.  Order your bumpersticker - as many as you want! 

 

______________________

 

CAMPFIRES ARE BLAZING

 

Here's an update on the new initiative I'm leading at the Office of Religious Life at the University of Southern California:  Campfires @ USC.  

 

It is about creating and sustaining the conditions for friendship and community to flourish on campus.  We launched it last month, and so far, it is going well.  The tag line:  "Ask questions - Make friends - Build community." 

 

The number one complaint of college students is loneliness.  And all university campuses face a mental health crisis which can't be fixed with more counseling services alone.  Campfires @ USC aims to be part of the solution to these challenges: 

 

A campfire gives people a focus while they hang out together.  There’s something elemental about it, no?  – going back to human pre-history.  A campfire encourages intimacy, but allows for quiet.  The sight and sound of it are soothing, encouraging reflection – an ideal environment for making friends!

So light a virtual fire, and gather round! —  in classes, Greek life, clubs, dorms, special events, or – just for the joy of it!  Get a group together in a circle.  Put your all your laptops and/or smart phones (with phones in airplane mode) in the center, all playing this campfire video (no need to synch – the sights and sounds blends together).  Start asking questions!

You don’t need a special reason for a campfire – any excuse is good!  The principle behind them all:  creating a convivial environment in which acquaintances can move toward real friendship.

CAMPFIRES re-purposes mobile phones - so often problematic in isolating students from face-to-face relationships - into means of encouraging in-person conversations based on this lists of questions.  Students, professors, resident assistants, and campus club leaders are already using the campfire video, and our lists of questions, in creative ways.  This program is open-ended, encouraging students and faculty to improvise.  See below for our list of special "Campfire" events and groups - including a new not-for-credit course on healthy relationships, CLICK!  - taught by my friend and colleague Cat Moore.  (See my "musing" about her remarkable community-building work here.)

 

Have a look!  Light "campfires" in your church, temple, school, community group, or other "gathering".  Let me know how you use it!

 

 

CAMPFIRES @ USC

ASK QUESTIONS – MAKE FRIENDS – BUILD COMMUNITY

“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.”  – Cicero, Roman philosopher, 44 BCE

ARTS OF CAMPFIRE –  Thursdays, 7 pm, URC 203 – – OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS — This weekly student-led “campfire” explores ways that clubs, residence halls, fraternities/sororities, and other groups – as well as individuals – can create the conditions for friendship and conviviality to thrive on campus.  Student org leaders are especially encouraged to attend on a drop-in or regular basis.  Among the topics:  facilitating club/group-wide intimacy, mindfulness in group settings, hosting meaningful and cool parties, friendship in the great outdoors, etc.  Contact student leader for details:  Lisa De Rafols – [email protected]

DREAM CAMPFIRE – Thursdays, 7 pm, URC 202 – analyze your nighttime dreams with other students – contact student leader for details:  Adam Jonah [email protected]

SOUL CAMPFIRE — Tuesdays, 7:30 pm, URC 202 — asking the burning questions of spirituality – interfaith/interspiritual – for all students.  Host:  Dr. Wanjiru M. Gitau, [email protected], USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

CLICK!  Making Meaningful Relationships – a free non-credit course for all students – 5 sessions – Oct 3-31, Wed’s, 12 – 1:30 pm, URC 201 – email orl.usc.edu to register – subject: “click class”.  Grow in your ability to make and maintain friendships.

GET ON THE LIST!  To hear about future CAMPFIRES – email orl.usc.edu – subject: “campfires” .

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

 

 

The Christian Life Is Impossible

 

Every so often, I read the Sermon on the Mount, to get back to the basics of my faith.

 

I read it last week, and had a revelation: the Christian life is impossible.

 

First-century Israel had no internet, no phone service, no newspapers, no television, no magazines.  Books - make that scrolls - were rare and precious and  few people could read them, in any case.  So in the biblical story of Jesus encountering a crowd of people on a hill, eager to hear him preach, that was his only chance to pass along his message.  Whatever he said that day must have been the sum of what he wanted them to hear. 

 

So it is striking to consider what was not in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7).  It had hardly any theology in it.  It had no dogma nor doctrine.  There was no reference to a virgin birth, to the Holy Trinity, transubstantiation, a doctrine of sin or of substitutionary sacrifice.  He was vague about the question of whether or not he was divine.  When he talked about hell, the word he used was Gehenna - the Jerusalem city dump, where unclaimed dead bodies were sometimes tossed.  He made no reference to abortion or homosexuality - hot topics in American Christianity today.  He didn't ask the people to believe anything about him.  He gave them no creed nor statement of faith.  What he wanted was not belief, but action.  He didn't ask them to worship him, but rather to follow him, and do life as he did it.  What we get in the Sermon on the Mount is the religion of Jesus - not the religion about the Christ that was created after his death.  

 

He told the people on the mount how to treat each other, how to change their hearts.  He told them to love their enemies.  But the definition of an enemy is somebody you don't love.  What does it even mean to love your enemy?  He told the crowd to give to anyone who asks, to lend to anyone who wants to borrow.  How do we run a banking system, then?  If we lend to anyone who asks, we'll have nothing in no time.  There is nothing about the Sermon on the Mount that defends the capitalist system, that's for sure.  But what's the realistic alternative?  He said that men should not lust after women who aren't their wives.  Now, heterosexual men can control themselves, channel their sexual desire, and avoid hurtful sexual relationships.  But ridding ourselves of carnal attraction is way, way too much to ask.  Jesus said that just having sexual desire for someone other than your spouse is the same as adultery, which in the first century, at least for women, was a capital offense.  He said that anger was the same as murder.  Good grief, if that were the case, we should all be rotting in solitary confinement right now!  

 

He ended his list of absurd expectations with this shocking demand:  be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.  Well, we're far from perfect, and we're never going to get there.  Maybe you saw the new Mr Rogers movie.  So beautiful and inspiring - I wept through the whole thing.  He might have been the nearest to perfect goodness that our country has ever seen, but he was married.  His wife knew perfectly well that he was not perfect, as every wife or husband knows about their mate. Mine certainly knows it about me!

 

So as I read again the words of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, I was boggled as never before at its outrageousness.  I wondered how this wild and crazy speech was passed down for all these generations.  It's so extreme, and the idea of succeeding in following it is so implausible.  

 

Yet it has gripped the hearts of untold millions.  At the age of sixteen, I heard the passage about loving one's enemies read aloud, and there was an explosion in my soul.  I felt love radiating out of my chest.  I realized that it was incredibly hard to love one's enemies, but it was beautiful to imagine being able to do it.  "Challenge accepted," my youthful heart responded, and that decision set me on the course of my life.

 

I was young and idealistic enough to think that I could actually do it.  Now, at age 65, having amassed a list of enemies, I have awakened to the realization that it is impossible.  This is my Fearless Sunday confession!  But I'm still in.  All in.  Now I get it that the Sermon on the Mount is a list of ridiculous expectations.  But I want to keep working at being perfect, even as the Cosmic Source of all life is perfect.  Because God is at the center of my being, and as long as I'm awake to my divine nature, I can move in the direction of kindness, forbearance, forgiveness, humility, patience, restraint, and creativity.  This perfection is already inside of me, yearning to come out.  Becoming perfect is way, way too much to ask of me or you or anyone.  But by asking it of us, Jesus attracts us toward it, awakens us to its presence already in our hearts.  Jesus asks me to follow.  While I may lag far behind, I'm sticking with this journey for the rest of my days.  

 

You don't have to believe anything to be a Christian.  Believing stuff is easy for some folks.  But religious beliefs are trivial compared to loving your enemies, which is insanely difficult for everyone.  Just this one passage from the Sermon on the Mount would be enough to occupy a person for an entire lifetime. To be a Christian is to strive to be Godlike despite crazy obstacles.  It is to say: "Challenge accepted," and start the never-ending journey.

 

The Christian life is impossible.  Therefore, let's live it, following Jesus as far and as fast as our stumbling feet can carry us.

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Senior Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California