… in a forest and no can hear it, does it make a sound?

That’s the classical question in philosophy. Here’s an analogous question for politics. If various groups make a political statement and no one pays attention, does it matter?

The first Tuesday in March is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. All the schools close and every locality, large and small engages in local politics the old-fashioned way. Up close and personal. Budgets are ratified. Bonds are approved. Or not. Roads are paved. Or graded. Here’s a photo of the building where Town Meeting is held in my hometown.

Lunch is often a potluck affair … in most communities. Everybody knows what everyone else will bring. The language of the meeting is ancient and timeless … a mash of Roberts Rules of Order and Old English. Votes are paper ballot, Australian ballot, and a variety of others. It’s quite complex. I spoke to my mother about an issue before this year’s meeting and discovered that in my parent’s house is a box with almost 40 years of Town Meeting Reports. This made me tired.

This year across the state many communities debated a resolution calling for the impeachment of the president and vice president of the United States. This was reported in the local papers (Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus):

Nearly 30 Vermont towns have called for President Bush’s impeachment on charges that he and Vice President Dick Cheney misled the country into war with Iraq and violated the Constitution.

But I have yet to see it come across the national wires.

You may think 30 towns sounds small. But there aren’t that many towns in Vermont. If you read that article, you’ll find my hometown described as a “tiny rural town.” Well. I’ve always known that, but it feels funny to see it in writing.

There was another article in the same paper which more fully described the debate in my hometown over the impeachment resolution. A schoolmate’s father is quoted. Old names I haven’t seen in years. This link may or may not work. All of the other links about town meetings in Washington County were working. I don’t know why this was having problems. But it’s interesting to me that people expressed strong opinions, emotional feelings. One of whom lost a son to the war, my former schoolmate is still serving. Then, everyone went to lunch.

I bet my mom took B&M brown bread. Or perhaps her maple cream pie. She’s been taking brown bread for 35 years.

We’re in the midst of turning over a new leaf here in the LightHouse. The other day, LightGirl announced that she rather preferred her friend’s home which was neat, tidy **and** artsy to ours, which is just sort of cluttery, but we do have a fabulous mural on one wall.

This is the long way of saying that I’m trying to go grocery shopping with some regularity these days. I’m trying to prepare dinner each evening and have the menus planned ahead of time with the food on hand. This seems simple and ordinary. I used to do this as a matter of course, but we’ve fallen out of the habit. So we’re relearning old ways.

All of this lead me to the grocery store this morning and a short wait in line. I’m not the best waiter-in-line there ever was and there was a very sweet elderly couple in front of me who required extra patience. So I began to peruse the magazine covers. This one caught my eye:

This is a tiny image and I apologize, but the headline reads: Failing Our Wounded. I itched to purchase the magazine, but reasoned that I can read the article on-line. Then continued in my head with, I don’t want to … it will only make me bitter. Rather it will continue the bitterness that I have carried for years. The Army and armed forces in general is a war machine that disposes of it’s parts that are no longer useful. It spits them out like a shark does it’s worn out teeth. New sharp teeth spring up to replace them and the shark swims on without realizing or caring about the teeth that have since fallen to the ocean’s bottom. This is appropriate in the life of a shark. Afterall, teeth are not life forms. In the words of the immortal Big Bird, they do not eat or breath or grow.

It is not so appropriate when we are speaking of humans. One of those humans happens to be my husband. Several thousand of them happen to be the young men and women who are serving or did serve in Iraq. Machines which are powered by humans cannot be treated like machines. We must find a different way to accomodate their wounds, fear and grief.

As I stood there looking at the magazine rack attempting to overcome my bitterness and rage, I noticed something else. This magazine looked like a black eye in the midst of partying Rome. The rest of the magazine cover stories had to do with pain too. But it was pain of a different sort. It was the pain of drug and alcohol abuse of celebrities. The pain of post-partum depression in celebrities. Washingtonian magazine was hawking Home Design. Several magazines were offering tips to reduce weight and sizes (get better abs, etc.).

When I’m out driving around I see plenty of cars with the yellow ribbon magnets on them proclaiming devotion to the needs of our troops.

But just exactly how are we supporting our troops? I thought about that as I looked at the magazines there on the rack. I thought about radically the lives of our troops have changed and how little mine has. My life has changed not at all since we went to war. The price of gas has gone up. Once in a while I make a quilt for the wounded soldiers to show my support. But I think about the stories the LightMother tells me of the sacrifices that were made on the homefront to support the war effort during WWI and WWII and I wonder just what we could actually do to dig down deep and really support our troops? What could we give to make sure that they are supported in the field? What could we do to make sure they have the appropriate medical care when they are wounded? What are we doing, as a country at war, to support our troops?

Child soldiers have been getting quite a bit of press lately.  They are in vogue in Sudan.  This is an especially distasteful practice wherein orphans are used as cannon fodder and bait to be soldiers in wars which they cannot understand.  When it hit the press recently I remember thinking that it sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  An e-mail from an old friend was a poignant reminder.  The friend was our best man and has remained in our circle.  He sent us an article which was a memoir of the death of his cousin at the hands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone in 1999.  Ahhhh … before it became vogue to report on them.  That’s how I know.

It’s strange to look at this photo.  To see the line of our friend’s jaw and a shared arched brow and glint in his eye, but yet … overall … a stranger’s face.  A stranger who is dead now.  His mother and father in perpetual mourning.  Murdered at the hands of children the age of LightBoy.

What have we come to?

When Phil first sent out a list of possible blog titles for this LoveFest, “Love Them Patriots,” was among them. I found this hilarious and attempted to poke some lame-o fun at Phil. The Patriots (football team) were still in the play-offs and he does live in Massachusetts. I don’t know if he follows football at all, but no one took me up on my silly joke. 😀

I also wondered if this title had anything to do with “loving” those sorts of people who make proclamations like, “my country right or wrong,” with lots of bluster and dare to you to face them down. I sighed deep in my soul, this was a description of my maternal grandfather and, while I loved him, I found his attitude hard to love. How does one love a patriot? How does that happen in our current environment, where “my country right or wrong,” seems to be the attitude required of us?

A short time later I was doing some other research and found this quote by Gandhi. It put patriotism in an entirely new light:

For me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive, I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India. Imperialism has no place in my scheme of life. The law of a patriot is not different from that of the patriarch. And a patriot is so much the less a patriot if he is a lukewarm humanitarian. There is no conflict between private and political law. ~Mohandas Gandhi~

I remembered as I read this quote that the root word of patriotism is patros or father in Latin. The meaning of the word may be reduced to a love for the fatherland. Or it may be as rich and textured as this quote which is attributed to Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine:

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.

This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.

This definition of patriotism is uniquely American and has it roots in the United States and our history. But how does patriotism flourish in other countries? What does it look like to be a patriot in France? or Italy? We have some new friends who have moved here from Italy. The husband is American and spent 15 years in Italy. The wife is Italian and the children were born in Italy and are now spending part of their lives here. They are neither quite American nor quite Italian anymore either.

So what of all of this? In the face of this, should I be a patriot first or a resident of the Kingdom of God first? How does one who claims to follow Christ order his or her life in terms of the claims of patriotism on our soul or on our physical being? Where is my fatherland these days?

I think about these things every now and again especially in the face of the rampant nationalism and patriotism that is filling the airwaves of our culture these days. Some of this nationalism is turning a bit ugly. It has the potential to make us ugly. To turn our hearts two sizes too small in the words of the immortal Grinch. Fear has the potential to do that. Our hearts shrivel while our swagger prospers. It is a sad commentary.

It is tempting to lay claim entirely to Kingdom patriotism. To declare that the Kingdom of God is my fatherland, I have no land in the here and now, it is entirely in the hereafter and the not yet. Or maybe sometimes. This would be somewhat easy. And somewhat arrogant. It would make for an elevated understanding of the the Gospels and I would be able to point my finger in the faces of many American Christians who are currently getting it “all wrong.” At least, according to me.

On the other hand, that does not take into account the substantial direction in the Bible to place myself under the authority of a human government. That I am to have some form of loyalty to this government and responsibility towards it. That I must render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and render unto God the things which are His.

So. Now I am back substantially where I began. Feeling as though I have my feet in both worlds. Feeling, I imagine, somewhat like our new friends. Not really American yet, neither are they really Italian anymore either. That is me. Not really in the Kingdom yet, but longing for it to come and not really American anymore either. I can’t quite wholly give myself over to the desires of my nation. To paraphrase Gandhi, I cannot hurt Iraq to serve the United States, nor vice versa. My horizon is bigger than that now. And it is smaller. “I am patriotic because I am human and humane.” It has allowed me to see my fellow humans with through the lens of God.

Thus I can see the fear that drives the nationalism, protectionism, jingoism, and even xenophobia. If I could, I would rise up and remind us all that perfect love drives out fear. There are not enough weapons, enough armor; creating fear in others does not beget peace. It begets more fear, more hate and more violence. Finding space to love, on the other hand, pushes out fear, hate and violence. Creating space in which to see that the very people we fear are, in fact, people. Just people. Just like us. They have the same dreams for their children and themselves as we do. They are driven by the same desires as we are. If we can find it in our hearts to love them patriots too, to allow that perfect love to drive out fear, we will be serving both our fatherland and our Fatherland at one and the same time.

Here is a list of my fellow SynchroBloggers. Please visit them and read what they have to say on the subject of love this month:

Christian Sexuality as Ritual Worship at Phil Wyman’s Square No More

Christians: choosing who to love at Mike’s Musings

Loving God, Loving others, loving self- responding to the Goddess- a feminist perspective at Eternal Echoes

Trinity by Mike Crockett

Prophet’s Passion at Adam Gonnerman’s Igneous Quill

A Love Supreme from Fernando’s Desk

What is this thing called love? at Steve’s Notes from the Underground

Love as it should pertain to us missionally? at Webb’s Stumbling into the Kingdom

Divine Eros by Handmaid Leah

Loving the Other by John Smulo

The Conjunction Between Sensuality and Spirituality by Matt Stone

The Blogger Whom Jesus Loved at Jamie’s More Than Stone

I’m a better lover than I used to be… by Billy Calderwood

Young people in on love by Tim Abbot

The Art of Making Love….and Soap at Cindy’s Tracking the Edge

Being Missional: Love Comes Before Power by David Fisher at Be the Revolution

I saw this editorial cartoon by my former highschool english teacher:

I’m not entirely certain about what Jeff’s particular commentary is at the moment.  Because I know his background, I can make some guesses.  They are close to what I see is wrong with our political system.

I love that we get to choose our leader every four years … or do we?  Is it truly a free choice?  Or are we choosing among those who are the best fund raisers?  Are good fund raisers necessarily the best leaders?  How do we measure a good leader?  Who is asking the questions?  Are those the proper questions?  Politics is being bought and sold fairly openly.  Will we do anything different in this election cycle?

Here is the image that CNN has at the top of the page. Underneath it is the article; headlined by “Car bombings kill 75 in Baghdad.”

CNN can call it Christmas In Baghdad for all I care and they would be just as truthful. I think there has to be some actual movement in the direction of transition in order for this to actually BE a transition. Simply calling it that because the administration is wishing it would happen really, really hard and CNN wants good things for the administration … well … it simply illustrates just how far gone we are from a free press in this country.

Or … I could be really cynical. It just struck me as very ironic.

I’m still a little particular and fond of my home state, Vermont. For a small, little known place they’ve got a big voice. For instance, did you know they’ve given 2 out of 43 Presidents to our Union? In the Battle of Gettysburg, it was Vermonters who held the line. We held the pivot point which enabled the Union to win the battle. Eyuh … a tiny state up in the rocks and hills and trees. We’ve got the only Socialist in Congress … well, now he’s in the Senate. It was our Senator who changed the balance of power in the Senate for a brief moment in time.

All of that is to say, I love seeing the names of my home state Senators in the news. But when they make the news in a foreign country and not here over issues such as this, I hang my head in shame. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy that Senator Leahy is attempting to hold Mr. Gonzales’ feet to the fire. It’s the complete and utter lack of conscience and response from an administration official that is officious and, frankly, smells of evil. Why don’t we see these stories in the news here … why do I have to find this in Canada? That is crap. For a President who claims to live by the principles of Jesus, I don’t see much of the fruit of those disciplines. He may have them, but he does not demand them of his closest advisors or those who work closely with him.

Transcript of Gonzales-Leahy exchange on Arar

TheStar.com – Unassigned – Transcript of Gonzales-Leahy exchange on Arar

January 18, 2007

This is an edited transcript of the exchange yesterday between U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy.

LEAHY: You know, I live about an hour’s drive from Canada and go up there often. And in Vermont, we tend to get a lot of Canadian news, just radio and so on.

But something that made the news here in the United States was the question of Maher Arar. — M-A-H-E-R A-R-A-R, in case I mispronounce it.

He’s a Canadian citizen. He was returning home from a vacation. Plane stops at JFK in New York and continues on to Canada.

He was detained by federal agents at JFK airport, 2002, on suspicion of ties to terrorism.

He was deported to Syria; was not sent on the couple of hundred miles to Canada and turned over to the Canadian authorities, but he was sent thousands of miles away to Syria. He was held for 10 months.

He was held in abhorrent conditions there and those sending him back must have known he was going to be tortured.

The Canadian government has apologized for its part in this debacle. In fact, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police actually resigned over it. The country is prepared to compensate him for it.

This country has not said anything at all that we made any mistake or had any apology.

Press accounts indicate the Justice Department approved his deportation to Syria.

And I understand he remained on the United States terrorist watch list so he couldn’t come 50 miles or 75 miles, whatever, south into the United States without fear of being picked up again, sent back to Syria.

Why is he on a government watch list if he’s been found completely innocent by this Canadian commission, which actually had the information from us?

GONZALES: Senator, I’ve got some very definite views about this particular case, as you know…

LEAHY: Well, go ahead.

GONZALES: … beyond litigation. What I want to do is, hopefully, in the next few days – I’m happy to sit down with you and Senator (Arlen) Specter and give you more information.

In fact, we may be able to publicly say more about this shortly. I’m just not at liberty, at this time, to…

LEAHY: Let me ask you this: Why aren’t you at liberty?

I don’t understand that. It’s not a matter of executive privilege.

GONZALES: No, sir, again, and I’m not …

LEAHY: It’s only the president that can …

GONZALES: No, I’m not suggesting that I will not be able to answer your questions. I’m just suggesting I can’t do it today.

LEAHY: Why?

GONZALES: I just – sir, I’m not – there is not a position – I can’t represent the position of the executive branch on this particular issue.

But I think, in a relatively short period of time, there’s more information that I should be able to share with you, and hopefully, that we can share publicly.

LEAHY: But why was he sent to Syria instead of Canada?

GONZALES: Well, again, Senator, I’d be happy to answer these questions I think we can say a lot more about it, if you just simply give me some additional time.

LEAHY: Can you tell me why (then attorney-general John Ashcroft) took steps to ensure that he wouldn’t be tortured?

Of course, he was.

GONZALES: I believe that piece of information is public. There were steps. I think General Ashcroft confirmed this publicly, is that there were assurances sought that he would not be tortured from Syria.

LEAHY: Attorney-General …

(laughter)

… I’m sorry. I don’t mean to treat this lightly. We knew damn well, if he went to Canada, he wouldn’t be tortured. He’d be held. He’d be investigated.

We also knew damn well, if he went to Syria, he’d be tortured.

And it’s beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

You know, and I know, that has happened a number of times, in the past five years, by this country. It is a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies.

And it is easy for us to sit here comfortably in this room knowing that we’re not going to be sent off to another country to be tortured, to treat it as though, well, Attorney-General Ashcroft says we’ve got assurances.

Assurances from a country that we also say, now, we can’t talk to them because we can’t take their word for anything?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I …

LEAHY: I’m somewhat upset.

GONZALES: Yes, sir, I can tell. But before you get more upset, perhaps you should wait to receive the briefing …

LEAHY: How long?

GONZALES: I’m hoping that we can get you the information next week.

LEAHY: Well, Attorney-General, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll meet you halfway on this.

I’ll wait next week for that briefing. If we don’t get it, I guarantee you there will be another hearing on this issue.

Canadians have been our closest allies – longest unguarded frontier in the world. They’re justifiably upset. They’re wondering what’s happened to us. They’re wondering what’s happened to us.

Now you know and I know, we’re a country with a great, great tradition of protecting people’s individual liberties and rights. You take an oath of office to do that; I take an oath of office to do that. I believe, in my basic core nature, in that. My grandparents, when they immigrated to this country, believed that.

Let us not, let us not create more terrorism around the world by telling the world that we cannot keep up to our basic standards and beliefs.

So I’ll wait a week, I’ll wait a week, but I won’t wait more than a week for that briefing.

GONZALES: I look forward to being able to provide the briefing that you are requesting.

LEAHY: Thank you.

I wonder if this briefing will ever happen. It’s just so much cr@p. A man had his life ruined over nothing and instead of standing and taking responsibility for just one tiny thing, this administration is ducking and covering. A little forthrightness would go a long way about now.

This would be one reason why Hilary is not a good candidate for 2008.

I’m still waiting for the Democrats to be something other than not-Republicans.  It would be refreshing to hear some imagination on the political front sometime soon.

LightGirl realized a dream yesterday.

And seriously outted herself. She’s got no excuses anymore.

Here’s how it went. She has a private lesson with CoachTopDog on Mondays and Wednesdays. He’s a really super guy and has helped her come a long way in a short time. After her Wednesday lesson a group of boisterous teenage boys are usually on the ice for an impromptu scrimmage. She is supposed to spend her time practicing what she has just learned from CoachTopDog. However, she’s been overwhelmed by the boys. I get overwhelmed and I’m sitting in the bleachers, so I can hardly blame her.

Then she went to goalie camp over the holiday break and she met CounselorGuy. They had great fun together in an older brother, younger sister kinda way. Although, LightGirl developed a tiny bit of a crush on him, I believe she understands he is TOO OLD for her. The short of it is, they became friends.

Yesterday he was among the boisterous boys who were going to scrimmage after her lesson was over. So she screwed up all of her courage and asked him if she could be included. These boys are all 16 and up. My little girl was playing hockey with VERY LARGE boys. I’m glad I was not there. LightHusband reports she had a ball. Even more, she skated HARD and ran after that puck. She checked the boys and they checked her. For an afternoon she was one of them. CoachTopDog came out to watch and had a glimmer of pride in his eye too.

The last thing I ever expected out of this hockey thing was that it would be part of the reconciliation of roles between men and women. But I wonder if it is. I wonder if it’s a place where our children can grow up to see each other as real equals, no more and no less than one another.

The whole LightFamily embarked on a new adventure yesterday. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was incredible. I believe the LightChildren even said (at top volume), “Stop torturing us!!” and “You’re going to KILL us.” I dunno … I think Will Samson has a great idea and so does LightHusband. So we’re joining in the Pantry Challenge 2007. LightHusband was ambiguous at first. He accused me of derailing our efforts before we began. I was unaware of Will’s oncoming brainstorm and decluttered our pantry last week. I ridded ourselves of such gems as 2 year old canned mango pulp, a 2 year old package of freeze dried squid tentacles, out of code (by a year) stuffing mix, and hundreds (I may be exaggerating) of boxes with miniscule dribs and drabs of bits of crackers and cereal in them. I began to wonder if those stale bits of crackers and cereal could be considered seed for new crackers and cereal. Then I threw them away. LightHusband thinks we’re going to lose the challenge because I trashed our dearest treasure. What. Ever.

I’m not in this for the winning anyway. I’m in it because we need some place in our lives where there is a boundary that says, “Stop. That’s enough.” We are overflowing and still can’t find anything for dinner each night out of sheer laziness. Bad craziness. I need a reason to be creative with food again. So I’ll be blogging about this and our silly food creations.

When LightHusband was in TOG (The Old Guard), they had a saying. It went like this, “Rumor-control is outta control.” It meant that some rumor had gotten out of hand and had traveled through so many people and gotten so twisted up it was now completely silly and everyone knew it. It was also code for, “We live in a small circle and we need to be careful with each other.” I’m going to coin a new phrase for the emerging church blog-o-sphere. Not that anyone reads my blog and pays attention to me. So no one’s going to know. But I’m still going to try: Meme-control is outta control. You heard it here first!

I don’t know quite how it happened but I’ve been double-tagged on a meme. In a meme where a number of people have been double-tagged. And they’re all whining about it. It’s been meme heaven around here lately. Too much meme-ing going on. Here’s the line of meme that happened to me (I think) …

It began with Phil Wyman (the meme man from Massachusetts 😉 ). He tagged Cindy and John Smulo. Cindy tagged Jamie and Jamie tagged me. John tagged RobbyMac who tagged Brother Maynard who then tagged John and me (both for our second time). I say we all tag Phil and make him …. hmmm … I can’t think of a fitting discipline for meme-madness. Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

It’s the beginning of the year and I’ve been struck this year by entities who are claiming this year. A church in our area (who enjoys tormenting me with their offensive signage) claimed 2007 as the Year of the Bible. “Whoa,” I thought as I drove by, as I must on a nearly daily basis. That’s quite a claim to make before the year has barely started.

Almost the next day, the dearly beloved Brother Maynard came out with prognostications of his own. Nay, spaketh he, 2007 is the Year of the Missional. And, not that I would ever be so bold as to suggest that the good Brother might be seeing what he expects to see, I’ve been now seeing a plethora of posts at his place on missional sorts of stuff. 😉

So, thought I, it seems to be vogue to make declarations about this year. Perhaps I’ll make one. Here’s what I’m seeing a lot of (and I’ll say it first … I could just be seeing what I want to see). I’m seeing a lot of action in the area of redeeming relationships. Particularly the area of redeeming the relationships between men and women. Women want to make their lives and the lives of men whole and healthy. So, I’m calling it …

2007 … the year of Redeeming Relationships.

I’m just old enough.

I’m just old enough to remember the non-war in Vietnam.  I believe it was referred to as military action.  Or something.  I know my father read about it in the evening paper almost obsessively.  I remember that I thought “poppa ganda” was related to Indira Gandhi.  Poppa being propa-ganda.  Both poppa and Indira were spoken of about equally often, so it seemed logical to me at the time.

I remember the draft and the worry my family felt because I had cousins who were of a particular age.  Two of them obtained “concientious objector” status.  None of the others numbers ever came up … at least to my knowledge.  When the troops came home I remember we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I don’t know how to breath any more tho.  Not when I read articles with this information in the Economist:

The surge, then, may be too small to make a decisive impact and yet too large for the American armed forces to bear. The tempo of troop rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan is already in breach of the Pentagon’s guidelines: two years at home for every year of operations abroad for the full-time army, and six years’ relief for reserve citizen-soldiers who make up nearly half the current strength in Iraq. Equipment is being lost in battle or worn out much faster than anticipated. A bigger army would help, but it will take years to recruit and train new combat units.