…and I Eat Lifesaver ™ Candy
The Doc said pancreatic Cancer,
No more a geriatric Dancer,
But may the gods bless her,
My Yoga instructor
Gives only a lifesaving Answer!
[Several of my friends practice
Yoga as well as Lutheran.
Presbyterian, or Episcopalian!]
Joshi Daniel’s photograph reminds viewers of the power of inner joy. Thank you, Joshi, for using your extraordinary gift in a way that makes the world a better place.
Old woman with a cherubic smile | Trivandrum, Kerala, India
This charming old lady kept on speaking to me while I took this photo of hers.
John Dixon/The News-Gazette Steven Shoemaker, a retired pastor who attends the Philo Presbyterian Church, wrote a letter to the editor saying the Philo church leaders would be discussing hosting a syrian refugee family, despite Gov. Bruce Rauner’s stance on the issue. Shoemaker was photographed at his home in south of Urbana on Wednesday Nov. 25, 2014.
But when…
But when will you die? asked my two kids.
In sleep, my Doc said, are the best odds.
But I will not die,
I’ve propped open each eye,
But the toothpicks keep hurting my eyelids!
Two hours after Steve posted this on his CaringBridge page, one of his old friends with an equal sense of sardonic humor commented:
I think it is sly
to prop open each eye
and frustrate the doctor’s prognosis
What a wonder to see
that the powers that be
can be limited in their diagnosis
Death and dying are NOT fun or funny, but humor is one of God’s greatest gifts.
The NY Times reports today that “four Republican presidential candidates [Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio] are expected to appear at Bob Jones University, an evangelical institution in Greenville, S.C., for a forum.“
When I was a child no politician would consider – even for a second – seeking the support of Bob Jones, the President of the fundamentalist Bible college named after him. All these years later, Bob Jones and Bob Jones University have become part of what is considered “normal” in America. It’s not normal. I’m sorry. It’s not normal. It’s nuts! See for yourself.
Did I mention…this is nuts?!
Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 12, 2016 [at least 54 years before “the Rapture” according to Bob Jones, regarded by his followers as the prophet vested with the “100 Year Prophecy”].
It may mean nothing when you see
The tears, or when you hear the voice
Begin to catch and whisper. The
Strong drugs for pain remove the poise
And self control. Emotions rule.
Or
The patient, for some reason, may
Regret the loss of family
And friends… Feel sorrow not to stay
In this the known world, possibly
The only world. Hope fades, Faith flees.
Note: Views from the Edge followers recall that Steve was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in November with death expected no later than mid-January. He’s outlived the original prognosis by a month. His home on the Illinois plains has become a hotel for family and friends from around the world.
Steve posted this verse last night on his CaringBridge page. The sentence that introduced it said:
[Bad day. 2nd in a row. I’ll try to be funny tomorrow…]
Moments after posting a proposed list of questions for tonight’s debate moderators, Views from the Edge found this video. This video exposes the corporate lobbying connections of the PAC that claims to speak for the Congressional Black Caucus. Decide for yourself. Rep. Keith Ellison is a friend who served as Executive Director of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis before becoming a Minnesota legislator, U.S. Congressman, and Bernie Sanders supporter.
If we could whisper in the ears of tonight’s Democratic Presidential Primary Debate moderators, we suggest a few questions. Since we don’t have their ear, we print the questions here for the millions who read Views from the Edge.
Question for both Sen. Sanders and Secretary Clinton:
You both support action on climate change. Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court put a halt to President Obama’s climate change regulation, an action that places the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in jeopardy. If you were President today, what actions would you take?
Question for Secretary Clinton:
Senator Sanders’ campaign announced it has raised 6 million dollars following Monday’s win in New Hampshire, all from small donations. During this same period your campaign has sent fundraisers to Mexico City. After all the discussion about campaign finance reform and Senator Sanders’ refusal to accept such money, doesn’t the Mexico fundraising trip substantiate the criticism that your campaign depends upon, and is beholden to, big money?
Question for Senator Sanders:
This week you met with Rev. Al Sharpton in New York. Meanwhile, John Lewis was belittling your claim to involvement in the civil rights movement and announced that the Congressional Black Caucus PAC has endorsed Secretary Clinton. Rep. Keith Ellison, one of Congress’s most progressive African American leaders serving as Vice President of the Congressional Black Caucus, sent out a tweet explaining that the Caucus has NOT endorsed a candidate, and that the action was taken by a PAC separate from the Congressional Black Caucus. What will it take for you to win the votes of African Americans?
Question for Secretary Clinton:
Secretary Clinton, you say that Senator Sanders would undo the Affordable Care Act and start all over to implement a program of universal health care. But Senator Sanders has argued to replace the Affordable Care Act by expanding Medicare to cover all people regardless of age. Medicare already exists. Do you stand by your statement, and if so, why?
Question for both candidates:
Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed piece in the New York Times cites a Gallop Poll from a year ago measuring American biases as they affect electability. According to the poll, 50% said they would not vote for a socialist. Only 60% said they could support an atheist. It’s now one year later and Senator Sanders came from 50 points down in Iowa to a virtual tie, and won the New Hampshire primary by 21 points. How do you explain these results – was the poll mistaken or have we changed that much in one year?
Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times Op-Ed piece “2 Questions for Bernie Sanders” asks:
Can you translate your bold vision into reality?
Can you get elected? Or would your nomination make a President Cruz more likely?
Both good questions. Serious questions raised by a journalist who first talked with Bernie after Bernie had been elected Mayor of Burlington, VT. It was a phone conversation with someone in the Mayor’s Office. Mr. Kristof, an intern with the New York Times, ended the conversation by asking the aide for his name. “Oh, I’m Bernie Sanders.” That was 1981.
Kristof’s editorial cites a Gallop Poll from a year ago that seems to give the edge to someone else: to Hillary in the Democratic primary, and to a Republican opponent in the general election. Why? According to the Gallop Poll one year ago, Americans show the most negative bias toward socialists (50%) and atheists (40%) when asked how various factors would affect their vote for a presidential candidate.
As a retired minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I have supported Bernie Sanders from the day he announced his candidacy for President. I support him because he boldly proclaims a social vision that is consistent with my faith. Democratic Socialism is not, as often supposed, an oxymoron. Democracy is a political form of government in which the people rule. Not corporations. Not big money. Not oligarchs. The people. Socialism is a form of economics that places emphasis on a fair standard of living, quality of life for all, and that narrows the gap in the distribution of wealth. A Democratic Socialist is someone who promotes 1) the return of the integrity of the electoral system to the general population (big money out of politics), and 2) the general wellbeing of everyone in the society rather than leaving it to be settled by the vicissitudes of the free market.
My religious tradition puts the public square front and center as a matter of faith and ethics. The first question of any candidate is what s/he would do if elected. It is not whether they profess my religious faith. “Would the world be a better place?” is the most important question. As I listened to Bernie speaking at Liberty University, I was struck again by how deeply he represents the best of the Jewish-Christian tradition and how respectful he was of the evangelical audience he was addressing. Both his demeanor and his thoughtful engagement of common ground with his audience’s Christian faith and practice defined the meaning of civility and respectful discussion. The atheistic Jewish Democratic Socialist was the opposite of the fears that paint any socialist as an anti-religious demagogue. His message could have been delivered from the pulpits of many churches and synagogues in America.
Then there’s Hillary Clinton, who by the measures of the Gallop Poll, is much more electable than Bernie. Hillary’s not a self-proclaimed socialist, not Jewish, and not an atheist. She’s a Christian heavily influenced by the United Methodist youth group she credits with turning her from right-wing politics into a social gospel progressive. On that question of electability, Hillary holds the edge.
But there’s another edge to Hillary that people are reticent to address. Although she has the edge on Bernie by the Gallop Poll measures, she has “an edge” to her that is off-putting, an air of self-righteousness that reduces her likability.
Remember the 2007 presidential primary debate in which Obama quipped “You’re plenty likable, Hillary”? Candidate Obama was criticized at the time, and rightly so, for being condescending. Nevertheless, his sarcastic quip exposed a truth about Hillary’s likability. She’s not. Too often her facial expression is smug and condescending. Research in the communications field reminds speakers that 90% of what people take away comes from the speaker’s body language. That’s a problem. It’s a thing she does with her eyes and mouth that seems to disdain those who disagree or ask a hard question. Hillary’s “edge” gives Bernie the edge on likability.
Bernie also gets the edge for his consistency over 35 years in public office. People are seeing in him a quality nearly absent from ordinary politics. What you see is what you get. When you believe that what you’re seeing is what they’re going to get, you’re much more likely to trust that person. Whether or not you like such a candidate, you view him or her as trustworthy. Hillary not so much. Edge to Bernie.
Turning from the question of electability to the question of Bernie’s and Hillary’s respective abilities to get things done, the edge tends toward Hillary.
Both she and Bernie are experienced politicians, but their experiences are different. Bernie’s only executive experience was years ago as Mayor of Burlington, VT. Congresspeople and Senators are legislators, not executives. The transition to the Oval Office from the Senate Office Building is a steep climb into another set of skills, power, and authority. Hillary is familiar with the Oval Office and executive responsibility. She occupied the White House for eight years, watching the patterns, discussing the most vexing problems with her husband and the press, and she served as Secretary of State managing the Department of State. On the level of executive experience, the edge goes to Hillary.
Although a fighter like Bernie, Hillary is connected by history and experience with congressional Representatives, Senators, Governors, party operatives, and leaders in the private sector on Wall Street and beyond. People owe her – even the most unlikely supporters like Senator Al Franken (D-MN), as close to Bernie’s democratic socialism as they come – because she came to their sides in hard-fought campaigns. Bernie, the Democratic Socialist, on the other hand, has always maintained his partisan independence while allying himself with the Democratic Caucus. Bernie would bring few IOUs to the White House. Edge to Hillary.
If politics is the art of the possible and the do-able, Hillary seems to have the edge. In the current oligarchic world of un-democratic American politics and capitalist economics, a more likable and trustworthy Democratic Socialist will have a tough time hold his edge. And that’s a crying shame.
It’s Ash Wednesday. I put on my ministerial robe 15 minutes before the traditional Service that marks the beginning of Lent with the imposition of ashes and go the drawer of the credenza.
“They’re missing! Where are the ashes?!”
Every year I store the ashes in the credenza in my office. I’ve forgotten that we’d moved the credenza from my office last fall. I rush downstairs to look for it. No credenza anywhere. Then…I remember. We sold it at the Annual Fall Festival!
“Somebody has our ashes!”
What to do with no ashes? Burn some newspapers? Smoke a cigar and use the ashes? No time.
I grab a pitcher and pour water into the baptism font.
We begin the Service with the story of the missing ashes. Smiles break out everywhere. Maybe even with signs of relief. “Instead of the imposition of ashes this year, we will go to the font for the waters of baptism, the waters of the renewal of life.”
We have some fun justifying the change in the Service, focusing on the that part of the Gospel text for the day – the words of Jesus himself. “And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen my others….But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret…”(Mt. 6:16-18).
People come to the font, one-by-one, for “the Imposition of … [Water]”. I dip my hand into the font. “Pat, (making the sign of the cross on her forehead), “Dust to dust; ashes to ashes. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. You are a child of God. Live in this peace.”
After the Service is over, one of the worshipers asks whether anyone has done the same for me. She reaches her hand into the font. “Gordon, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Remember…You are a child of God…..”
I’ll never forget it. Neither will they. And somewhere in this world a stranger has a credenza with a sack full of ashes. Whoever you are, feel free to keep them. They’re all yours.
….or call it conservative. Call today’s message what you will….:
“President Obama is ‘strongly considering’ signing an executive order against secret money in elections – and could announce this action as early as this week!
“This executive order is the single biggest thing the President can do on his own to fight back against Citizens United. With the stroke of a pen, he could require companies that have contracts with the federal government — which include a huge number, if not most, of America’s largest corporations — to disclose their political spending.” -People for the American Way (PFAW).
Taking elections back from big money – PACs that allow dark money to hide in secret contributions that sway voters with costly television, internet and print media campaigns – is a conservative or even a regressive (as in, returning to a former state) agenda that restores the electoral process to the people themselves. It’s a progressive idea that restores and conserves the integrity of the Constitution.
I signed on the PFAW petition to President Obama. Constitutionally speaking, I may be right or I may be wrong to support the proposed executive order. But it seems like a no-brainer for anyone who cherishes the idea of a real democratic republic of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Thanks for coming by for two cents worth one.
-Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 8, 2016
Views from the Edge 