Grandpa, Do we conceal and carry?

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Grandpa, do we conceal and carry?

Well, sometimes Grandma and I carry your bottle when Mom’s away, but we have no need to conceal it. Why?

I’m not talking about bottles, Grandpa. I’m talking about guns. Do we conceal and carry guns?

We don’t, Elijah. We don’t carry guns and, if we did, we wouldn’t conceal them. We like to be open. People who conceal things have something to hide.

That’s not what people in Congress are saying! They think everyone should conceal and carry. Grandpa, do I have to go to school?

Yes. When you’re older you’ll go to school. You have to. Every child in America has to go to school.

I don’t want to!

Sure you do. It’s just like daycare but you’ll be older.

School’s aren’t not like daycare, Grandpa. I saw it on the news. All those kids in Florida got killed. Kids shouldn’t have to go to school. They’re not safe. That’s why the NRA wants conceal and carry to protect us from the bad people.

Okay, now I’m getting your drift. This is really sad.

Yeah! If I have to go to school, I want to conceal and carry!

Hmmm. I see. You think your school will be safer if everyone conceals and carries so you can get the bad guys.

Right. Exactly. I’m not a Democrat any more. I’m a Republican!

I see. That’s your right under the Constitution.

Yeah! I’m going to exercise my Second Amendment rights!

Well, let’s stop and think about this before we decide to carry anything but your bottle. The Second Amendment isn’t the only right in the Bill of Rights. If we keep going the way we’re going, the Second Amendment will be the only part of the Constitution left. America will become a mass firing range.

Grandpa, that’s awful! Can I please have my bottle before I open my lemonade stand?

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, February 15, 2018.

Two Little Boys with Matches

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Happy Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.

Remember when you used to play with matches and your mother told you not to? Remember when you aimed a toy gun at a friend and your father told you not to?

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Maybe not.

Maybe the adults in your home never told you “No”. In that case, you may understand what it might have been like growing up as a child who would lead the United States or North Korea, playing with the bigger matches that can light the fuses of nuclear holocaust on Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.

Saint Valentine’s Day celebrates love; Ash Wednesday observes our mortal nature. Love and death are side by side on February 14, 2018 when wine and chocolates coalesce with dust and ashes.

Is it too much to hope today that two adult boys with matches will be parented by nations that impose the discipline they lacked as little boys? Is it too much to pray they put away the “sticks and stones” they throw across the Pacific Ocean, burn their match sticks into ashes before they burn the house down, and send each other a Happy Valentine’s Day card and some chocolates?

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Ash Wednesday ashes and Saint Valentine’s Day chocolates

Gordon C. Stewart, Ash Wednesday and Saint Valentine’s Day, Chaska, MN, Feb. 14, 2018.

Addition by Subtraction: Leveling the Playing Field

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Today levels the playing field. Our differences make no difference today. Whether you are religious, agnostic or atheist is beside the point today. All the quarrels and distinctions are beside the point.

“One is still what one is going to cease to be,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in Nausea, “and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death. One dies one’s life.”

Today is Ash Wednesday, the leveler. The eraser. The reminder that we are mortal. That I am living my death as you are living yours and dying my life while you are dying yours.

This year more close friends and classmates are closer to dust and ashes. As I ponder the meaning of it all, my appreciation of the religion into which I was born increases. “I have always said that often the religion you were born with becomes more important to you as you see the universality of truth.” — Ram Dass. Born into and raised in the Christian faith has led me to the universality of truth. Today the church’s practice reduces the size of my ego. Ash Wednesday levels me to a universal truth: the baseline of zero.

Ash Wednesday ashes

The imposition of ashes — “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” — is the reminder of the universal truth of our shared mortality. Wisdom embraces the math of addition by subtraction: the erasure of every source of hubris and division. Today, I will offer my forehead for the imposition of ashes and pray that in the citadels of power someone else will experience the same, for the sake of life itself.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 14, 2018.

Grandpa, Is this the End?

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Grandpa and Elijah

Grandpa, is this the end?”

The end of what, Elijah? You seem anxious. That’s not like you. End of what?

End of the world! Don’t you know? You’re the preacher!

You didn’t hear that from me. Where’d you hear about the end of the world? Who said that? Who got you all stirred up?

Mom did! I heard her!

What exactly did Mom say? And to whom did she say it?

She said it to Grandma. I heard it. I hear stuff, Grandpa. I don’t need hearing aids. You miss a lot of stuff. I heard it with my own ears.

Touché! But let’s step back a second to make sure you got it straight. What did Mom say?

Mom said “It’s over. Our world’s coming to an end!”

What were you doing when Mom said that?

I was just crawling like I have all day, and playing with some wires. Mom didn’t like it.

Aha! I see. “Our world’s coming to an end” is different from the world coming to an end.

Uh-uh! She called me a terrorist! I’m not, Grandpa!

Oh, my! There are terrorists and there are terrorists, Elijah. Was Mom laughing when she said you were a terrorist and that the world had come to an end?

Yes. She was. But before she laughed, she’d been crying a lot. That’s when she called Grandma.

What did Mom say to Grandma? How did the conversation start?

Nagasakibomb She said, “Mom, I’m so tired! He’s getting into everything! He started crawling! I have to follow him every second. I can’t let him out of my sight; I’m exhausted! Our world’s coming to an end!”

Well, Elijah, there are worlds and there are worlds. And one person’s terrorist is another person’s child. It’s confusing to a little guy.

Yeah! This morning I pulled myself up. Pretty soon I’m going to walk. The beginning of life for me. The end of the world for Mom.

— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, February 13, 2018.

Elijah and the Big Parade

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah asking about the Big Parade

Grandpa, are we going to the parade?

What parade, Elijah? It’s February 9. It’s not the Fourth of July.

What’s the Fourth of July? Is that a parade?

No, it’s the date we Americans celebrate our independence.

Yeah! I’m independent!

No, you’re actually quite dependent, Elijah. We all are.

Uh-uh! Kim Jung un’s not. Rocket Man’s liddle like liddle Bob Corker, liddle Adam Schiff. He’s not dependent! Neither am I!

Okay, okay, I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with being liddle, Elijah, especially when you’re eight-months old. Every one of us is liddle. Some of us accept it. Others have a lot of trouble with it. They need to feel big.

So are we going to You-Know-Who’s big parade, Grandpa?

No, there’s not going to be a parade.

Why not? You’ve been wrong before! You said You-Know-Who could never get elected. How do you know?

Okay. I don’t know. I’m hoping some of the adults in his cabinet and in Congress will convince him it’s an un-American idea. But You-Know-Who doesn’t like traitors, and he likes big parades. He might decide to do his Bigger-than-Kim Jung un’s Military Parade on the Fourth of July to show he’s biggest.

New McDonald’s GRAND Big Mac

Yeah. He needs some comfort food! Send Melania a text, Grandpa! Quick before he wakes up! Tell Melania to get some Big Macs for breakfast! Do they have Big Macs in North Korea?

No, they don’t have McDonald’s in North Korea. Big Macs aren’t good for you. Too many Big Macs will kill you. They’re big, but they’re not comfort food. Comfort food makes you comfortable with being liddle. Not BIG with a need for a Military Parade.

Mom says this cartoon is “off color”, Grandpa, but I see lots of color. I’m liddle but I know some stuff! But I’ll tell Mom to X out the Fourth of July on our calendar. We’re not going to the parade! Some things should stay liddle, right Grandpa?

– Grandpa Gordon, writing from the land of Goofy and Donald Duck, Orlando, Florida, Friday, Feb. 9, 2018.

Different Shutdowns

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Edward Hicks — Peaceable Kingdom

There are shutdowns that make us cringe and there are shutdowns that bring us to our better selves. This year the two kinds overlapped. Both shutdowns are about economics, i.e., how we live together in the one house in which we all dwell for a speck of time on a small planet in a vast universe. The English words ‘economy’ and ‘economics’ derive from the Greek word for ‘house’ and the management, or governance, of the one house in which we live.

In previous essays on Views from the Edge and chapters of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness, we have sought to point to this saner view of life together in the nation and the planet. Saying it again feels like banging my head against a wall, but the coalescence of the government shutdown date and the Jewish Sabbath commandment to shut everything down — Shabbat — prompts this reflection.

Shabbat meal

The Hebrew word ‘Shabbat’ comes from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest. The shutdown in Washington, D.C. and the Fourth Commandment shutdown could not be more different. The one is a product of control; the latter is about ending the illusions that come from production.

“Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for God. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat for Adonai your God. On it, you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property. For in six days, Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why Adonai blessed the day, Shabbat, and separated it for himself.” — Exodus 20:8-11 [Complete Jewish Bible].

Migrant workers in someone else’s field.

You don’t have to be a seven-day creationist to “get” the meaning of the Hebrew Scripture’s call to stop and think. Step back. Pause. Respect your son, your daughter, your workers, the animals, and the foreigners within your national borders. Shabbat is not just the owners of the means of production but for ALL who labor under the yoke — an enduring sign and call of a better household management (economics) yet to come in the one house (the economy) in which we all live.

Practicing his Jewish faith, Jesus of Nazareth kept Shabbat and aligned himself with the laborers when he invited would be followers to join him in a kind of revolution that would turn the tables on the money-changers and lift up the have nots: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Oxen laboring under a heavy yoke

Jesus was comparing the landless poor to oxen in the the fields of production, driven hard under a yoke that chafes and cuts into the oxen’s neck and shoulder, the yoke of economic cruelty and the burden that is anything but light. Rabbi Jesus was invoking the substance of the Fourth Commandment: the vision and practice of Shabbat economics.

Could the juxtaposition of the different shutdowns be clearer than when they are invoked on the same day of the week?

Shabbat Shalom,

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 22, 2018

Prayer for the Nation 1/20/18

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918)

Fold your hands this January 20, 2018 — even if you think prayer is for the birds. The language is dated. But on the day of the shutdown one year after the Inauguration, Walter Rauschenbusch’s 1909 prayer “Against the Servants of Mammon” is as current as current can be.

Against the Servants of Mammon

“We cry to thee for justice, O Lord, for our soul is weary with the iniquity of greed. Behold the servants of Mammon, who defy thee and drain their fellow men and women for gain; who grind down the strength of the workers by merciless toil and fling them aside when they are mangled and worn; who rack-rent the poor and make dear the space and air which thou has made free; who paralyze the hand of justice by corruption and blind the eyes of the people by lies; who nullify by their craft the merciless laws which nobler people have devised for the protection of the weak; who have made us ashamed of our dear country by their defilements and have turned our holy freedom into a hollow name; who have brought upon thy Church the contempt of men [and women] and have cloaked their extortion with the gospel of Christ.

“For the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy now do thou arise, O Lord; for because thou art love, and tender as a mother to the weak, therefore thou art the great hater of iniquity and thy doom is upon those who grow rich on the poverty of thy people.

“O God, we are afraid, for the thundercloud of thy wrath is even now black above us. In the ruins of dead empires we have read how thou hast trodden the wine-press of thine anger when the measure of their sin was full. We are sick at heart when we remember that by the greed of those who enslaved a weaker race that curse was fastened upon us all which still lies black and hopeless across the land, though the blood of a nation was spilled to atone. Save our people from being dragged down into vaster guilt and woe by men who have no vision and know no law except their lust. Shake their souls with awe of thee that they may cease. Help us with clean hands to tear the web which they have woven about us and to turn our people back to thy law, lest the mark of the beast stand out on the right hand and forehead of our nation and our feet be set on the downward path of darkness from which there is no return.”

— Walter Rauschenbusch, “Against the Servants of Mammon” published in Prayers of the Social Awakening, Pilgrim Press, 1910.

Like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, most of us don’t use the word ‘Mammon’ anymore, but its odor is no less foul than when Jesus spoke of it in the first century of the Common Era. “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”

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— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 20, 2018.

Grandpa, what’s a shutdown?

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah with Grandpa: “I don’t like that, Grandpa!”

Watching the news last night, Elijah was worried.

Grandpa! What’s a shutdown?

Well, Elijah, let me think. You’re just eight-months old. Let’s try this. If your Mom decided not to feed you anymore, that would be a shutdown.

Mom’s not going to feed me anymore? Mom and I were on the NEWS?

Elijah with Mom

No, no, Mom’s not going to shutdown your feeding. She loves you very much. I’m just saying that’s what a shutdown is like.

So, who’s being shutdown?

The government.

What’s a government?

It’s what keeps us together in a democracy.

What’s a democracy?

Actually, I mis-spoke. We’re not a democracy. We’re a democratic Republic, a representative democracy. We govern ourselves by electing people to represent us in Congress and the Presidency.

Did all those people die? Did they get shutdown?

No, Elijah, they’re the ones who are threatening to shutdown the government.

Why, Grandpa?

Because they’ve forgotten why they’re there. They’re confusing government with a sandbox. It’s not. The government belongs to the American people. They’re acting like kindergarteners throwing sand at each other in the kindergarten sandbox. If they keep doing this, there’s be no sand left. The sandbox itself will be gone. It’ll all be shut down.

I don’t like that, Grandpa, and I don’t like the way you’re talking. You’re making fun of kindergarteners!

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Kindergarteners working together in the sandbox

You’re right, Elijah, I shouldn’t make fun of kindergarteners. Kindergarteners are better than that. They’re adults. They’re not acting like children. If they acted like children, we might be better off. Like the psalmist said,

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. (Psalm 82:3)

Thanks, Grandpa. I like the psalmist. Will their Moms shut them down if they shut down the government?

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 19, 2018.

Views from the Edge

To See More Clearly

Category Archives: America

Two Little Boys with Matches

Grandpa, Is this the End?

Elijah and the Big Parade

Prayer for the Nation 1/20/18

Against the Servants of Mammon

Grandpa, what’s a shutdown?

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Against the Servants of Mammon

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