Christmas 2017

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

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And so it came to pass that a child was born in a stalled car in Charlottesville. And the angels sang under the viaduct of joy and peace on earth, good will to all. And a squad car stopped to see what was the matter, and saw the child and his Mexican parents huddled in the car with an expired license.

And when the officer saw the scene, he didn’t ask for identification or give the parents a ticket or turn them over to ICE. He held the child in his arms, invited the family into his warm squad car, and radioed ahead to his wife to prepare for them the room they had decorated for the infant child they had just lost.

And so it was that on Christmas in the year 2017, another child was born and cared for by strangers whose better angels ignored Herod’s reign of terror to make a home for the homeless God.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Christmas Day, 2017.

The Light Shines in the Darkness

Posted on December 23, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

“Hold to the Good” once again speaks clearly what so many of us are feeling as Christmas nears. Thank you, John Buchanan and Marilynne Robinson. By all means, hold to the good, hold to the light the darkness cannot overcome.

Hold to the Good

I’m finding it difficult to be hopeful this Christmas. The slow, steady, daily attacks on what I hold dear and what I cherish about my country are eroding my spirit, even the week before Christmas.

My government is….
– loosening regulations designed to protect my grandchildren from the effects of environmental degradation,
– lifting restrictions on mining and drilling that will endanger wildlife and reduce the precious areas of stunning national beauty every president before this one, all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt, regarded as national treasures to be protected and preserved,
-alienating long-time traditional allies, asserting “America First” at the expense of the welfare of all people and all nations,
– turning away from empirical science about climate change and human responsibility for global warming which the vast majority of scientists, and even the Pentagon, regard as real threats to life on our planet,
-attacking any information it…

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MISOGYNY FROM THE 1950’S TO TODAY – BY ELLIN CURLEY

Gallery

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Originally posted on Serendipity – Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth:
I was a child in the 1950’s and a teenager in the 1960’s. So I should be well versed in the misogynistic attitudes that were, and in some ways still…

Elijah asks Grandpa about taxes

Posted on December 21, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

taxreform Grandpa, do we like taxes?

Why are you asking about taxes, Elijah?

‘Cause they’re all over the news. I don’t get it. Are taxes bad or are they good, Grandpa?

It all depends, Elijah.

You always say stuff like that! Depends on what? I wear Huggies!

We’ve already talked about that. I don’t mean that kind of Depends. I mean it depends on what kind of taxes.

Yeah, like the tax of Caesar Augustus that made Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem. Mom’s been getting me ready for my first Christmas. Look at this picture of Caesar Augustus, Grandpa. He did the same thing with his hand president You-Know-Who does! And he didn’t care about that little baby. Maybe that little baby is Jesus!

Statue-Augustus

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. – Gospel According to Luke 2:1-6 KJV.

Yes, Elijah, it was because of a Roman census for purposes of levying Roman taxes on the country they occupied. The tax system wasn’t fair.

Hmmm. So taxes are bad!

No, they’re not. Like I said, Elijah, it all depends.

On what?

On whether the taxes are fair. Taxes are good so long as they fairly distribute the financial burden for maintaining life together in a good society: things like health care, roads, fire-fighters like the ones battling the fires in California, and economic assistance for the disabled, children, the poor, and retired people like Grandma and Grandpa who depend like Social Security.

So fair taxes are good? Unfair taxes are bad?

Yes, sort of. Tax systems that don’t require the wealthy to pay their fair share are like Roman taxes and like the British taxes that caused the American Revolution. The tax wasn’t fair. And tax systems measure what a country values. So even if the tax burden is fairly distributed, they can be bad if the money is used badly.

Yeah, just like Mary said, “He lifted up the lowly, and the rich he has sent empty away!” Liddle Bob Corker is lowly but he just voted for tax reform that Marissa says isn’t fair.

Yes, he did, Elijah. Senator Corker was a hold-out who agreed to vote for the tax bill after it was amended in a way that favored his real estate interests so he wouldn’t be so little anymore.

You own real estate, right? Are you going to vote for the tax bill, Grandpa?

No, Elijah, I really don’t own any real estate. The bank owns Grandma and Grandpa’s condo. We still make mortgage payments. And I don’t get to vote on it. Members of the House of Representatives and Senate represent us in Congress. Only they get to vote, and the president can then sign it or veto it.

Hmm. So you’re going to be liddler than liddle Bob Corker. But in my eyes, you’ll always be big, Grandpa. Remember Joseph and Mary and Jesus in liddle old Bethlehem.

I will, Elijah. Here’s a more hopeful picture for you to remember. Mary and the baby Jesus are at the top. At the bottom are prophetess named Sybil and Caesar Augustus, but it doesn’t look anything Caesar. It’s the Byzantine emperor Manuel II from the 15 Century that the artist viewed as the new Caesar. Every empire has its emperor, and every one of them is soon forgotten, but the story of Christmas is eternal.

©Photo. R.M.N. / R.-G. Ojda

— Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, Dec. 20, 2017.

Elijah on the worst of the worst

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah talking about his day with Marissa

Grandpa, Marissa threw her shoe at the television this morning.

Did she break the television?

No, actually, it was a slipper but she thew it hard.

Why’d she throw her slipper at the TV, Elijah?

She thew it at the President.

Why? What was he doing?

He was talking bad to the FBI! He said people like Marissa are “the worst of the worst,” Grandpa! Before I could understand what he’d said, her slipper sailed by my play pen and hit the TV!

Wow! That must have been scary!

manual labor roofing a house for a roofer

Yeah, but what Marissa said he said was scarier. Marissa said the President’s either evil or ignorant and that he should come to Minnesota to see what her cousins do. He should meet some immigrants. They’re not the worst of the worst. Miguel works up on roofs in the hot sun 16 hours a day all summer long, Grandpa.

HOUSEKEEPER-BATHROOM Her other cousin, Maria, makes minimum wage cleaning toilets and making beds for a hotel. It’s not enough to live on. She works hard, Grandpa. So does Marissa. They’re not the worst of the worst. They work harder than you do!

So I have an idea, Grandpa.

Okay, Elijah. Let’s hear it. “Out of the mouths of babes….”

I’m not a baby anymore, Grandpa. I crawled today. I’m seven.

Well, you’re not seven. You’re seven-months. But it doesn’t matter. You’re very wise. Let’s hear it.

Okay, Grandpa, here’s my idea. Everyone elected to office in the United States should have to pass a six-week orientation re-roofing houses and cleaning toilets to qualify for taking the oath of office. That way people like the President will stop insulting good hard-working people like Marissa, Miguel, and Maria, like he did this morning, and Marissa won’t break here television. She can’t afford a new one.

Freshman Class of 115th Congress, January 2017

What a great idea, Elijah! That’s a GREAT idea. Maybe an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requiring a six-month orientation working in minimum-wage jobs before the oath of office is administered as a hedge against evil, ignorance and the worst of the worst serving in office.

Yeah! Let’s amend the Constitution! What’s a Constitution?

Sometimes, Elijah, you make me smile, even on cruel days when I don’t feel like it.

Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, Dec. 15, 2017.

Darwinian Creationism

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

Irony is the word for this out-of-sorts time where the anti-Darwinian creationists are the proponents of the survival of the fittest. Think net neutrality. Think tax policy that favors the strongest. Think disregard for the weak, those less able to survive if left to the forces of a survival of the fittest free market. Think selective readings of the Bible.

Think rabbits and owls. Not the way we usually think of them, but the way I thought of them the other night after hearing what I thought was a child screaming. It was a blood-curdling cry from the sidewalk just outside our home.

Going outside to see what had happened, what did I see but a large bird (an owl) flying from the tree overhead, dropping the rabbit it had just attacked for dinner. The rabbit never had a chance. Aside from its kin somewhere in a nearby briar patch and the “superior species” who heard the screams, the rabbit’s disappearance was without consequence. It’s nature doing its thing.

Like the economy of Darwinian creationists. There is a mindset beneath the surface of the socio-economic policies being enacted into law by Congress. Creation versus science when it comes to climate change. Creation versus compassion when it comes to the human equivalents of rabbits and owls, hawks and field mice, coyotes and puppies. The strongest will survive. The weak will not. And it’s all part of God’s plan. It must be. Or it wouldn’t be. And, as for the Hebrew prophets who say otherwise — Amos, who thundered divine judgment of the rich who slept of beds of ivory made from the tusks of slaughtered elephants while they trampled on the poor; Micah, who summarized good religion as doing justice, loving kindness/mercy, and walking humbly; and Jesus of Nazareth, who gathered 5,000 hungry people for a free lunch, lifted up the poor, reached out to the maimed, the sick, the leper, the foreigner, and declared “Woe to you are rich!”and ““Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” — their cries on behalf of the rabbits fall on the deaf ears of the Darwinian creationists.

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569) – Greed

“Let those with ears hear,” said Jesus. Who among us has ears to hear and eyes to see?

“Pieter Bruegel Bruegel . . . castigated human weakness . . . with avarice and greed as the main targets of his criticism that was ingeniously expressed in the engraving The Battle Between the Money Bags and Strong Boxes” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The great irony of the theological creationist-economic Darwinians is that the human species has developed talons but lost our ears as the strong who are meant to have dominion over the weak and over nature itself.

So long as we avoid the faith issue here, the rabbit will lose. It fall to those of us who espouse the Judeo-Christian faith and biblical tradition, to do in our time what Pieter Bruegel the Elder did in his: engage the discussion with those within the same tradition whose hearing seems impaired.

Without that discussion, the rabbits in America and around the globe will be left to predators whose ironic Darwinian economics have nothing to do with informed biblical faith, the survival of anything worth saving, or reality itself. All will be left to the battle between empty money bags and rusted strong boxes.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Battle of the Money Bags and the Strong Box

— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 15, 2017.

The End of Neutrality

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

Today’s FCC vote to end net neutrality is but the latest act in the tsunami of greed that is eliminating all things neutral.

Neutral in the case of the internet means non-favoring, as in protecting a fair playing field that does not favor large providers while dis-favoring others and looking out for the interests of the general public that uses the internet.

net neutrality 722

But it’s not just in the internet debate that neutrality is in trouble in America. Our traditional allies in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia, among others scratch their heads and wonder what’s happened to America.

In Washington, D.C. the President and Congress are “reforming” the American tax code by lowering the taxes for corporations and America’s wealthiest individuals who are already reaping record profits on the pretext of lowering taxes on the middle class. The tax reform is anything but neutral. It’s greedy. It continues to widen the divide between the well-to-do and those who aren’t doing so well.

While a tax system that is anything but neutral moves forward, Congress and the President strategically malign the integrity of the independent counsel assigned the odious task of investigating foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. election. The attack on Robert Mueller’s neutrality is undertaken in the name of neutrality, portraying the former FBI Director most everyone once respected as part of a partisan Democrat plot to embarrass and unseat the President.

There is, of course, no such thing as neutrality. Never has been and never will be. But the attempt to be neutral, the attempt to put our biases and vested self-interests behind us for the sake of the greater good is a bedrock principal of a civil society and of a democratic republic.

In the American thesaurus, neutrality and fairness are kissing cousins. So are power and abuse. American history is being re-written as we speak.

jeffersonbible2 Thomas Jefferson took a razor to the Bible and cut out texts from the New Testament that seemed unreasonable according to the canons of the Enlightenment — things like miracles. But he never cut the teachings of Jesus — the Beatitudes of Matthew and Luke — “Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers” — the Golden Rule –“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — or “the first shall be last and the last shall be first,” or the commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Today in America those in power are cutting these most sacred texts from the Jefferson Bible in the name of God and country. Any semblance of neutrality, fairness, or compassion are being erased. But one text from the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Job will yet have the last word beyond the scissors of greed that scorn even the slightest attempts toward neutrality.

If you have understanding, hear this;
    listen to what I say.
Shall one who hates justice govern?
    Will you condemn one who is righteous and mighty,
who says to a king, ‘You scoundrel!’
    and to princes, ‘You wicked men!’;
who shows no partiality to nobles,
    nor regards the rich more than the poor,
    for they are all the work of his hands?
– Book of Job 34:16-19, NRSV.

May we all live to see the day.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Dec. 14, 2017.

God and the gods in Alabama

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

The Alabama Senate race was mostly about God and the gods. The election of Doug Jones over Roy Moore shows that, though God and the gods were often confused, Alabamians declared by a very slight margin that God may not be white.

Some things die hard. In America, no core convictions die harder than 1) white supremacy, white superiority, white exceptionalism, and 2) male supremacy, male superiority, male exceptionalism. It’s not just in Alabama. It’s not just in the mind of Roy Moore. It elected a president who, like Roy Moore, dismisses all claims of sexual harassment as a partisan media hoax, supported Moore’s candidacy, and issues a tweet that suggests Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has called for his resignation, is what misogynists see as the only alternative to the Virgin Mary.

Doug Jones beat Roy Moore yesterday by a hair. But, as a defiant Roy Moore rightly said, it’s not over. Nor will it be over if and when the President resigns or is successfully impeached and removed from office.

Core cultural convictions — gods — don’t die so easily. They go underground, as they did during the eight years of the Obama Presidency, until they spy another opening to claim their turf.

Through it all the choice is to reach up to the God who is above and beyond the dying gods of gender, racial, religious, cultural, and national exceptionalism, or remain their prey.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 13, 2017.

Elijah and Grandpa

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Gordon C. Stewart

“Grandpa,” asked six-month-old Elijah yesterday, “who’s George Bush?”

Elijah and Grandpa

“Which one, Elijah?”

“George!”

“Yes, but there are two Georges. Both were presidents of our country. There’s George H.W. Bush, who is now 94 years old, and there’s his son, George W. Bush. Which one do you mean?”

“The old one. The one like you, Grandpa.”

“Why are you asking about poor old George, Elijah? He’s not doing well. He’s gotten a little feeble.”

“What’s feeble? My baby sitter says George is a dirty old man like Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, President You-Know-Who — Marissa told me never to say the President’s name in her presence or she’d throw me out of day care — or that judge down in Alabama, but NOT like Jimmy Carter! Who’s Jimmy Carter?”

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Former President Jimmy Carter

“Oh, my, Jimmy Carter! I almost forgot. Jimmy was president too. Way back before George H.W. Bush. People made a big deal out of it when jimmy said he’d lusted in his heart. But, so far as we know, he didn’t harass anyone. That was a long time ago! Way before your time. It seems ages ago.”

“We want to be like Jimmy, right Grandpa?”

“Jimmy Carter would be a wonderful person to emulate, Elijah. But remember, even Jimmy’s not perfect. None of us is perfect. I want you to grow up to take responsibility for your own behavior and follow the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.”

“So Jimmy’s a lot different from President You-Know-Who, right Grandpa?”

“He’s pretty special, Elijah. A professor named Ted Gup wrote about the difference between President You-Know-Who and President Carter last year in New Republic. Here’s what he said, Elijah.

“Unlike Carter’s words, Trump’s suggest a man incapable of looking inward, of feeling shame, humility, or love. That such a purposefully divisive figure could represent the best hopes of tens of millions of Americans, even as he revolts and alienates tens of millions of others, speaks to the yawning chasm that divides the nation politically and culturally. What comes to mind is the question that once brought down another demagogue, Joe McCarthy, more than 60 years ago: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?'” [“On the Subject of Lust, Donald Trump Is no Jimmy Carter,” New Republic, Oct. 10, 2016].

“Hmmm. Grandpa, who was Joe?”

Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, December 1, 2017.

Views from the Edge

To See More Clearly

Category Archives: America

Christmas 2017

Elijah asks Grandpa about taxes

Elijah on the worst of the worst

The End of Neutrality

Elijah and Grandpa

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