On my most recent visit to a local labyrinth, I decided to bring a camera along and take pictures of it. Didn't really know what I was going to use them for at the time. Today, I figured out what to do with them, and used them to create this web page. Enjoy.

At Blog for America, I have seen some comments recently from people who have had aggravating discussions with friends/family/acquaintances who are voting based on "wedge issues". For example, a person said she would be voting for Bush because of all he has done to end abortion.

The posts reminded me that I have seen some web sites and resources addressing these particular issues. I am going to post the ones I know about here, and encourage you to add any others that you know of.

PublicChristian.com Check out this site for a paper about why many Christians support Kerry/Edwards. Another article on the site addresses why pro-life Christians should consider voting for pro-choice candidates. Or just click the home page go see the other important topics that are addressed.

Hi everyone --

At last week's Fellowship of Reconciliation conference I met Rev. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire as well as the Episcopal church's first openly gay bishop.

I mentioned The Village Gate blog and asked him if I could set up an interview with him, with questions by the blog community here. He agreed -- with the caveat that he might take a while to respond to questions if he's busy! Which is perfectly understandable.

So here's how it'll work. If you have any questions that you wish to ask Rev. Robinson, post those questions here, as a response to this post. I'll be choosing the best questions (or maybe all of them if there are just a few, and they're good) and forwarding them on to the bishop via email. When he has time, he'll answer them and email me back, and I'll post them in a new thread for reading and discussion.

What would you like to ask Gene Robinson?

Note: This thread is open to everyone -- not for purposes of "debate" but to allow anyone to ask a question. Please do not use this thread for arguing against someone's questions or otherwise debating/attacking. All questions are welcome.

Last weekend I attended the national conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. I am one of the organizers of a FOR affiliated group, Peace Works! in Temecula Valley, and I gave a presentation at the conference on using blogs and the Internet for peace, non-violence, and reconciliation.

And I also blogged about the conference on my LiveJournal. The campus of Occidental College in Eagle Rock is covered with free wifi, so I was able to do some realtime blogging, even.

Here are links to the specific journal entries dealing with the FOR conference:

• Part One: Friday, August 6: Right now I am watching a panel discussion on civil rights, immigration, and the USA PATRIOT act.
• Part Two: Friday, August 6: I'm listening now to a speech by Mike "B.J. Hunnicut" Farrell ... Now up is Rev. James Lawson.
• Part Three: Saturday, August 7: I'm in the Tulia session at the FOR conference. Allen Bean, one of the Texan activists who got the Tulia prisoners freed from their imprisonment, is giving a presentation on their activism.
• Part Four: Sunday, August 8: Rachel Corrie's parents are speaking today.
• Part Five: Sunday, August 8: Went today to a workshop on LGBT(Q) activism ... Tonight's plenary is about non-violent resistance around the world.
• Part Six: Sunday, August 8: Currently speaking -- via translator -- is Leonardo Jimenez Garcia, of Red Juvenil ("Youth Network") in Colombia.
• Part Seven: Sunday, August 8: I met Rachel Corrie's parents after the last session.
• Part Eight: Monday, August 9: So, Bishop Gene Robinson is speaking now. Top ten list for surviving as a peace and justice advocate.
• Part Nine: Monday, August 9: Gene Robinson: "Unity without justice is not worth having."

Name-Dropping:

(Index of people mentioned)

Discuss, everybody...

"What is Conservatism? Here's an interesting paragraph from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

'The conservative temperament may be, but need not be, identical with conservative politics or right-wing economics; it may sometimes accompany left-wing politics or economics. Regardless of a conservative's politics or economics, however, it can be said that two characteristics of the conservative temperament are: a distrust of human nature, of rootlessness, of untested innovations; and a corresponding trust in unbroken historical continuity and in traditional frameworks within which human affairs may be conducted. Such a framework may be religious or cultural or may be given no abstract or institutional expression at all.

In relation to the latter aspect, many authorities on conservatism—a minority in France and a majority in England—consider conservatism an inarticulate state of mind and not at all an ideology. Liberalism argues; conservatism simply is. When conservatism becomes ideologized, logical, and self-conscious, then it resembles the liberal rationalism that it opposes. According to this British approach, logical deductive reasoning is too doctrinaire, too 18th century. Whereas the liberal and rationalist mind consciously articulates abstract blueprints, the conservative mind unconsciously incarnates concrete traditions. And, because conservatism embodies rather than argues, its best insights are almost never developed into sustained theoretical works equal to those of liberalism and radicalism.'

It's easy to fall in love with a religous tradition that honors, say, Mica 6, quoted in an earlier post. But what do we do with stories like this one in Numbers? I read this as a 10-12 year old, and I have to say it shook me to the core. The religion of my childhood- all those years of Sunday School- nothing prepared me for this bronze age warrior Moses and his acolyte, Joshua. There are a number of ways to deal with stories like this. How do you folks deal with them?
Numbers 31
7 They did battle against Midian, as the LORD had commanded Moses, and killed every male. 8They killed the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian, in addition to others who were slain by them; and they also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9The Israelites took the women of Midian and their little ones captive; and they took all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods as booty. 10All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, 11but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animals. 12Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the Israelites, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

Mica 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Today we had a lay preacher, Jeanne, who I was looking forward to hearing. I had enjoyed her insights when she and I were in a class together in July. It was taught by our rector, George, right after the service. We would discuss the readings for the following week's service, knowing that some of our own thoughts might show up in that week's sermon. Or at least thoughts inspired by our thoughts.

Jeanne's sermon today was on faith--our faith in God, and God's faith in us. She shared a story of a time in her life when she felt she had failed in her work, and that this period of time could not have been part of God's plan for her--only to find out years later that the seeds she had sown back then had borne abundant fruit. I like this kind of story, probably because it connects so well with what I am coming to realize. We are always right where we need to be, but we need faith and patience to see the eventual results.

According to an article in the Chicago Sun Times, "Superstars from several diverse genres in rock and country -- among them Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks -- are among the more than 20 bands taking part in the Vote for Change tour." Springsteen has written an editorial for the New York Times:

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

From today's Seattle paper, via a British Catholic publication:

I don't do conversations here anymore (for my health), so I'll let you discuss:

"Vatican's welcome thoughts about women"

(Subhead): But document doesn't give them any real power

CATHERINE PEPINSTER
GUEST COLUMNIST

Like most men, those who hold the most senior positions in the Roman Catholic Church would have been profoundly influenced by their relationships with their mothers. But unlike most men, for a cardinal of the church it is the only intimate relationship with a woman he will have had.

When I read the document on women published last weekend by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it struck me that this relationship runs all the way through it; much of it is an idealized portrait of motherhood. Take, for instance, the document's list of a woman's qualities: listening, welcoming, faithfulness, praise. One can imagine Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the CDF, citing those while remembering fondly those far-off days of maternal love in the Ratzinger household. The romanticized image would resonate too with a pope who lost his own mother at the age of 9, and who approved and authorized the document's publication.

I've started back at church again. As I wrote in a previous post, I'd stopped going due to conflicts with one of the ministers (who describes herself as a family friend of George W. Bush) and some of the more conservative members of the church board. The minister has moved on (after a speech in which she apparently blasted the congregation -- I wasn't there for it, only heard second-hand) and I was finally feeling up to going back yesterday. The fact that I'd signed up months ago to bring grape juice and bread for communion made it harder to chicken out.

Interestingly, the conservative military families weren't around this week, so I felt more at ease and less likely to face confrontation. Everyone else was happy to see me back but thankfully did not make a huge deal about it. The sermon by our primary (and founding) minister, a good and progressive preacherman from New England, was direct and to the point when dealing with one of the big issues of Jesus that is overlooked by American Christians: money, and its role in our lives.

All in all, a good experience.

And so I started thinking about reviving an idea I had several months ago -- which got some interest from like-minded progressive Christians in the church -- of a small group bible study on "progressive Christianity."

(Read on for more...suggestions wanted!)

I don't really have any content or thoughts of my own to add, but felt this needed as wide an audience as possible. What can we do?

Holocaust Museum Calls Crisis in Sudan 'Genocide Emergency'

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has elevated its assessment of the crisis in the Darfur region in western Sudan to a 'genocide emergency' in response to the increasing level of violence and death.

This is the first time in the museum's 11-year history that it has made such a declaration, which is intended to draw world attention to the situation and to apply pressure for a response from Sudan's government.

Museum officials say they will open a display about Darfur on Monday to allow to the public to view the devastation in the Darfur region, where government-backed Arab militia members have been attacking black residents, most of them also Muslims.

Vatican Says Modern Feminism Dangerous for Family

Modern feminism's fight for power and gender equality is undermining the traditional concept of family and creating a climate where gay marriages are seen as acceptable, the Vatican said Saturday.

Wow. Reading the headline, I knew it wasn't going to have good things to say about feminism, but I really didn't expect it to go there.

You can read the rest of the article here. Your thoughts?

I hardly know how to say this. It's so obvious. If religion has to do with compassion, with salvation in this life, with trying to reduce suffering and warfare, with making at least a minimum effort to offer resistance to the elites of wealth and power and make life better for average citizens as well as for the least well off among us-- if religion speaks to any of these concerns-- is it possible to prefer George Bush over John Kerry in the upcoming Presidential election?

Even if Kerry is not a perfect choice (but who is?) isn't it exiting to find ourselves in the position where someone of Kerry's stature actually is in a position to defeat Bush?

We are religious people living in a very imperfect world. We have a chance to make it a significantly less imperfect world. That's a very good thing.

My understanding of our Jewish/Christian heritage moves me to believe in a collective form of life or society that resembles Social Democracy. Universal health care. Full employment. Generous time away from work for family, personal growth and political or community involvement.

A form of life that strives to reduce the violence and coercion necessary to maintain public order and to solve international conflicts.

A democratic society where each person affected by a decision has a voice in the process of reaching that decision.

Such a society would probably have roughly equal numbers of men and women in leadership positions in government and business.

Such a way of living together would respect the limits of our world's biosphere and look forward, with a long range gaze, in an effort to sustain our ability to live with our fellow earthlings of all species.