The train doesn’t always make it into the station.  Well, not as often as in the past.  But that is not from lack of trying.  As the engine has aged it finds it harder and harder to build up the steam to make it over the top of the big hill.  For a while we tried different engineers, but that really was only a temporary fix.  They found new ways to coax a little more out of it but in the end it was the lack of function over the novelty.  Today only one engineer takes the controls and has found the proper way to move the valves and work the shifts, but even then the percent of total success is still low.  Oh, I know this happens to older engines but it is still disheartening.  I mean it use to be the engine could not only climb the hill, fulfill the duties at the station and take off again.  It moved and unloaded tons of passengers.   Sometimes to the surprise of the engineers involved.  But with time and use each moving part gets worn, the steam just doesn’t seem to get hot enough and well we all have known it to just stay in the roundhouse with no amount of stoking to make it go.   What is amazing is that it still has its shine and luster and one would not recognize its age by merely a scan.  But no one can deny that once the controls are taken in hand it doesn’t operate like a brand new engine one might think it was.  But on rare occasions, when the moon seems right and the air is clear we can still see flashes from the past.  Those nights,  the train makes all the deliveries asked of it and it is those nights that one realizes that the train may have a history and on the down side of its journey, it can still be a shocker. 

 

9-11 speech

A speech I gave at an interfaith service to commemorate 9-11 and link it to the tragedy of 9-11 with doing community and interfaith service as a response.  The theme was enormity and abundance.  Here are my words. 

Good afternoon, earlier we heard the sound of the Shofar, the Ram’s horn, blasting and calling us to attention.   Since ancient times the shofar was used to call people to act and to listen.  But it was also a tool of war, directing armies and in one famous story from our Bible the sounds of the shofar knocked down the walls of Jericho.  This imagery of collapsing walls has taken on more personal meaning in the last 10 years and that is one thing that brings us here today.  But today the shofar is not an instrument of destruction but one of hope.  Blown as we begin our new year in just a few days, the Shofar is a reminder that we have a responsibility to the world we live in.  It wakes us up from the day-to-day comfort and reminds us that we have a responsibility to each other.  

10 years ago on 9-11  terrorists used the planes as missiles and killed 3000 people.  But in those moments after the attacks people rose to the occasion and showed their ability to focus on the community they were part of, even if they were taking their community for granted earlier that morning.  Ordinary citizens helped carry less able people out of the burning towers risking their own safety for the safety of others, civilian workers crawled back into the fire to pull co-workers out of the Pentagon, and a handful of passengers knew their deaths were certain as they rushed the cockpit on one plane to save unknown people on the ground.  One story of a stock trader who longed to be a fire fighter, athletic and able to escape, decided to stay and clear floors, try to reach people above the impact zone in Tower One, and gave his life with bravery.  He, like so many, could have simply run, but saw this as his duty, his responsibility to the community.  He reached deep into himself, knowing the task was enormous he didn’t shy away. 

These people, and many like them, saw the tragedy as a call to action, like the shofar it was a blast to our comfort and asked us to reach deeper.   Today 10 years later the echoes of the tragedy are still with us, it calls us to build a better place in our own community. It challenges us to seek out neighbors and find common ground to work together and add to the abundance of resources we all share.  While America has 9-11, the Jewish people have long had 11-9, a day of mourning, Tisha b’av.  On the 9^th day of the 11^th month of the Hebrew calendar many tragedies were visited upon the Jewish people, tradition tells us that it was on this date that the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem and after it was rebuilt, it was this date that once again and for the second time the Temple was sacked.  It is said that the second Temple’s destruction was due to unwarranted hate.  The kind of hate that often leads to attacks on others, the kind of hate that allows 19 men to value the death of strangers over their own lives.   It is that too we combat today, as we seek to share the voices of prayer from a variety of traditions, all different, all with value and all sharing a common goal of working to create peace, justice and security in our lives. 

The building we are in is not ablaze but it reminds us of a raging fire we do face, not one of jet fuel but one of hunger.  100s of our neighbors will go to sleep hungry tonight, but because of you and the Interfaith Hunger Initiative and Gleaners, many more will not.  Today you can honor those souls who gave their lives to save others by adding your energy and resources to the abundance that is our community.  The 9-11 attacks help us remember we are all linked as a nation.  We can acknowledge it is easier to ignore others, I know tonight I will eat and be satisfied, but I cannot truly enjoy my abundance when others are suffering.  The task is enormous, but when we set aside our differences, and rally around the work of saving our neighbors I believe we can continue to make a difference.  My tradition teaches that we don’t have to complete the task, but we must try.  Join me in the effort for I cannot turn away.   Let us pray today to our own source of strength and together our voices, our actions, and our efforts reach out and turn the tragedy of 9-11 into a touchstone for that which makes us a great community.  

We can learn from words of the poet  Jack Reimer:

We cannot merely pray to God to end starvation,

 For we already have the resources with which to feed the entire world.  

If only we use them wisely….

Therefore we pray instead for strength, determination, and will power,

 To do instead of merely pray.  

To become instead of merely to wish that our world may be safe, 

and our lives may be blessed.

WHEN WE HAVE THE ABUNDANCE, THE ENORMITY IS SCALABLE.  

WE CANNOT TURN AWAY.

Remembering Linda

Today is the anniversary of the worst day of my life.  The day that Jamie Morton took Linda Akers in a fit of violent rage that reached out to reek havoc on a society he felt wronged him.  24 years ago, half my life, I have lived without the woman I truly wanted to marry, to build a future with, to me together. As I read of my peers sending their children off to college, I think I could be in that same company today but my life was delayed by the actions of a man, mad and poised to make a mark.  But I have learned over the years that tragedy is a part of life and truly living is about acknowledging the good in the person you lost and finding a way to live beyond the hurt.  I won't say I have made the best choices since that fateful day, but here I am, a life time later.  Happy, in a new marriage, with a wide diversity of friends, a great job that has meaning and I think contributing to a better world.

In the next few weeks we will be saturated with images, stories and memories of a national tragedy.  It has been 10 years since 9-11.  The world is a different place but I recently read a small article that reminded us of the fact that grieving is normal, healthy and helpful.  But to truly get past and honor the memories of friends and loved ones lost to horror we must continue to live.  For the last 24 years I think I have done that, lived out a life, sometimes fully, sometimes sheepishly, sometimes in a haze.  I lost a piece of me that I am not sure can ever fully be recovered, but I do not honor Linda if I don't fully live and as a nation we can't honor all those lost as a result of terror if we don't embrace the freedom we hold so dear, if we don't enjoy the celebrations in our lives, and if we don't combat the hate that springs up around us so often, a hate like that drove 19 young men to kill themselves and almost 3000 others and wound a country.

The greatest way I can honor Linda would be to continue to fight hate, racism, the anti-Islam crowd as well as the Islamists.  To move us away from radical rhetoric that marginalizes an entire group for the sake of a few members who act with violent. I hope to both honor my dearly departed Linda and the memory of those lost on 9-11 by working to make the world a better place, join me.  Speak out, attend services this season that elevate the good of this country and not allow yourself to be absorbed by anger, fear and hate so seductive to a damaged soul.  Most of you knew not Linda, but if you know me you have seen a spark of her.  Take this opportunity to make her memory a blessing.

Thank you for this indulgence.  

Noah turns 15 today....

Fifteen years ago today I held my son Noah for the first time, seconds after he was born.  There are powerful moments in one’s life and I have been both lucky and worked hard to be able to fulfill some childhood wishes.  I have stood on the ruins of Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, touched the Western Wall, seen the buildings at Petra and seen the splendor of the Grand Canyon.  All those moments combined cannot match power of holding my son.  And in those 15 years I have found myself feeling at times like a failure as a parent and at times I know I have helped him be the young man he is becoming.  Today is a double milestone as he starts high school officially this morning.  So I wanted to think about the 15 things that makes me glad that Noah is my son.

1.        He can quote Monty Python skits including the over the top British Accents, and not just the popular one.

2.       He has always appreciated good food, he often asks for duck fat French fries and Truffle Mac and Cheese.

3.       He loves a wide range of music, but in the car he says “Do you have your Ipod?  Can you play the Kid Delicious Mix? 

4.       He can daven the Shabbat and Weekday services and even though he doesn’t always want to, he can engage the service when asked.

5.       He cares about the feelings of others and is always ready to see what he can do to help them.  He recently asked me for his allowance to donate it to a cause he liked. 

6.       He has never been materialistic and even when shopping for something for him; he balances cost versus the value to him.  He doesn’t care if he has the next big thing.

7.       He makes Dianne feel like a mom, and makes sure that we consider her when having fun.

8.       He lets me win on the Wii since he is 10x better at most of the games and feels bad for me.

9.       He has a great sense of humor and lets it out in subtle ways.

10.   There are times I have to tell him to stop reading…he reads when he brushes his teeth.

11.   He thinks sushi is the greatest idea in food, ever.

12.   He is at home in a museum of art.  Loves Pollack and Kandinsky.

13.   He acts like “A Picker” at garage sales and at what we call The Crazy Goodwill.

14.   He is curious about the world.  He wants to know things…about lots of things.

15.   He doesn’t truly know what he wants to do in life, but he wants to make a difference. 

Noah has been a great part of my life, today he take another step into being more independent and more “grown up”.  Happy Birthday to my Noah.

Making it all about the learning.

Last week I was able to spend a week learning from the wonderful people at the Jewish Women's Archive as they were teaching us how to use this online archive in our schools, especially the Living the Legacy curriculum.  The curriculum teaches about the role of Jewish women in the civil rights movement and by extention other Jewish participation in this amazing event that changed the world we live in it.  One statistic that struck me is that some estimates suggest nearly half the white women who went South to work for civil rights from the north had Jewish heritage as part of their family history.  These were mostly women of privledge who saw the injustice and wanted to change it.  This story is important and visiting the archive website and learning about these extraordinary women would be well worth you time. 

But what was interesting was I was the only man in a group of 25 Jewish educators from around the country and Canada.  While this was not an unusual position for me to have been in in my career.  I knew a couple of the people before I came, recognized a few more from other conferences, and many were complete strangers.  What was amazing was how quickly we became a community.  As an obvious outsider it would have been easy to be held responsible for the sexism of the past and in many cases the present.  (I did occassionally cringe when some spoke of their helpless husbands suffering back home).  But we represented what truly illustrates the theme of my multicultural workshop "The Diversity of a Dozen Eggs".  We were born Jews and Jews by Choice, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Secular Humanist, we were Rabbis, lay synagogue professionals, lawyers, writers, and many professions I can't remember, we were Jews who kept kosher and some who loved bacon, we were Jews who love services and Jews who never attend, we were Jews who feel God in every tiny detail of the world, and those who are comfortable in their doubt of God's existence.  But we were all there for one thing.  We were all there to become better educators and we wanted to bring voice to the voiceless of history.  What turned out is that we all learned from each other, we all shared with each other, we all felt connected to each other.  So often the walls that separate us make it hard for us to access all we can be.  If anything was accomplished this week was to show me that when I think of my experiences for the week, I will always remember that teachers who think outside the box to instill the wonders of Judaism to the next generation. I will remember how we worked together to find ways to modify the curriculum for our particular setting.  I will remember the discussions of sustainable food and traffic on 128.  I won't remember where these women daven, or how they say the blessings, or if full kriah is important to them.  And that will always make me smile.  We came together in diversity and left in unity without compromising that diversity.  Hazah to all the women I learned from and to Etta, Judith and the entire staff of JWA.  Thank you for making my summer learning useful and reenergizing. 

Civility where did it go?

So I traveled to Boston for a conference of Jewish educators that the Jewish Women's Archive puts on.   I arrived at the airport in Indy and was greeted with an amazingly long line.  Since I didn't have a bag to check I stood in line and looked around for a USAIRWAYS attendent to see if I could skip the line and find a place to get a boarding pass.  Some horrible woman called to me and said I couldn't get ahead of her in line.  PS I was trying to help her because she too was not checking a bag.  Well let's just say the line moved well.  When we got to the counter the person who helped me was more efficent and I was done in seconds and I saw that she took a lot longer to get through security. 

So the line was long the whole time.  At one point a family of 5 walked up the counter, ignoring the line and started using one of the electronic kiosks.  When it was pointed out the counter guy asked him to stop.  He refused.  One of the girls in the family started begging and crying to the counter guy about missing their flight.  The counter guy canceled his check in and sent him to the line.  Someone let him in.  The whole time they were complaining.  In the security line, which moves surprisingly fast there was a fight of words between a couple of people...for the 10 seconds of difference between being first or second to get to the counter.  OH well, then at the gate there was the ubiquitous pushing and shoving to get on the plane first.  Once on the plane there was a bit of seat jockeying but after that things were quiet.  I had to change planes in DC.  There was a picnic.  When boarding there was a family with a child who had some form of brain disorder.  The girl was screaming like crazy and I couldn't figure out how to help.  I thought for sure that the guy at the counter would allow them on early....NOPE.  Then there was the FAA regulation that you can have only 2 carryons.  A woman had three and was yelling at the counter guy that she has to take them all on.  Then blocked the jet way to make sure someone she was traveling with would take it.  Then a guy kept trying to bump the line, then he stood behind counter guy and he had to physically move him.  Once on board the flight attendents had to repeatly tell people to power down their electronic devises, get in their seats and simply act respectful.  It was an amazing thing to watch. 

One interesting thing was our plane was met by a handful of Mass State Police, I wanted to see if they were there for any of the rude people.  Now this isn't the first time I have seen this but it was the first time it was so concentrated.  It was the first time it was so over the top. 

But now I am with a group of about 30 women, all of whom are smart, funny and ready to learn and teach.  The conference has started beautifully and we will all have a great time.  Now if we could just get this spirit out to Logan on Friday I would be happy. 

Hawking God

Steven Hawking has made the news again with a comment that not only is being reported wrongly but is not really surprising.  Hawking has become the physics darling of the media and as one of the smartest people in the world his words carry cache.  What I find surprising is how amazingly wrong the press got what he said.  Hawking called the concept of heaven and the God, as often defined by western culture a fairy story.  I would argue with his choice of words since in literature discussions the use of the words fairy tale and fairy story specifically exclude religious text.  But maybe he is correct.  The definition of God in our culture and certainly the concept of heaven prevalent in our society are not so much religious writings as they are extrapolations of what might be.  Drawn from ancient Greek and Roman concepts the ideas of heaven and hell are often seen as a place where we have temporal and physical existence as an individual.  That doesn't sound like any explanation in my Bible of life after death.  However when one is looking for a way to create a carrot and stick to explain the need for positive behavior, this is as good as any.  The Biblical formula of not getting rain in the proper season, for example, is only a good learning tool if in fact there is a connection for violating Biblical law and rain.  If there wasn't then how can one believe anything in the Torah.  This is what drives many away from religion and here is a prime example.  Hawking's proclamation is being held up by those who seem to make a career out of attacking religion any religion.  However what Hawking actually said was much in line with most modern religions.  Focusing on the here and now is far more important to modern Jewish thought and many Christian preachers than thinking about the world to come.  For them as for me, living a good life is a reward in itself.  I know, not the wonderful concept of the afterlife that would bring perpetual joy but trust me, if you do the math there are real problems with seeing heaven in its pop culture construct as joy.  


But what drove some people over the edge was Hawking's claim (though he did it last year and only now getting more traction) that the universe can exist without any God or gods and in fact is likely to exist without one.  "Hawking says there is no God" ran the banner headlines all over the internet.  But what in fact Hawking did was say the God of Newton, the mindful, purposeful creator God, who with intention and plan started the universe's balling a rolling or the every intervening God that picks winners and losers of life and football does not exist, or more correctly nothing suggests that that God does.  Again not a new idea, many modern theologians have written about a God outside of direct interaction with universe.  In fact Reconstructionist Judaism in fact is based in part on the theology of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan who said God is what drives existence itself.  Not a separate entity.   God is not a celestial hall monitor looking for sins in humanity, nor a supernatural concierge to give us things asked for.  Reconstructionist Judaism sees a good metaphor for God as the electricity running through our wired homes, adding that we as humans must activate Godness for God to be part of our world as one flips a switch to turn on the  light.  This evolution of the God concept is seen in other faith traditions as well.  But many many cling to the older notions of God that Hawking can't rectify with reality.  


I remember an episode of West Wing where President Jed Bartlet was disclosing to the country that he has MS, something he kept quiet while campaigning.  His life-long secretary had just been killed in a drunk driving accident and the funeral had just ended. He stood in the middle of the National Cathedral to give a speech.  A devote Catholic he comes face to face in a way with his God...the words directed straight at this God.


Bartlet: You're a son of a bitch, you know that? She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What? Was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know who's ass he was kissing there 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise his glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that tender ship of mine in the North Atlantic last year, 68 crew. You know what a tender ship does? It fixes the other ships. It doesn't even carry guns. It just goes around and fixes the other ships and delivers the mail. That's all it can do. Gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico. Increased foreign trade. Thirty million new acres of land for conservation. Put Mendoza on the bench. We're not fighting a war. I've raised three children. That's not enough to buy me out of the doghouse? Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto, a deo scito? Cruciatus in crucem. Tuus in terra servus, nuntius fui. Officium perfeci. Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem!


The Latin is :



Am I really to believe that these are the acts of a loving God? A just God? A wise God? To hell with your punishments.(actually to the cross)   I was your servant here on Earth. And I spread your word and I did your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you!" (again literally to the cross with you)  


Later in the episode he is confronted by the memory of his secretary, Mrs. Landingham. 
He dialogues with her:


"I have MS and I didn't tell anybody." 
        "Yeah. So, you're having a little bit of a day." 
"Are you going to make jokes?" 
         "God doesn't make cars crash and you know it. Stop using me as an excuse." 
"The party's not going to want me to run." 
          "The party will come back. You'll get them back." 
"I've got a secret for you Mrs. Landingham, I've never been the most popular guy in the Democratic Party." 
          "I've got a secret for you, Mr. President: Your father was a prick who couldn't get          
           over the fact that he wasn't as smart as his brothers. Are you in a tough spot? Yes. 
           Do I feel sorry for you? I do not. Why? Because there are people way worse off 
           than you." 


They go on to discuss the state of society and work still needed to me finished.  She concludes with the following. 


". . . . You know if you don't want to run again, I respect that. But if you don't run cause you think it will be too hard or you think you're going to lose, well, God, Jed, I don't even want to know you."  


You can see here the struggle between the concepts that embody the old world idea of what God is and the more modern idea that we have a role to make Godness grow in the universe.  A struggle that Hawking probably has been living with for quite some time, a struggle that is clear in the work of Hawking's predecessor Einstein and of course many many modern people who take their faith seriously.  But the message I would give to Hawking is that he is right there is no sense of worrying about an afterlife, but if we work hard together, honor the simplest of tenets of most faiths, and engage Godness in this world we can build heaven here, and while it will not be an eternity, it will make the short time we have better for all. 

Am Yisrael Chai

I wrote this for my weekly Religious School newsletter and thought I would share it. Please comment on it as I would like to know what you think.

Sunday is Yom HaShoah a day to remeber the Shoah. Yom HaShoah is a powerful holiday to commemorate the tragedy of Nazis’ rise to power and their efforts to wipe our European Jewry and Hitler’s plan to do that eventually to Jews worldwide. Every year we lose more people who can give us firsthand accounts of this time period, and so this holiday takes on a new importance, especially for educators of young Jews.
Part of the story must also be about survival. I was once at a conference to discuss Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who saved the lives of Jewish people in the occupied countries. A survivor was there to speak of the man who saved her life. As she told her story of living underground in farmers’ fields, moving at night through thick forests and tricking the not-too-bright border guard who her family ran across I noticed that her poster on the dais was not of Nazi-era horrors but of her son’s wedding, Purim at her synagogue in Florida, her granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Her story was about what she lived through as a child, but it was not about the horror she faced but of the survival.
Her theme was that because a man risked his life and lives of his family to save hers, she should celebrate the life that was saved in the most powerful and to her meaningful way. She saw the importance of bringing Judaism into the next generation and beyond. As she told me this, we both at the same moment we whispered, "Am Yisrael Chai," (the Jewish people live.) It reminded me that we must all remember the the Shoah, the Holocaust, even as time moves us further from it. We must pray it never happens again. We say Kaddish for the lives lost and wonder about what the lives that never got started would be like. We must fight those who wish to hurt us because of our traditions and heritage and stand for those who are suffering the same fate today. But we must too also remember Am Yisrael Chai, for the Jewish people live and life is a blessing.

Truth is a difficult thing to see.

So this weekend I was privileged to teach the Confirmation Class in my Religious School and we started talking about God and the Bible. It was an intense conversation with some surprising and I must say really surprising comments by the students. When Rabbi Sandy came in the discussion got more intense and in the end we realized the simple truth that the Bible and our understanding of God was never meant to be a static thing, but we define our contact with God, holiness and our understanding of the Bible by who we are as individuals and as a people. We seek a truth not THE TRUTH. We can see the myth of Adam and Eve are powerful stories but do we have to believe that the earth was created in 6 24 hour days in last 6000 years for it to have power. Of course not. The truth comes through. Our perspective plays a role.

I lived with the students' words as I ventured down to the Indianapolis Repertory Theatre's production the The Gospel According to James. The play is based on the story of an August 1930s lynching in Marion Indiana. There was one survivor and he went on to spend time in jail, got out, get educated, work for civil rights, create a museum for African Americans to remember the history of lynching in the US and later get a pardon. The play centers around the dialogue of two people. Mary Ball and James Cameron. You see the story told was that James and two friends Thomas Shipp, 18, and Abe Smith, 19. were out to stick up someone for some fun money. Found Mary and her boyfriend Claude Deeter in a car. Tried to stick them up but James knew Claude and couldn't do it and ran off. The rest is unclear. But Deeter died, Abe, Thomas and James were arrested. A crowd formed and pulled the first two from the jail, murdered them and hanged them. When they went to hang James, then 16 years old, a voice from the crowd saved him. Someone, one voice, stopped the lynching. We can talk about the power of that voice some other time. However the play has Mary and James telling very different stories. Each remembers the night but remembers it differently and each has a real good reason for the difference. Their recollections are discussed 50 years after the event. Most of those present that night had all passed on. There was a sad reality that in the heart of the play was that we remember and think what we need to or want to get out of the story. James, for example, until his last day saw the voice that saved him as that of an angel. Others think it was a member of the crowd who while in the midst of horror found his humanity.

But the over riding message to me yesterday was that truth is an elusive thing to nail down, especially when strong emotions are involved. Our connection to God, the horrors of murder both require our perspective. Go and see the play and it will help you understand what I mean. Remember what we see in life is always interpreted based on who we are. So much more so of our memory. With Bible, God or a horrific event who we are constructs meaning far more than the actual events and words. With that in mind we might see everything differently.

The Still small voice

Again the world is reminded that the earth is not a calm solid rock but a dynamic and ever changing and sometimes violent system. Our life is a gift of the same system that allows for the earthquake to destroy so much of what we have built and cause so much devastation. We are thankful that the Japanese over the last 50 years have become expert in dealing with both earthquake and tsunami warnings and the death tolls will be far fewer that similar events in other regions. Of course those who must attribute a cause to nature will look to this as a sign of something from a supernatural force. God's punishment for some reason or a sign of the end times. Writers will connect the revolution in the Middle East with this event, the earthquake at Christ Church and perhaps even the local cold that seems to last for weeks. God does not throw storms, tsunamis nor earthquakes at people. God, in my opinion and by historical evidence, does not intervene in that way. The universe is a creation with rules, rules that I dare say bind even God. While the Bible and other Jewish texts are full of stories of God bending the laws of nature I dare say those a simply meant to illuminate the more important lesson in the story. If we look for a God that does it all then where is our place. In fact one could argue that if this is God's doing why should we be involved.

In the first book of Kings gives us a different way to think about this as we see an interaction with Elijah.


And God said: Go out and stand before ME on the mountaintop. Then the The Holy One passed by. A furious wind split mountains and shattered rocks in the presence of the Eternal, but the Eternal was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake -- but the Eternal was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire -- but the Eternal was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.

That still small voice is the one telling us to reach out, to share what we have, and to help those in need recover. We are partners with God, and my guess is that God would be in the mix helping too, if God could. But maybe that is why humanity was created.

Ain't it America

The Supreme Court the other day rendered a decision that said the funeral protests of the Westboro Baptist Church are Constitutionally protected speech. This church, which is basically the family of one man, Fred Phelps, is known for their hateful rhetoric that suggests that the death of young military personnel is God's punishment because of the fact the the US tolerates homosexuality. This is the church with posters that say God Hates Fags and their website has a clock on it counting the days Matthew Shepard, the young man brutally murdered for simply being gay, has been in hell. I know a lot of Christians including those who see homosexuality as a choice, a sin, a destructive "lifestyle" who never level this kind of hate. They would never agree with Phelps and his ilk but they share a basic foundation of their faith, the Christian Bible. Hard to see them and Phelps share a meal though they share a Bible. Is it fair to lump them together?

Now we turn to Peter King, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, has started hearings on the American Muslim Community. In part he is looking for radical infiltration. He has even suggested that the American Muslim community has not been as cooperative with police and other law enforcement. This of course is odd since nearly 1/3 of the intelligence we have gathered since 9-11 to stop Islamic terror has come from the Muslim community. So in effect King is putting all of the American Muslims on trial for the actions of a few, many of that few do not even live in the US. Is it fair to lump them together?

King is doing something that should be an outrage to people. He is questioning the loyalty of Americans who only share as devotion or love for the same text with SOME terrorists. He doesn't question whether they share the same understanding of the text. My guess, just like my most evangelical Christian friends can't find a place in the Bible that promotes Phelps' protests and hate speech, the vast majority of American Muslims are just as confused as to how certain Islamists find words in the Quaran that encourages suicide bombing. Yet while many Christians are not ask to explain Westboro Baptist nor do they get soiled by the dirt they throw it seems easy to do that to any Muslim. Especially an Arab American Muslim. We should not be making anyone who follows the faith of Islam a suspect. It is not American.

Ironically, the Supreme Court got it right with Westboro. As much as I hate their speech, it is the cost of living in a free society to have the right for them to say what they say. Too bad Peter King doesn't understand that some ideal. I wish the GOP would stop him.