"I cannot cut the connection" (guest post)

The author crossing her front yard.

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Sixty years later...
I cannot cut the connection

It began as a normal afternoon in my schoolyard—no reason for it to stand out in my mind. I was racing around playing with water balloons. We filled them part way and then squirted the water out. No use wasting an entire balloon full of water on the Arizona desert by filling water balloons and breaking them.

It was late spring, when a squirt of water would dry easily in the sun. Squirted children then grabbed a balloon for themselves and joined the race around the schoolyard. I spied one girl walking alone. Her dress was temptingly still dry. I squirted her. She turned around, face full of rage, and tried to pull my hair and scratch me with her fingernails. I dodged her. I was shocked. She turned away.

Later I walked home through the desert, between the trees whose branches my brothers had long ago flagged with plastic ties, so I could follow the ties to find my way home. My brothers were off to boarding school and college by then, and I expected an empty house at the end of the path. I was surprised to find my father writing at the dining room table.

I told him what happened. I asked him why she had lashed out. He grew very serious, and said, “I remember walking up to her house, knowing I had to tell her mother that her husband had died.” My father had been the pastor in that little town with maybe 80 kids in the district’s one grade school. I knew the story—her father had died suddenly, leaving four children and a widow. Nancy was the youngest, two years old at the time.

My father leaned down, looked me in the eye and said, “I want you to take care of her, Judy.”

It’s been sixty years now. She puts messages on Facebook like an image of flag-draped Trump saving our planet, with the tagline “On a mission from God.” Another asks for God’s protection because “with every fiber of his being, Trump is trying to protect our Land.”

I carefully weed out these messages, congratulate her on another grandchild, heart the flowery memes. Occasionally I try to offer facts in her pro-Trump posts. However calmly or kindly I word the facts, it doesn’t seem to make an impact.

It all drives me wild, but I do not unfriend her. Every time I think about it, I remember my father’s words. It’s not that she needs me to take care of her anymore. It’s that I simply cannot cut the connection.

I don’t know if she or anyone else in her family now needs Medicaid or the Obamacare subsidies. I don’t know if they are on food stamps. Did anyone get student loans? Has anyone she loves lost their federal government job? And did Republicans tell her all this would happen if she supported Trump?

Will it all come crashing down at their feet, without warning?

I’ve read posts on X ridiculing Democrats’ “hysteria” that Medicaid will be cut. How silly they are, the posts say. They ignore that the GOP has already passed a plan that will necessitate that. What will happen when their food stamps are cut, when student loan applications can’t be processed, when they have no medical insurance? It pulls at my heart.

The nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says the GOP plan just passed requires a minimum of $1.5 trillion in cuts through 2034. Also according to the Center, 45% of the federal budget funds Social Security and health insurance programs, including Medicaid. How could these programs not be cut after a massive tax cut?

Last week I realized with shock that a progressive friend of mine sincerely believed disinformation from the left. The news for the left is bad enough; why make it all worse by spreading lies? Probably for the same reason the top layer of the right-wing purveyors of disinformation do—to gain power and money for themselves.

I’ve been reading Steven Hassan’s book on cults: Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults. I’ve also gotten involved in Indivisible’s Truth Brigade. Their webinar on their grass-roots efforts to counter disinformation was inspiring and well designed. They said their strategies were research-based, but they did not give us sources.

Indivisible pressured us to use a formula for responding to disinformation. It’s hard for me to follow other people's formulas without understanding more of the context. So I searched for the research and best practices on my own. I found a summary of research findings (here) about disinformation that was very helpful. It was well written for an academic piece, but it was the usual thicket of complex sentences, passive verbs, and precise but uncommon English words. I took up my courage and a compass. I navigated my way through the underbrush of words.

I read and re-read a section titled “counter-messaging strategies.” It explained that my factual posts would have little impact on my friend. “There is strong evidence that truthful communications campaigns designed to engage people on a narrative and psychological level are more effective than facts alone.”

Of course. Another word for “narrative” is story. How could I, coming from a long line of story-tellers, have missed that people respond better to story than to a recitation of facts?

Another sentence leapt out at me, too. “Promising techniques include communicating respect and empathy, appealing to prosocial values, and giving the audience a sense of agency.”

Communicate respect and empathy

Of course. Genuine respect and empathy. It’s backed by twenty-first century research, and it’s ancient wisdom as well. Jesus said, ”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” One can not have empathy without love and respect first. Love and respect opens the way to empathy.

Appeal to prosocial values

I had to look up what “prosocial values” meant. It’s values that “promote the concern and care for the welfare of others.” It’s kindness, helping, sharing, cooperation—that sort of thing. It’s ancient wisdom as well.

Mark Condo, pastor at Reedwood Friends, opened this up for me on a Facebook post, of all places. In the comment section, a friend asked Mark, “How do we follow this scripture in this day and age when thousands are losing the support and sustenance they need because of POTUS?”

The scripture was “Christ is all and in all. As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience."

Mark replied to my friend’s question, “I've often wondered what my role is at this time. For me, what resonates most deeply and clearly within me is universal compassion. I was struck by this scripture today during my quiet time—just how essential compassion and prayer are right now, as both inward and outward practice, to allow them to flow in my own life, toward my family, Meeting, stranger, neighborhood, city.…”

Allowing compassion to flow sounds remarkably prosocial to me. Clothing yourself in humility would help the left, as well.

Give the audience a sense of agency

I love the word “agency.” It means “the power to think, choose, and act for oneself.” A grace-filled faith will in itself encourage choices. Philip Yancey in What's So Amazing About Grace? wrote, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. ... And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. ... Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.”

We cannot earn God’s love by following a strict list of things to do. The Gospels do not give much in the way of formulas to blindly follow. For example, the Beatitudes are more about opening one’s heart and mind. In Matthew, we are told to “welcome the stranger,” but not a strict formula for standing on street corners finding strangers to welcome.

I admit that we humans have difficulty giving each other—and ourselves—grace, so over the centuries Christians have created complex formulas to follow, instead of choices about how to love one’s particular neighbor.

Quakers are not immune from this. It’s only that the rules for how to be a “good Quaker” are more unspoken—keep quiet about it if you just bought a new Cadillac, don’t bring a side of beef to meeting potlucks, etc.

Still, we can call ourselves back to grace. We can ground ourselves in grace, and incidentally encourage agency.

I point this out because I believe that the progressive church in the US can have a profound effect on the political climate today. With so many changes, people need community more. We can be that trustworthy, grace-filled community.

We know in our bones how to communicate respect and empathy, appeal to prosocial values, and give the audience a sense of agency.

We just have to be louder about it, and follow our own ancient wisdom. It works.

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Reposted with permission from the March 30 issue of the Newsletter of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. Judy van Wyck Maurer (she, her) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Johan and two cats. She is the editor of the Newsletter and clerk of Sierra-Cascades Communications Committee.

Follow this link to subscribe to the Newsletter.

From the same issue, here are more ideas on communicating with respect:

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Too much disinformation on the menu?
Make a truth sandwich!

Indivisible and other organizations recommend responding to disinformation with a “truth sandwich.” It’s based on the same research referenced above. The graphic is from Indivisible’s Truth Brigade.

• First, find and express common ground. “I’m also concerned about…” Or “I agree that ____ is important.”
• Second, help engage the person’s critical thinking, perhaps by posing questions with good information.
• Third, go positive with a shared sense of a good future.

Here’s a good how-to from the Truth Brigade on making your own truth sandwich.

Here’s a different take on the truth sandwich from National Education Association.

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The first Sunday of April is coming up, which means that Bremerton Friends Worship Group, Bremerton, Washington, USA, will be gathering again.

A "silent but not subdued" Quaker response to the police raid on Westminster Friends' meetinghouse in London. (My note of cautious support for the political use of public worship.)

Micah Bales: "What does it look like to bear fruit in this time of deepening national disaster?" Consequences are coming for us all. 

Timothy Snyder, "recent Toronto transplant," has seen tyrants before ... an interview in Maclean's.

Heather Cox Richardson inventories the situations we seem to be facing on the USA's so-called "Liberation Day."

The reality of Starliner's flight to the International Space Station was "far wilder than most of us thought." Eric Berger (ars technica) has the "harrowing" details.

More from space:

Fram2 mission patch (source); Amundsen and team's tent at South Pole (replica); the original Fram.

Stephen Clark reports on the Fram2 mission—the first human spaceflight to orbit over the North Pole and South Pole. The mission is named in honor of the historic ship Fram, used by Norwegian polar explorers. Mission updates.

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Rick Estrin is tired of "Living Hand to Mouth." (Rick, don't look to "Liberation Day" for help!)

Due process, the Bible, and lunacy

Seizing Rumeysa Ozturk in broad daylight.

Source.   

One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
—The Bible

We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics.
—Marco Rubio on cancellation of student visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, arrested Tuesday morning.

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Evidence is ever more abundant that, among decisionmakers at the top of the current U.S. government, the law is seen as irrelevant, or even a nuisance, and the emphasis is on aggressive, swift, ruthless, secretive action.

The video of Ozturk's arrest published today in the Washington Post is shocking. A group of men in plain clothes, some hiding their faces, leave an unmarked car, grab her, and whisk her away handcuffed. Her phone has been seized. Before we (or a judge) know it, she is in Louisiana. Her student visa is cancelled. I thought maybe I was growing accustomed to the Trump-era eradication of normal due process, but I guess not, thank God—we should never get used to this. But it's a crushing disenchantment to see this happening in the "Land of Liberty."

(More about Ozturk's experience is here.)

It appears that official outrage against international students and green card holders is directed especially at people defending Palestinian human rights. Questioning U.S. support for Israel's treatment of the Gaza Strip (population 2.14 million) has been casually classified as aiding Hamas (membership 20,000?), but there seems to be no interest in making this distinction, or, indeed, proving anything at all. We are supposed to accept whatever Trump, Rubio, and their operatives tell us concerning the alleged misdeeds of the people they grab.

This is the administration for which 82% of the USA's evangelical or born-again Christians voted. For them, I dedicate a brief Bible study:

The qualities many of us usually associate with God are grace and mercy. Grace is God's goodwill to us and the whole creation—it's something we don't have to earn, in fact can't earn, but we can pass it on in the way we treat others. And when we fall short, this grace is expressed as mercy—compassion and restoration instead of punishment.

“But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the Sovereign Lord. “Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
—Ezekiel 18:21-23 

The Lord is not slow in keeping this promise, as some understand slowness. Instead the Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9

As with grace, God is the source of mercy, but also as with grace, we are to pass that mercy on.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
—Hosea 6:6

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
—Matthew 5:7

There is one specific aspect of mercy that we and our leaders are not at liberty to ignore. We know this aspect as due process. It's a core principle of U.S. constitutional law (see the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth), but the Bible witnesses to its antiquity, as in, for example, the quotation at the top of this post: "A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."—Deuteronomy 19:15.

Concerning the centrality of this principle, jazz critic and commentator Nat Hentoff had the right idea. Back in 1989, he told a story about a visit he made to a conference in Israel:

I ran into a rabbi in Jerusalem, he’s a philosopher, he’s a big macher in many ways, David Hartman. I’d never met him before, and there was a brief respite between the discussions, and I met him in the corridor and he said, “Hentoff, I want you to tell me the most important development in the history of mankind”. And I said, “Due process”. He said, “Right”, and that’s the last I ever heard of him.

The ethic of due process is reflected in several other biblical passages. The Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 5, include this central demand: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” This may well be the most violated commandment of our political life.

Other examples:

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.
—Isaiah 1:17

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
—Leviticus 19:15

Ecclesiastes has an acid comment on politics without this ethic:

"If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still."
—Ecclesiastes 5:8

The principle comes up in the New Testament, too, as in the dramatic scenes of the gospel of John, chapter 7, when Jesus shows up in Jerusalem halfway through the Festival of Tabernacles, and begins teaching in the temple court, fully aware of the risk. The authorities send guards to seize him, but ...

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.

“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
—John 7:45-52

As for Marco Rubio calling Rumeysa Ozturk and people like her "lunatics," along with the choice insults he and his colleagues (led by the president) use for judges they don't like, and other targets of convenience, I don't want to push this Bible passage too hard, but it's interesting:

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.
—Matthew 5:22; follow link for the footnotes.

Finally:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
—Matthew 7:1-2 

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Here's a sobering perspective from Cornel West's presentation last Saturday at Reedwood Friends Church (sponsored by The Cultural Soul Project):

Democracy ain't nothing but a moment of interruption in the history of non-democratic and anti-democratic regimes going back to the beginnings of the species. And it doesn't last forever. You got to fight for it, sacrifice for it, truth-tell, justice-seek for it. And in the end there is still no guarantee.

(Be sure to watch the whole video; there's plenty more about the spiritual resources we draw on to truth-tell and justice-seek. And you'll get occasional glimpses of Judy and me in the third row!)

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Related posts:  Grace and mercy; Have mercy; Grace and peace.

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Friday addition: Jonathan Last recommends thinking and acting "like a dissident movement" in these specific ways. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Heather Cox Richardson looks at some of the words of J.D. Vance (in 2021) and Curtis Yarvin (in 2022) that might help us understand the American future they and their networks are looking forward to: a future without democracy. What do you think: is the current DOGE chainsaw operation a fulfillment of those stated visions?

Andy Olsen at Christianity Today: How are Hispanic churches in Florida dealing with the state's "double immigration crackdown"?

Alexander Vindman on the shutdown of Radio Free Europe and its sister channels. Checking this evening, Voice of America and its Russian service seem to be frozen on March 15, but RFE/RL's Russian service (svoboda.org) is still alive.

Elizabeth Bruenig asks, "Can Silicon Valley Find Christianity?" As you guessed, it's complicated: "Christianity, they ought to know, is not a life hack: It’s a life-upending surrender to the fact of divine love."

The Council of Europe's Venice Commission provided an amicus curiae brief to Ukraine's Supreme Court on the subject of conscientious objection, particularly in wartime. Page 13 summarizes relevant Quaker experience. (Thanks to Ukrainian Quakers for the link.)

Is Nancy Thomas an official old soul?

The latest list of happiest countries. By the way, John Helliwell (World Happiness Report) tells us: “Negativity is poisonous to happiness.”

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Mavis Staples, with Rick Holmstrom on the guitar: "Wade in the Water."

The tax covenant

A few days ago, I finished compiling our family's federal and state tax information for 2024 and sent it on to our preparer. These hours of accounting for our income and relevant expenses over the previous year are a chance for reflecting on our stewardship, our evident priorities ... and where our tax money goes.

Over the years, the subject of taxes has come up several times in this blog. Back in 2006, I linked to a post by Julia Ewen of Atlanta Friends Meeting that I republished with her permission. She reframed the issue of conscientious payment or nonpayment of taxes. Among other points, she said:

We have to accept the fact that life—paying or not paying taxes included—is not neat and clean. And take responsibility for our choices—and their fall-out—good and bad together.

The biggest danger,  though, lies in getting confused about who in charge of things: Caesar? The religious establishment? or Jesus/God? And that confusion can happen whether Caesar is involved or not (hence the story about the Temple Tax).... [See her full essay for the "Temple Tax" context.]

In fact Caesar is probably the smaller problem. Jesus talks very little about Caesar, but inveighs a great deal against people in the religious establishment: people who like to appear to be good while in fact committing injustice and evil, people who acquire money and power at the expense of those they are supposed help and protect, people who live motivated by fear, greed, selfishness, addiction to power, instead of love and concern for others...

When we get that right, then we will know when to pay taxes and when not to. Neither is wrong. Neither is right. In and of itself. It is like the Torah admonition not to pick grain on the Sabbath  ( Matthew 12:1-8). Yes, scripture says not to do it. But scripture also says that we can pull an ox out of the ditch if he has fallen into it on the Sabbath... "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath". Thus the he issue about taxes is not simply about paying or not paying. It is about why we are paying—or not—about being responsible for our choices, and about who we are letting run our lives, our souls!

Here's what I wrote back in 2022, when anti-tax rhetoric was at one of its periodic peaks:

In this political season, both in the USA and in the UK (and no doubt elsewhere), politicians are trading on the dislike of taxes to gain popularity. Republican opposition to Democratic initiatives are routinely blasted with the old "tax and spend" epithet, and the Conservative leadership campaign in the UK has featured competitions for who can cut taxes the most.

A biblical view of taxation might be hard to pin down. We have God's sour view of what a king would do to the people of Israel (1 Samuel chapter 8), but also the attributes of good rulers (Psalm 99:4; Proverbs 16:12). We have examples of the positive uses of taxation (to support the central institutions of the nation, particularly the Temple, and to prepare for drought; more generally, to maintain the nation's leaders so they can protect the people and serve justice). John the Baptist tells tax collectors to collect only the required amount (Luke 3:12-13). Jesus treats tax collectors positively (especially Matthew) and tells his followers to pay Caesar what is Caesar's (Mark 12:17 and parallels).

In the USA and similar democracies, the fundamental functions that governments must do, and pay for, are described in a constitution (written or unwritten) and in subsequent legislation. We vote for the people in the legislature and authorize them to draw up budgets based on the commitments we have made to each other, all based on those authorized purposes of the government. We then have to pay for those commitments that keep our nation viable and livable. The sum total of those costs represents the amount we have to raise, one way or another. 

Right now our national conversation seems to be "what commitments can we slash to save money?" A more honest conversation would admit that we're often actually asking "what commitments to others can we slash to save money, while keeping the commitments that benefit people just like us?" A popular variation: "What commitments can we privatize so that we can buy them if we want, and those who can't afford them ... well, we just won't worry about them."

The conversation I truly want to have across political lines is: "Who do we [and who do our critics] want our policies to bless, and who are we willing to leave out?" Once we've decided what we're willing to pay for these blessings to ourselves and our fellow human beings, we can then figure out how to divide the burden with equal attention to fairness. Evading our fair share is not an honest blessing.

Source.  

Ideally, by paying taxes, we citizens are simply upholding a covenant we have with each other. We have made promises to each other—"to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" (preamble to the U.S. Constitution), setting up a government for these purposes and assigning that government, through our legislature, the practical tasks needed to fulfill those promises. We know that these tasks cost money, so our legislators make a list of those costs and institute sources of revenue, including taxes. That's the covenant: to decide on the tasks needed for the "general Welfare," from which we all benefit, directly or indirectly, and to pay our fair share for those tasks.

Too bad it doesn't end there!

First of all, we rarely have unanimity on the tasks themselves. A huge example: many countries recognize that health care is an inelastic demand that affects every single person—precisely the sort of thing that the marketplace cannot provide equitably—but, in the USA, we don't. We differ as to whether various essential tasks of community maintenance should be federal responsibilities or best left to local governments, the marketplace, or private charity. What is the best balance between governmental provisions for social and economic justice, on the one hand, and entrepreneurial incentives on the other? Even with perfect goodwill on all sides, we are guaranteed some robust debates. And once the commitments have been made and the budgets established, some will still resent paying those costs.

To complicate things further, as the Bible and the Federalist Papers remind us, we are not angels. The collection and disbursement of taxes is subject to corruption. Some of us evade taxes; some of those who spend the people's money find ways to divert it. And even among honest people, inefficiencies can creep in. So ... we have to spend some of our tax money on auditors, prosecutors, and inspectors-general, just so the rest of the money can go to its original purposes, and (hopefully) trust among taxpayers can largely be preserved.

Even with all those complications, the general covenant can prevail as long as we can see that our taxes pay for the promises we have made to each other, with reasonable allowances for audits and safeguards. But it's a vulnerable covenant. All it takes to break it is for enough self-serving demagogues to make enough noise, generate enough cynicism, trigger enough popular resentment, in order to make people forget the covenant altogether. Instead, those manipulators treat "TAXES" [scary music] as a special category of evil that has no connection with those constitutional purposes ... except for those purposes that have taken on exaggerated rhetorical sanctity—most usually, the Military, which is sometimes given even more than it asks for!

Aside from this cynical practice of breaking the connection between promises and taxes for political gain (example: the traditional Republican slogans about those "tax and spend Democrats"), there are at least three other techniques for weakening the essential covenant trust between people and government, and thereby diverting resources from the "general Welfare" to benefit those who resent sharing their wealth. All three are very popular in this current season of chaos.

First: raise an alarm over waste and corruption, without providing for a deliberate process of finding specific instances, or using the facilities already provided for that purpose. The current DOGE chainsaw campaign may accidentally and randomly eliminate some defective corners of the bureaucracy, but there seems to be no corresponding eagerness to find out what promises, honestly made and honestly kept, could end up on the butcher's floor in the process, and what those now-broken promises might cost in human life.

Second: sabotage the promise-making process, namely the work of the legislative branch. Our Constitution explicitly assigns the budgeting task to Congress, which also establishes the major branches of government and has, in the Senate, the "advice and consent" role of approving high officials. The president must not encroach on the legislature's lawmaking responsibility but instead, in the Constitution's words, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed...." Now these encroachments are made on a daily, sometimes almost hourly basis.

Third: act as if the wealthiest among us should never fear even modest increases in the taxes they pay. Those who arguably benefit the most from the governmental structures that protect their wealth and (by providing infrastructure at taxpayer expense) make that wealth even possible, too often use that wealth to exercise veto power over suggestions of increased taxes. No matter how worthy or urgent our proposed promises to each other might be, revenue must only go down! Best of all, from their point of view, the savings gained by mercilessly degrading "general Welfare" can actually reduce their taxes.

(I recognize that there are ultra-wealthy people who do not agree with this agenda.)

I'm relatively sure that you already know all this, and probably know it in greater depth and detail than I do. I only record it here, and in the framework of a covenant, because I would like to do my tiny part in reinforcing that original connection between promise and payment in a season that, instead, threatens to overwhelm us with a tidal wave of misdirection and cynicism.

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Related: The socialists are coming!! Paying for health care. 

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How ethics can deteriorate: Cabinet member openly urges television audience to buy Tesla stock. "Danielle] Brian [of Project on Government Oversight] said Lutnick’s comments indicated that Trump’s previous flouting of ethics norms may be affecting how his officials behave." You think?

At NASA, too ... Eric Berger (Ars Technica):

[I]f we're going to start lying about basic truths like the fate of [astronauts Butch] Wilmore and [Suni] Williams—and let's be real, the only purpose of this lie is to paint the Trump administration as saviors in comparison to the Biden administration—then space is not going to remain apolitical for all that long. And in the long run, that would be bad for NASA.

Matt Levine (Bloomberg): Even deregulation needs regulators.

The alleged dangers of the "empathy exploit" (Elon Musk) and two Christian responses: Michael C. Rae (Religion News Service); George Demacopoulos (Orthodox Christian Study Center, Fordham).

And now, for a cosmic change of perspective courtesy of the European Space Agency, namely 26 million galaxies and counting. Be sure to watch the extraordinary video.

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Can't say I didn't warn you ... "The Hustle Is On." (With the late Little Charlie Baty.)

"Grandchildren are the crown of the aged..."

Your blogger as a brand new grandchild, in Oslo,
with his Oma and Opa, Emma and Paul Schmitz.

We can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents.
—António Guterres

Perhaps nothing is more predictable than politicians' sanctimoniously referring to the interests of "our grandchildren."
—Neil H. Buchanan

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged...
—from Proverbs 17:6.

It's not unusual for people to talk about grandchildren—now (with pictures) or in the future. I've been in such conversations. But I was brought up short the other day when a friend said, "I don't want grandchildren."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Just think. What kind of a world would they be born into?"

I'm embarrassed to admit that I've rarely considered these two things at the same time: what my actual family, friends, and neighbors, and their flesh and blood descendants, will experience, and the macro-scale trends forecast by our economists and ecologists—a future my contemporaries and I might or might not experience firsthand, but what we might reasonably anticipate for our children's children.

Politicians naturally might want us to believe that, with our support, they will help shape that future into a better direction. But I have some questions for them/us:

• Will your recommendations benefit some children ("our" children) more than others? If so, what will happen when those other children catch on to your game? And will our children welcome this bias and be infected by your cynicism, or will they be repelled in favor of a more universal blessing?
• How will you know when disastrous ecological changes approach a tipping point beyond which we cannot risk going? What risks of miscalculation are you willing to take? When are you going to go public with your own private realization that we have been postponing a true reckoning too long?
• When will the dismantling of our (U.S.) constitutional structures and norms reach a similar tipping point? How will you know? How are you responding?
• In any realm—political, ecological, economic, or the places where all three merge—can you envision joining a coalition of hope and change of a sufficient scale that it would compensate you for abandoning your personal dreams of political success—a success that honesty might well threaten?
• Will you identify, join, or help build such a coalition? Will I?

If by some microscopic chance, our generation's grandchildren see this, my question to them is: well, how did we do?

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Related, sort of: Sowing in tears, part one, part two. The long defeat.

Political tipping point toolbox: The Federalist #51, "The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments."

Environmental Research Letters: Observations and cautions on using the term "tipping point."

Climate change outlook (science and politics) for 2025 and more generally. It seems that the planet itself is not in danger, but how far can we push its capacity to host complex life forms?

Hannah Bowman: ways for your church to take solidarity beyond sympathy.

Food for vision, from George Lakey: nonviolence vs dictators.

Indivisible: example of a current coalition. (Suggestions of others, and your criteria for supporting them, are welcome!)

Friends Committee on National Legislation, lobbying on behalf of Quakers in the USA since 1943.

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Revisiting George Lakey's writings, while assembling the list above, reminded me of the power of telling stories in advocating social justice. I still have vivid memories of Studs Terkel interviewing storyteller John Henry Faulk. (November 1, 1969.) I couldn't believe my ears! In fact, Faulk's argument from absurdity probably helped open me to genuine Christianity, as did the Christmas 1969 issue of Reader's Digest a month later. (I told that story here.)

Our old friend and colleague John Muhanji is giving a First Monday talk, April 7, at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania. Contextualizing Quakerism to African Cultural, Social, and Spiritual Realities.

What is Lent, really? (Asking for a Friend!)

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Eve Monsees, "Number Nine Train."

Theological mathematics (partly a repost)

Source.  

Back during Richard Nixon's Watergate crisis, I was in the office of Edward Lee, one of my Russian professors, and our conversation turned to those events in the country to our south. (I was a Carleton University student, in Ottawa.)

Lee pointed out that there was a silver lining to the daily parade of distressing revelations: as it turned out, we had been right about Richard Nixon. Our misgivings were based on reality.

Today, as the evidence of unbridled authoritarianism under Trump and Musk keeps streaming in, I thought about that conversation. I confess that part of the reason I stay on top of each day's political news is not just to refresh my sense of horror. There's a perverse satisfaction in getting confirmations that our misgivings are not exaggerated.

For Christians who cherish the cycle of the church year, Lent has just begun. (This year, Lenten observances in the Eastern and Western churches roughly coincide.) One of my friends in England takes a complete break from the Internet during this season. I am not following her worthy example; I'm online daily to watch events unfold around me, and to consider my modest role in resistance.

Still, I need to take into account the purpose of this season that culminates in my favorite holiday, Easter. In Lent we go into the desert in search of Living Water so that we can meet the risen Lord with our hearts refreshed and ready, undistracted, in essential unity, ready to share the seeds of hope.

... Undistracted? In unity?

I sometimes forget how much support there is around me if I just stop and look! My English friend's discipline blesses her—and me, too. So does every community in the family of faith that keeps holding up the reality of that Living Water, and reminds me in many ways, liturgical as well as Quaker, in order not to get dried out with my steady diet of difficult news. Anger and cynicism are roaming that desert, ready to complain about the lack of water, tempting me to ask, "Is the Lord among us or not?" (See Exodus 17:1-7.)

PDF version available from here.

Since the late 1970's, during every Lent, I work my way through Emmanuel Charles McCarthy's Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love, which reminds me that, through the millennia of history, the family of faith has endured far more time under one or another form of tyranny (with parts of the family even becoming collaborators!) than under relative freedom. In the USA, some Christians claim to be under persecution, but in many other places, the persecution is real, just as the trial, torture, and execution of the Head of our family was real. Nor are we at liberty to ignore the suffering of the rest of the world.

A decade ago I originally posted "Theological mathematics." The essay that inspired me was by Thomas R. Kelly. It was part of the collection of writings published as The Eternal Promise. The context of his brief essay entitled "Reflections" was another period of high tension: World War II was just ahead. What's more, in those very months Kelly was writing, Germany and her opponents were in a strange competition to enlist Russia as an ally.

In another essay from the same book, "Where Are the Springs of Hope?" (also summer 1939), Kelly said, "In such a world as ours today, no light glib word of hope dare be spoken." Such words are not suitable unless "...we know what it means to have absolutely no other hope but in Him. But as we know something of such a profound and amazing experience, clear at the depths of our beings, then we dare to proclaim it boldly in the midst of a world aflame. But the words are no good if the life experience is not behind them."

I think Kelly's writings in The Eternal Promise (and, of course, in the earlier collection, A Testament of Devotion) are helpful Lenten sustenance, and not just for me as an individual. They might speak to all Friends, and to all who may find themselves and their communities in a dry, fractious place just when the world needs their seeds of hope. As it turns out, the more variety we have in our Lenten disciplines, the more we need to support each other, drawing upon the experiences of all people everywhere who know what it means to challenge the principalities and powers.

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Theological mathematics (2015), edited

In the summer of 1939, just weeks or perhaps days from the opening guns of World War II, Thomas Kelly was staying at an Episcopal monastery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While there, he wrote some reflections that were published posthumously among the essays collected by his son Richard Kelly in The Eternal Promise.

Among other reflections, Thomas Kelly wrote:

Outside the shadows of the evening are falling upon the quiet, friendly garden where a few moments ago three of us, two Fathers of the Catholic tradition and a Friend, were speaking of the sacraments. There was much talk of the "covenanted channels," of the seven to which Catholics hold, of the two which Protestants practice. So long as questions of theological mathematics were upper, of seven or of two, there was a danger which we tacitly avoided. It became evident that I, an "unbaptized" Quaker, was not a Christian, except for the saving provision which allowed one to be a "Christian by desire."

Yet as the conversation moved to the love of God, to the need of Christ being formed in us, to the outgoing love of the Nazarene, to the blind and lame and wounded in body and soul in these days, the conversation became a sacrament where the Presence was as truly in our midst as He is in the Mass within the chapel walls. For the time being, Sacramentalist and Quaker were one, in the fellowship of the Church Universal.

The phrase that struck me forcefully: theological mathematics. Kelly is gently putting the question of sacramental observances in perspective, but I sat there wrestling with a different arithmetic: subtraction. We serve such an amazing God, we are led by such a luminous Saviour, the world is so demonstrably in need of authentic Christian hope, that I'm having a hard time with all the public Christians who seem intent on telling us (whether crassly or with endless theological subtlety) why this person or that should have the church's door slammed in their face.

It's not that we shouldn't have boundaries. Apparently many people are, at any given moment, not attracted by the Light we ourselves have found irresistible; they are entitled to their choices. But our invitation must remain honest and real and the door must remain open, fully lit. What we can't tolerate is a false welcome, an ostensible invitation with hidden screens to be sure nobody we're uncomfortable with stumbles in. Yes, we will have healing work to do; wounded people are not entitled to remodel the household of faith to suit their allergies and addictions. We will have to struggle, together with newcomers, over different understandings of the ethical consequences of conversion, whether the sharp edge of the struggle is sex or money or the obligations of citizenship. God knows, we're dealing with all this ourselves. But, the point is, when people come to us and say that they're ready to embrace Jesus, we then face these problems, even these conflicts, together.

The conflicts between theological conservatives and theological liberals in our evangelical corner of the Quaker world are not to be dismissed or taken lightly. At our best, we challenge each other's pretensions and false heroism, and keep each other honest. But I fear that when we let those conflicts take up too much space, we lose our perspective and our priorities. It's not that we need to conceal these conflicts in order to avoid scandalizing potential converts. People aren't stupid, they won't be surprised that we "mature" Christians are just as human and fractious as they are. But woe unto us if we diminish Christ's ability to create unity where the world would predict, even encourage, division.

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(Back to 2025.) I love how Kelly's reflections on his visit to the monastic community in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the eve of wartime, model the kind of wideband mutually supportive relationships that we'll need in these times. I am also remembering Beacon Hill Friend Howard Segars, who in our own time was also a participant in this same Cambridge community.

Related posts: "The gathered meeting," parts one and two.

See original post for some helpful comments from readers.

You may have noticed the words "our evangelical corner of the Quaker world...." When the post was first written, we were still in Northwest Yearly Meeting. Many Friends in our current "corner" of the Quaker world would probably not use the adjective "evangelical" for themselves. The word has suffered a lot of abuse as a result of its politicization.

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I mentioned my practice of monitoring online sources of political news. Kristin Kobes Du Mez lists some of the sources she finds helpful for this calling. Her Convocation Unscripted colleague, Robert P. Jones, has an Ash Wednesday commentary on the U.S. president's speech to Congress. (I may have given the Convocation Unscripted link before, but just in case....)

Despite limited legal victories in the Supreme Court and a U.S. district court, the USA's international aid programs and partnerships are still in grave danger. Here's FCNL's online campaign facility for this concern. My one caution: e-mails to my Oregon senators are getting through on these facilities, but our congressperson's e-mail has a filter to catch "automated" e-mails even if the actual e-mail has been substantially rewritten by the sender. I now write to her using the form on her own congressional Web site.

Right Sharing of World Resources just held another online gathering of former board members, giving us a chance to meet the new executive director, Traci Hjelt Sullivan, and the country coordinator for Guatemala, Ruth Bueso. I wrote about the first two gatherings here and here. Among other things, the RSWR staff asked for our help in publicizing these job openings.

And ... Right Sharing takes a turn guest-editing the Daily Quaker Message.

Michael Albertus (Foreign Affairs) on climate change and the coming age of territorial expansion.

Juan Cole's Tomgram on how science fiction anticipated DOGE.

Nancy Thomas's unruly saints and questionable angels. 

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Hubert Sumlin (1931-2011) and David Johansen (d. February 28, 2025) had a marvelous collaboration, with Johansen supplying voice after Sumlin's lung surgery.

In crisis and conflict, "the church is like a ..."

Memories of Elektrostal, Russia, in winter, thanks to Sergey Kadyrov (composer and videographer). (Not related to tonight's post.)

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The president of the United States is vigorously putting his authoritarian stamp on all aspects of federal government. With the help of technocratic lieutenants, he is cutting ties with past practices and norms as quickly as possible, hoping to carve and cut as much as possible before (if ever) the courts, the Congress, or the people slow him down.

A crucial part of his core support is a network of charismatic Christians who believe that Christian authoritarianism is actually better than democracy, that their leaders are apostles and prophets in the biblical mode, and that their opponents are in the service of Satan. How might those of us Christians who value democracy, and are emphatically not in the service of Satan, organize our responses?

Last week I summarized at least one school of interpretation of all these developments. This week, I want to consider how we in the Church (capital C) might be responding. My ideal is a mutually respectful division of labor according to our spiritual gifts, temperaments, and leadings. And I'm organizing these tentative thoughts using the metaphors in my post from May of 2021, "The church is like a ...." As always, your additions, improvements, and personal stories are very welcome.

My overall point is this: each of us can do, and is called to do, only so much. Our strength is in Jesus, not in anxious overwork, and the church can be our point of coordination and mutual support.

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"The church is like an incubator."

• Are you a pastor or elder, a member of the meeting of ministry and counsel? Whatever your title, perhaps you have a calling as one who cares for souls. You can hold open space for grief, for lament, for the recognition of our losses, for our disillusionment and discouragement, and also for those whose idealism flares up in the face of all this.
• You can watch for the new growth of leadership and prophecy for our times among young and old alike, and let them know you've noticed and are ready to connect them with mentors.
• You will see who among you, and who in your broader community, has lost jobs as a result of the administration's slashing of the federal workforce and its contractors, and the cost of the MAGA war against the hard-won gains of the civil rights movement, and connect those people with aid.
• Your role in the church might be to administer the funds or shepherd the connections that respond in practical ways to these challenges.
• If you have the gift of prayer or healing, you will certainly be needed to uphold all of these ministries, and to pray protection over the community and its places of work and worship.
• Consider how to bring children and newcomers into conversations that might come more naturally to some than to others.
• How can our worship faithfully reflect the joy, grief, and commitment that we honestly feel as we put ourselves and our situation into God's hands? As Larry Norman asked fifty years ago, "Why should the devil have all the good music?"

"The church is like an observatory."

• Not everyone can cope with the constant stream of news, rumors, and social-network posts that reflect the administration's actions and their consequences. But if you can do so, your careful work in discerning truth from exaggeration (from whatever side), urban legends, and outright false witness will be an important contribution to the whole community.
• If you are an observer, part of your role might be to identify reliable sources of information, as well as predictable sources of misinformation (inaccuracies and exaggerations) and disinformation (deliberate deceptions and false narratives, no matter how persuasive).
• Are you a legal expert or lawyer? In collaboration with other observers, you may see opportunities to initiate or join legal challenges to unlawful, unethical, or unconstitutional acts.
• The prophets among you will be needed to give voice to God's leadings, and confirm them through consultation and mutual accountability among each other. Remind the community that, whatever other business the faith community may have, agenda item number one remains, "What does God want us to say and do at this time and place?"
• Prophets can help us know when the time has come for civil disobedience.
• You and other observers in your own community can be in frequent touch with other communities that have similar commitments to faith and trustworthiness.

"The church is like a laboratory."

• Be curious! The Christians who choose authoritarianism over democracy have their reasons, and their own version of idealism. If you are feeling led, and are equipped and prayed-for in your community, reach out to our opponents and ask questions, supply accurate information, build relationships, pray for them, and bring your insights back to the rest of us.
• Do you have the gift of evangelism? Pray for opportunities to open up a more complete witness of grace than the opposition offers. Be ready to explain concepts of spiritual warfare that that are not politically manipulative. For those who have never seen what spiritual unity looks like when nobody is excluded, be sure your community is ready to demonstrate what we preach, and don't conceal our failures!
• When civil disobedience is called for, be prayerful and creative. Look to the past for inspiration (for example, in George Lakey's books) but also innovate. Build coalitions with trustworthy allies. Consider tax protests and boycotts, and be prepared to explain your actions to the public without resorting to activist jargon. Accept failure and learn from it, without losing heart. Stay in constant touch with pastors, elders, stewards, and prophets, cherishing your unity with those who may be called to prayer and stewardship but not to disobedience.
• Does your community have divisions between mystics and activists, between cynics and idealists, conservatives and radicals, between those who rage and those who mourn? This is the time to experiment with new commitments to love and learn from each other, and use our differences to keep each other sharp and honest. There's nothing wrong with conflict, conducted ethically among those who love each other.

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This list is just a start. Its biggest weakness: no stories. I could tell a few ... and make this post far too long. Better idea: please tell some stories of your own, and add some ideas and color to this list. Also, I'd love for us to know who else is working on church-based responses to the threat of Christian-sponsored authoritarianism. Let's build the network.

(Note: See the items from Beacon Hill Friends House in the link list below, under "Coming in March.")

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Related:

Gospel order revisited

Living without lying

Worship and protest

Dining across the divide

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Coming in March:

• March 2, 4:00 p.m. Pacific time: Bremerton (Washington) Friends Worship Group.
• March 5, noon Eastern time in Washington, DC, and online: Faithful Witness Wednesdays at the U.S. Capitol.
• March 5, 7:30 p.m. and March 19, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time: Organizing for the Time We Are In, Session Two ("Know Your Rights and Community") and Session Three, online from Beacon Hill Friends House.
• March 5, 6:30 p.m. Pacific time at Reedwood Friends Church: Daniel Smith-Christopher, Digital Doubts? Faith in the Future with A.I.
• March 22, 7 p.m. Pacific time at Reedwood Friends Church: An Evening with Cornel West.

Kelly Kellum at Friends United Meeting writes to Donald Trump.

Today's OCHA report on the situation in the West Bank.

Since OCHA began systematically documenting demolition incidents and displacement in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2009 until recently, the main direct driver of displacement of Palestinians was the demolition of homes for lacking building permits issued by the Israeli authorities, due to restrictive and discriminatory planning regimes applied in Area C and East Jerusalem. However, in the past two years, displacement patterns have shifted, reflecting broader changes in the protection environment for Palestinian communities, particularly herding and Bedouin communities in Area C. In 2023, settler violence became a leading cause of displacement with more than 1,600 people displaced due to settler violence and access restrictions (mainly in Bedouin and herding communities), compared with about 300 people displaced by lack-of-permit demolitions in these communities. Between 2020 and 2024, settler-related incidents targeting Bedouin and herding communities that resulted in casualties, property damage or both increased nearly sevenfold, rising from about 50 incidents in 2020 to approximately 330 incidents in 2024.

Online presentations and conversations with Mark Russ (Britain Yearly Meeting) this year. Mark is the author of Quaker Shaped Christianity and The Spirit of Freedom.

A Friends Peace Teams story from Indonesia: Building a Children's Library with Heart.

Tom Gates posts the prologue to his study, Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective.

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I vividly remember my first encounters, over fifty years ago, with the music of Lightnin' Hopkins, the subject of this affectionate tribute.