The Restauration arrived today

Source.  

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The commemorative voyage of the sloop Restauration from Stavanger, Norway, to New York City, ended today, with its docking at Pier 16 a few hours ago.

Luke Maurer and I were present to witness its departure from Stavanger back on July 4, the same date that the original Restauration left Stavanger in 1825, marking the start of the organized immigration of Norwegians to the USA two hundred years ago.

The original ship made it safely to New York Harbor on October 9, 1825, and discharged the 53 people on board, including the baby born during the voyage. However, the ship was seized by the port authorities, and its captain arrested, because the number of passengers had exceeded the maximum allowed for a vessel its size. The end of that story was happy; for reasons that nobody seems to know for sure, the U.S. president, John Quincy Adams, ordered the release of the ship and its captain, and cancellation of the heavy fine that had been imposed. (Here's Henry Cadbury's summary of the story, including Quakers' involvement.)

My first passport.

This commemorative voyage and its safe arrival in New York City are bright spots in the day's news. The history of Norwegian migration is important to me, at least in part because I'm part of that history. My Maurer ancestors seem to have come from Germany via Denmark, with the original Johan Fredrik Maurer arriving in Norway from Denmark around 1840. Some of his descendants are among the million or so Norwegians who emigrated to other countries in the years after the Restauration. Eventually I became one of the Norwegian immigrants to the USA.

It seems to me that the Norwegian and USA organizers of the 1825-2025 Restauration commemorations have conducted themselves with admirable diplomacy. But, in my private opinion, the story of President John Quincy Adams pardoning the captain and restoring the vessel to its owners has special meaning in this MAGA era. Back in 1825, it must have been assumed at the highest levels that immigrants were good news. In our own time, most economists agree.

I admire the strength and courage of those Norwegian pioneers of 1825. They endured a lot in their search for economic opportunity and religious freedom. On the other hand, there definitely were incentives to leave their homeland; the Norway of two centuries ago was one of the poorer countries of Europe, with no hint of the prosperity to come in the mid-20th century, and major restrictions on religious dissidents. Today's immigrants coming to the USA from a variety of places, also propelled by hopes of freedom and opportunity (or just plain survival!), and often ready  to endure great risks to get here, are no less admirable. And in view of the USA's stagnating demographics, no less needed.

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Benjamin Wittes on U.S. strikes on vessels off Venezuela: "When I say murder here, I am not speaking in hyperbole or using the term in some colloquial sense."

Several Quaker organizations have united to offer us an urgent statement on genocide in the Gaza Strip, and are asking Friends churches, meetings, and other organizations to endorse the statement. Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends did so at our fall gathering this past weekend, even as we followed the first hints of a possible cease-fire.

During the fall gathering, some of us had an opportunity to see this video from B'Tselem on "Our Genocide."

And some words about emergency relief plans for when the cease-fire begins, from the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher.

A simple prayer for dark times: Micah Bales on the Lord's Prayer, its message, and its misuse.

For us, as the church of Jesus Christ, the greatest danger right now is that we fail to see clearly that this government is weaponizing our own Christian tradition against the people. They are quoting the Bible to justify their policies. But this is all a smokescreen. When they mock immigrants and use children as pawns, that’s not the gospel. That’s not “on earth as it is in heaven.”

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This is surely a rerun, but this may be my very favorite Albert Collins clip. "Same Old Thing."

Nancy French ... on not bearing false witness

Source.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, Tennessee Nancy French's home town. Source.

Nancy French, Instagram, 2024. Source.

This high praise for Nancy French's book Ghosted: An American Story from Christianity Today editor Russell Moore will save me a lot of words:

I didn't know writing could be this haunting and hilarious, heartbreaking and exhilarating all at the same time. I did not want it to end. This tour de force of storytelling and sense-making is one of the most gripping and beautiful memoirs in a generation.

Nancy French was born and raised in the Appalachian foothills, a grandchild of the mountain culture, and grew up in a church community that nurtured her faith and gave her love and care ... until the devastating day that it didn't. She attended a Church of Christ college ... until she couldn't stomach the chapel's lazy positivity and stopped attending, even though chapel attendance was compulsory.

As a result, at age twenty, "by now my affection for Rush Limbaugh and church had disappeared and I considered myself a feminist, atheist, liberal." That was the moment when she encountered David French, a Republican Christian law student, an encounter that resulted in a restoration of faith (well, not the exact same faith), a marriage that has lasted three decades and counting—and a career in ghostwriting for Republicans that didn't last quite as long.

Obviously, there's nothing terribly linear about French's story, with each swoop and dive reflecting something of the wrenching spiritual, political, and cultural turmoil of her country in those decades. Her story includes betrayal, giddy hope, predators protected by churches, miracles, allies lost and found—it's a good thing she's an excellent storyteller! Take a look at these reviews for more of what I mean:

• A secular review (Publisher's Weekly).
• A review from a Christian viewpoint (in the late lamented publication Current).
• A slightly more critical review ("But I complain too much") in the Englewood Review of Books.

Ghosted has many important messages, including powerful testimony against the shame of being a childhood target of sexual assault in the church. I hope everyone who needs these messages will read this book. But there's something else that intrigued me as a lifelong lefty: the passing references to the way conservatives see us. I'm not necessarily talking now about who is objectively more correct about policy and morality; it's the cultural assumptions and conclusions that seemingly entitle them to dismiss us (and us them).

For example, here French is commenting on the reactions to the book she co-authored with Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol:

I’d thought that people of both parties would rally around Bristol and show her compassion. That’s not what happened. It slowly dawned on me that when the Democrats loudly proclaimed “believe all women,” they really meant “the right kind of women”—meaning not “right” on the political spectrum at all. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They had embraced Ted Kennedy, even though he flipped his car, sent his female passenger careening into a pond, and left her there to die. They revered Bill Clinton, even though he was credibly accused of rape by multiple women.

Bristol was well spoken and the book was clear. However, a nuanced, trauma-informed conversation did not arise from her revelations. Bristol told the truth, and Democrats laughed. After seeing how people mocked this young mother, I was fully confident the Democrats were not only wrong on the issue of women, they were callously wrong. They harbored and protected abusers of women, and Republicans alone would stand against sexual injustice.

In spite of my certainty, the truth turned out to be much more complicated than I thought.

Soon a major turning point for French came: the acclamation Donald Trump received from the very people whose ostensible values she cherished and represented in her writing, and who, as it turned out, turned against her and her husband when they found that contradiction intolerable. As those contradictions mounted up with every Trumpian assault on rhetorical decency, she lost many clients, and kept the few that agreed to her condition that she would not write pieces in favor of Trump.

In my mind, however, I made a vow: I would not bear false witness against my liberal neighbor.

That one decision was the beginning of the end of my political ghostwriting career.

I hope that progressives, even in the shadow of Donald Trump's devastating attacks on political and ethical norms, are willing to make the same commitment against bearing false witness against their (our) opponents.

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On the "conservative" label.

A grievously neglected commandment.

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Here's a podcast in which Julie Roys, a Christian investigative journalist who often focuses on church-related corruption and abuse, interviews Nancy French.

Back on March 27, Medardo Gómez, Lutheran bishop of El Salvador, died. He made a deep impression on me during a visit back in the time of the civil war and death squads. Rest in peace!

Christine Patterson on the importance of cultural intelligence for service in a divided world.

A poll suggests that Israelis increasingly hold genocidal views concerning Palestinians. Not coincidentally, the Israeli government announces the creation or "legalization" of 22 new settlements on the West Bank. Britain Yearly Meeting minutes its discernment that genocide is occurring in Gaza.

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Sue Foley, the "Ice Queen" of blues guitarists, gives us an extended solo....

A haunting dream

Waffen-SS recruitment poster (detail).
See full graphic below.

The young man walked toward me with a smile, shook my hand, and said, "I'm on your side."

His next statement, however, was not reassuring: "Hitler has seen some of your letters."

For an instant, I felt flattered that someone as high up as the Fuehrer had taken notice of me. The next moment I felt the full flush of horror. Wasn't this young man supposed to be part of the Resistance? And what year was this, anyway!?

This dream (in my first night of dreams in 2025) had started innocuously enough. I was on a train, expecting to see a familiar face when I got to my destination, Stuttgart. It was a familiar context: I often have dreams in which my grandparents appear—my father's parents or my mother's parents, depending on whether I'm dreaming of Norway or Germany.

I stepped off the train and went into the waiting room, looking around for my grandmother. She wasn't there. Once again, I scanned the people on the wooden benches, looking for anyone familiar, and that's when the young man approached me.

It was confusing. I had the strong impression that he was indeed an ally, a part of the resistance against fascism, but why did he mention the chief fascist himself? And why did that young man look so strikingly like a stereotypical "master race" poster child?

Before I could untangle my confusion, the dream came to an end. However, unlike most of my dreams, I remembered this one with crystal clarity, so I continued to try sorting it out.

Source.  

My first question: where did that young man come from? I think the image came from a recruiting placard for the German occupation forces in Norway, specifically for their SS forces and their "Norwegian Legion."I had seen this placard before, most recently at the impressive Norwegian Resistance Museum in Oslo last July. The invitation to join the common fight against Bolshevism is based on a blatant visual appeal to a myth of racial solidarity. The explicit identification of their mutual enemy was "Bolshevism," but, in Nazi usage, that political term often signified "the Jews."

Here are some other influences that probably went into the creation of my confusing dream:

As the 80th anniversary of World War II's end approaches, I've kept up my usual reading habits, which have always included a proportion of books about that war, its roots and its aftermath. After all, that war and its associated deportations and migrations resulted in my hybrid Norwegian-German family. Last week, for example, I read Eight Days in May: The Final Collapse of the Third Reich, by Volker Ullrich, the most detailed account I've seen of this period.

My recent reading also included the powerful story of Daniel Finkelstein's mother and father, Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family. Finkelstein's mother Mirjam and her family were caught in Nazi Germany's mass brutality and the Holocaust, all of which the author describes in heart-stopping detail. This amazing story is interwoven with the equally miraculous survival of the author's Polish-born father Ludvik, who somehow survived Stalin's mass savagery. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, even though it puts us face to face with the reality of our human capacity for mass cruelty committed by leaders and followers and whole societies who all seemingly could have chosen differently.

Among the factors that seem to have reliably fueled this cruelty is racism in all its demonic forms, of which antisemitism has played a persistent and outsized role for many generations. All of these forms are rooted in the primordial sin of objectification, which to my sorrow and distress as a follower of Jesus, seems to have found expressions in today's white Christian nationalism, and not just in the USA.

The other sources for the "resistance" theme of my dream are no doubt the stabbing heartaches of the daily news: the genocide (as Amnesty International names it ... and I'm persuaded) in the Gaza Strip, committed by the armed forces of a nation that acts with near-total impunity; and then there's the ongoing "special military operation" in Ukraine, committed in the lethal service of a "great power," its leadership, and its "Russian World" mythology; in short, a gang whose other organizing principle seems to be to embezzle money and natural resources from its own population while suppressing most means of protest.

Add to all that: the uncertainties of our post-January 20 USA, with a new administration whose saving feature so far seems to be its own internal contradictions.

I have a feeling that there are going to be some more interesting dreams in my future. I'll keep looking for my grandmother ... and for the resistance.

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Latest United Nations reports on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Your tax dollars at work. And since that last OCHA report: Israeli air strikes hit "safe zone."

What are the odds that artificial intelligence will wipe out the human race in the next 30 years? Ask Geoffrey Hinton.

Taylor Hansen on the night of the birth of Jesus: "Break the Silence"—it's the first item in this newsletter.

What's "too political" for a church? One congregation with a vision of unity is trying to find out.

Nancy Thomas's favorite books of 2024.

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Rerunning a sweet favorite: the late Little Arthur Duncan with Illinois Slim, "Scratch My Back."

Twitter and its rivals

From top: home screens from Threads, Mastodon, Telegram.

Back in 2018, when data harvesting and the manipulative use of social networks were attracting lots of attention, I wrote this blog post about Facebook and Vkontakte. I described and defended my use of these services, and listed some of their virtues and hazards. I still use them in more or less the same ways.

A year or two earlier, while we were still living in Russia, I had joined another service, Twitter, where I expressed political opinions I usually didn't post on Facebook and Vkontakte, the services that I relied on for news of family and friends. Part of the thrill of Twitter was seeing news stories and opinions fresh from journalists' and commentators' keyboards, before they had been sanitized and published (or sometimes even verified!). I abandoned Twitter shortly after it became X, not because my own feed had become appreciably more toxic, but because of the way its new owner treated employees and critics. Still, I admit that I missed that outlet, and still do.

Some of that craving is taken up by Telegram, which I joined shortly after leaving Russia. Telegram combines elements of instant messaging, microblogging, interest groups, and news feeds. Those news feeds include such users as The New York Times, Washington Post, TVRain (Дождь), the BBC (and its Russian service), and numerous Russian-language and Ukrainian channels—media outlets and individual journalists and commentators. 

Telegram is also a platform for personal messaging, but so are many other platforms. I'd just as soon stick with the reliable (so far) channels for that kind of communication (e-mail, Facebook and FB Messenger, Vkontakte, and phone-based texting) and, less often, Whatsapp (important for overseas contacts), and not have to cover every possible channel. There are some apps and clients that promise to combine personal messages from a number of sources, but I've never found that covers all of them, and most are not Web-based. (If you have suggestions for cross-platform message handlers that are browser-based or Linux-compatible, please comment! I prefer desktop platforms, not services that are exclusively phone-based.)

Back to news and opinion: Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky are among the services that may take over Twitter's place in my search for fresh news and opinions. So far I've found a number of my favorite authors on all three of them. In a promising development, all three services are finding ways to become mutually accessible. For example, here's the way to bridge Mastodon and Bluesky; and you can authorize Threads to share posts in the larger fediverse.

The days are not long enough to camp out at all of these various sources, and it remains to be seen whether their cultures remain as mellow as they mostly are now. (Well, Telegram can't exactly be called mellow, but in my chosen feeds, it's not snarly!) How well might they resist external predators and internal exploiters? In the meantime, dipping around in each of them for brief visits seems more productive than developing a premature loyalty to any one in particular. However, if you've become committed to one or two platforms out of all these choices, and would like to tell me why, I'd love to know.

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Here are a few other overviews of these various platforms, their similarities and differences:

• Amaris Castillo at Poynter: As journalists think of leaving X for Bluesky and Threads, media experts see pros and cons.
• Jay Peters at The Verge: The hunt for the next Twitter: all the news about alternative social media platforms.
• Marie Boran at Newsweek: How Top X Rivals Fared Since Elon Musk Sparked Twitter Exodus.
• David Gewirtz at ZDNET: I tried replacing Twitter with Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon: Here's what I found.

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The latest Humanitarian Situation Updates for Palestine from the United Nations:  Gaza Strip; West Bank.

Chimène Keitner of Lawfare on the Netanyahu/Gallant arrest warrants.

The Haaretz newspaper’s editorial board described the ICC’s decision as an “unprecedented moral nadir” for Israel. (Netanyahu responded to Haaretz’s coverage of the war by sanctioning the newspaper.) Hungary’s Victor Orban greeted news of the ICC warrant with an invitation for Netanyahu to visit, deepening cleavages between European countries committed to the rule of law and those challenging the “liberal international order.” Absent a change in leadership, Israel’s international isolation from that order will continue to deepen. Even if the Israeli government changes course (which is highly unlikely, especially given the results of the recent U.S. presidential election), the damage to Israel’s standing and reputation—with ripple effects on Jews in the diaspora—will take decades to repair. Meanwhile, the human toll is irreversible, and rebuilding Gaza will take decades, if not centuries.

John Crace of The Guardian on the UK House of Commons debate on assisted dying: "...ultra-rare Commons sight: intelligent debate." You can see the debate itself on parliamentlive.tv.

Human rights defender Olga Karach doesn't want to "disappoint" Lukashenko.

William Barber on CNN: here's what Trump's second coming tells us about the country and the future.

But what you saw election night is not the whole of America. It’s a part of America in a particular moment around the election. You have to stop and say, wait a minute, this is the same America that I went to sleep in the night before. It’s not some strange America. This is part of America. America has always had multiple stories running at the same time.

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Austin John and McKinley James perform B.B. King's "Ruby Lee." Enjoy the whole set; they're fine musicians.

Prayer and place, twelve years later

Underground prayer cell, Transfiguration
Monastery, near Buzuluk, Russia.

I wrote my first post on prayer and place in the context of the Pussy Riot controversy twelve years ago in Russia, when the dissident rock band of that name managed to get into the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, near the Kremlin, and performed their musical prayer against Vladimir Putin.

In the post, I confessed my "mixed feelings about the very concept of sacred space." In my final post about the controversy, I wrote, "I have grown to have a lot of respect for them [the dissident musicians], but it's a complicated respect." I also wondered whether we Westerners with our diminished sense of reverence (is this fair?), were qualified to comment.

On reverence (freely expressed or compulsory), I also wrote a separate post.

All of these related themes came back to me when I read Mark Russ (Jolly Quaker) posting about Thicc places: a Quaker on pilgrimage. My best service to you now would be to reduce my own verbiage in favor of persuading you to read Mark's post. I'll just add a couple of thoughts:

First: I utterly agree with Mark that both the journey and the destination are important, for the reasons he expresses so well. I also want to take into account our varying temperaments. For some of us, the regular pilgrimage, perhaps every week, to our usual places of worship, and the anticipation and fulfillment of the worship itself, are all that we need. Those who go on pilgrimage to a more remote or special location might anticipate a more immersive experience than they experience in that regular cycle; are those of us who find no such need in ourselves qualified to deny them?

My red flags would go up only if those pilgrims inform us on their return that they're now superior to the rest of us. That's never happened in my experience; what actually happens is that they're eager to share the riches they've gained with the rest of us, and we listen eagerly, to everyone's benefit. It was wonderful to hear my cousin Johan Fredrik Heyerdahl talk about walking the Camino de Santiago when he was about the age I am now. I experienced a somewhat similar pilgrimage without leaving home when I read Timothy Egan's marvelous book A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith.

In my experience, this last century of Russian history, with religious repression followed by Orthodox triumphalism and state-church enmeshment, has intensified and complicated all concepts of sacred space.

Second: Might it be true that those who argue for a flat and fastidious Quakerism, one that denies any forms of specialness, are often perfectly happy to go on holiday to interesting and, to them, exotic destinations? Maybe they would be willing to consider that traveling with a spiritual intention or hope would be equally legitimate? This line of questioning does have its own complication: the cost of such travel, whether or not it is for spiritual gain, surely puts some forms of pilgrimage beyond the reach of many people.

I'm reminded of my dislike of the way spiritual books are sometimes marketed. See my comments on Richard Foster's Sanctuary of the Soul—go to this post and scroll down past the movie stuff.

If I'm making unfair correlations, let me know!

We Quakers generally downplay sacred actions as well as sacred places, but maybe you'll see why I loved this Threads post from Karen Swallow Prior, which I present not to one-up anyone, but simply as a reminder to remain tender:

My parents love their church immensely. For health reasons, however, they’ve had to join the service online for some time now.

Yesterday, I was taking them lunch and unintentionally arrived before the service had ended. It was communion Sunday.

When I saw the two tiny cups of juice and two tiny crackers my father had set on the kitchen table, I felt like I had entered some of the holiest, most sacred ground I’d ever been honored to enter.

Now, please go to the post that provoked these thoughts, from Mark Russ.

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While we're enjoying Mark's good company, here's more to think about: Dirty religion.

Other related items from my own blog: To see light more clearly. Memories of Buzuluk. Quaker communion.

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Helen Benedict on Israelis, Palestinians, and ending the cycle of revenge.

Issa Amro: "It's a miracle that I even exist." His organization, Youth Against Settlements, has just won the Right Livelihood Award, one of the prizes sometimes known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize."

Forum 18 reports that a wide range of religiously-oriented Web sites have been blocked to Russian audiences. (Also: the Discord messaging platform is now being blocked in Russia.)

If you would like to join Friends United Meeting's "Living Letters" group, visiting Cuba in January 2025, the registration deadline is November 10.

Becky Ankeny finds comfort and consolation in the blunt words of Micah chapter 3.

The Washington Post's guide to helping people in distress owing to hurricanes Helene and Milton.

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This afternoon at St Olave's Church and its free concert series every Wednesday and Thursday, we heard a wonderful piano concert by Kanae Furomoto, including the famous "Raindrop" prelude by Chopin. Here it is performed by Alice Sara Ott: 

"If you strike us..."

Source.  

For several days, I've been thinking about Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The specific words that pulled at me were these: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place—there is no place in Iran—that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that’s true of the entire Middle East."

(My italics.)

I'm not going to evaluate the whole speech, which is based on the unquestioned assumption of Israel's total innocence and victimhood in the region and at the UN. For just one example of the one-sidedness of the speech, its "blessing" does not take into account the treatment of Palestinians. Their existence in limbo has been prolonged indefinitely because Israel's leadership for generations has seen no advantage in resolving this cruel anomaly. The resulting inevitable bloody clashes, as each side "teaches lessons" to the other, are exploited as just another proof of Israel's victimhood.

Right now I'm more interested in the words, "If you strike us, we will strike you." On one level, that's the history of the human race. In any long-standing conflict, each side says these words to the other, taking turns with every action and reaction. It's true that one side's case may have more justice than the other's, but rarely do we see 100% good fighting 100% evil. Each side, however, usually portrays the conflict in those terms.

The politicians who raise the banner of "If you strike us..." are speaking to at least two audiences—the enemy and their own voters. The enemy doesn't need this information; they already assume the customary game is going to continue. The voters are supposed to understand that these politicians are their heroes, doing their heroic job to defend them, and deserve to remain in office.

What the "if you strike us" politicians are not making clear is the moral implication of their threat. "If you strike us, there must be death and destruction on your side. Our only choice is to kill people. We hope guilty people will die, but innocent people will also die. Instead of finding a more creative and lasting response to your attack, one that saves people on both sides of our conflict, we prefer to waste those lives."

In my fantasy world, Netanyahu's speech would have included ways that Iran could be part of "the blessing" and that the grievances of Palestine's allies could be addressed. (After all, the treatment of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are the ostensible reasons for the current hostilities against Israel.) To go even deeper into fantasy, he could also have admitted that Israel is not always innocent.

Those would be politically hazardous steps to take. When Barack Obama told international audiences that the USA was not always innocent, he was endlessly attacked by his political adversaries for "apologizing for America." Netanyahu's own political situation is far more precarious, and he would probably not survive the revolt within his coalition that would result. But the space might well open up for a wiser approach to the present conflicts.

In 2007, an ecumenical delegation with Quaker participation went to Iran and met with counterparts there, including an Iranian ambassador who quoted a proverb: "Build a bridge to me, and I'll build 99 bridges back to you." How many innocent people must die for lack of serious bridgebuilding?

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The rhetorical strength of the "If you strike us" language, presented without any references to moral implications, depends on people accepting it as true and obvious. Christians particularly ought to be saying, in season and out of season, that it is not true and obvious at all. We are not to return evil for evil. (1 Peter 3:9; context. Romans 12:17; context.)

We might think that all we need to do is put more energy and creativity into evangelism, making the world more aware that paths to genuine peace do exist, that we are not trapped in endless rounds of counterstrikes, and there is a global community that has arisen around a Prince of Peace who has overcome death. I agree. But of course there's a problem with that. The awkward question arises: do we Christians ourselves believe that we are not to return evil for evil? After all, "if you strike me I will strike you" is Donald Trump's own attitude to conflict, and God knows how many Christian followers have become admirers of his belligerence. Apparently it turns out that it's hard to believe in Jesus.

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Related:

The first rule of gracious correspondence.

Iran, biblical realism, and perpetual war.

Mark Twain's "The War Prayer."

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Juan Cole, writing before the current stage of the Israeli-Lebanese war, described how U.S. president Joe Biden's Mideast strategy was disastrously falling apart.

Bloomberg's Matt Levine: Is there a way to automate (via AI) the things we like about Warren Buffett?

The Bell's commentary on Russia's record military spending plans, and possible consequences.

Speaking of Russia: Fadu Abu-Deeb on the Orthodox Church, its Babylonian-Byzantine legacy, and the prescient warnings of V.S. Solovyov (1853-1900).

Katherine Hayhoe at Lausanne 4 (the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization) on creation care as an issue of faith.

Elder Chaplain Greg Morgan on leaving home and learning the ways of mortality.

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A video from Charlie Musselwhite's front porch, with Aki Kumar on harmonica and Kid Andersen playing bass.

Christians calling for a free Palestine

Christians for a Free Palestine: screenshots from this evening's Zoom call. Clockwise: Erica Williams, Cole Parke-West, Rifat Kassis. Others involved in leading this evening's presentation included Margaret Ernst, SueAnn Shiah, Jonathan Brenneman.

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We confess that Your message has been manipulated by those who claim Your name. Rifat Kassis (in prayer).

There are so many reasons to turn away, and we need you [Christians] to stay, Palestine needs you to stay. Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg.

This Lent we're not to GIVE UP anything, but to STAND UP. Rev. Erica Williams.

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Just a short post today to report on this evening's interesting "mass mobilization call" on behalf of Christians for a Free Palestine.

I had found out about this call from friends who knew about my longstanding concern for Palestine. Having written on my blog last week about the use of "Christian civilization" as a justification for outright cruelty, I was relieved to learn about an effort to organize Christians to stand against one of the most blatantly cruel spectacles currently underway under the eyes of the whole world—the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.

That campaign has reached a place of lethal absurdity in Israel's demands that Palestinians evacuate Rafah, where over a million of them have sought relative safety after being driven out of points further north. Among the actions we took this evening was to leave voicemail messages with our elected representatives and senators, using the calling facilities of Jewish Voice for Peace and a suggested script:

In the slightly longer term, we were given links to join a regional community-building program, and encouraged to spread the word on a Day of Action at senators' and representatives' offices, planned for March 18. The next mass call will take place on the previous day, March 17.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the hour is very late, and any credible campaign for Christians to rise up against the slaughter of Palestinians is worth considering. This evening's event had plenty of the signals I associate with the activist subculture, but my sense was that the prayer and the music and the appeals to mobilize were sincere, honest, and non-manipulative. For example, almost unbelievably, there were no images of the suffering and ruin to which we desperately desire to respond. The co-opting of our faith in the service of imperialism was very clearly denounced, but nobody aimed invective at any specific villains. Instead, we sang, "There is power in the Name of Jesus, to break every chain...."

I saw that this evening's call was recorded, and if a link to the recording is supplied, I'll update this post. Likewise, if I learn that my trust in this effort was misplaced, I'll also update. 

In the meantime, consider joining a regional group through this link, and judge for yourself. But, in any case, in addition to praying without ceasing, let's make some noise! In particular, let's confront the heresies of white supremacy and Christian Zionism that encourage and compound these outrages, and spread the genuine Good News with humility and boldness in the strong name of Jesus, and without glibness or denial in the presence of suffering.

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One of the participants in this evening's call pointed out that there are more members of Christians United for Israel than there are Jewish people in the USA.

Do you think Len Gutkin is right about a hyperbolic style in American academe?

The hyperbolic style is marked by a cluster of generic traits. First, it emphasizes its speaker’s, or else some other potential victim’s, vulnerability to harm, up to and including murder. Second, it relies on distant historical analogies meant to heighten its urgency. Third, it is hortatory, alarmed, exigent: Something needs to happen, and it needs to happen now. Fourth (and this is its most “academic” feature) it makes large but ambiguous claims about the structural or systemic aspect of one or another threat.

Timothy Snyder on Vladimir Putin's genocidal myth.

Madeleine Davies, a senior writer at Britain's Church Times, reviews Karen Swallow Prior's The Evangelical Imagination.

What is needed, she suggests, is nothing less than another Reformation. If the first concerned the truth revealed in scripture, this one must confront “the way and the life revealed in Jesus—and how the Church has failed to follow and embody it”.

We need more Howard Thurman in our politics, says David Gowler at Religion News Service.

Mike Farley: Lent is a strange period in many ways.

Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas, announces a new program of mutual learning and encouragement among Friends churches and meetings—Quaker Connect—and is seeking a new staff member to serve this new program. Note! Deadline for applications is March 1. 

Martin Kelley considers the new Quaker histories ... and how expensive they can be. Do we need a movement toward open access among Quakers academics and their institutions? (By the way, since Martin mentioned JSTOR: I found out when researching Fairhope, Alabama, and the Friends community in Monteverde, Costa Rica, that our public library here in Multnomah County, Oregon, makes JSTOR available without charge to cardholders.)

A self-serving PS: Since I'm among those who cannot afford those expensive books (thought I've bought some slightly older books at used book stores), I find these scholars' blogs a helpfui way to stay at least somewhat informed. And here's a sobering thought: I've now been a Quaker for fifty years, which means that my own lifespan as a Quaker already spans almost 15% of Quaker history!

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Here's something a bit different: a Russian rock musician's approach to what I think qualifies as blues (at least as far as the lyrics are concerned)—Konstantin Nikolsky's "When you understand with your mind." The lyrics and a translation appear after the video. At first glance, it's a bit of a gloomy and ironic song, not qualities I usually look for, but it's probably my favorite of his many hits.

By some miracle of timing, I once heard Nikolsky live. It was during the financial crisis of 1998, and he appeared in a small Moscow club with an audience of less than 20.

Константин Никольский, "Когда поймешь умом."

Когда поймешь умом, что ты один на свете, И одиночества дорога так длинна, То жить легко и думаешь о смерти, Как о последней капле горького вина. Вот мой бокал, в нем больше ни глотка Той жизни, что как мед была сладка. В нем только горечь неразбавленной печали, Оставшейся на долю старика. Бокал мой полон, но друзей не стану Я больше угощать питьем своим. Я их люблю, дай боже счастья им. Пускай они пьют воду из под крана. Для мира сделаю я много добрых дел, Во веки вечные их не забудут люди. И если выйдет все, как я хотел, То, боже милый, мир прекрасным будет. Послав страдания на голову мою, Послав отчаянье душе моей правдивой, Пошли мне веру, я о ней спою, И дай мне силы, Чтобы стать счастливым.

When you understand with your mind that you are alone in the world, And the road of loneliness is so long, Then life is easy and you think about death, Like the last drop of a bitter wine. Here's my glass, there's not another sip in it That life that was as sweet as honey. Now there's only the bitterness of undiluted grief, That remains as an old man's share. My glass is full, but I won't make friends I'll offer more of what I'm drinking. I love them, God bless them. Let them drink water from the tap. For the world, I'll do many good deeds, Forever and ever, people won't forget them, And if everything turns out the way I wanted, Then, dear God, the world will be wonderful. Having sent suffering to my head, Having sent despair to my truthful soul, Send me faith, I'll sing about it, And give me the strength to become glad.

"...The People, called in Scorn, QUAKERS": part three

A banner at Friends House, Euston Road, London.
Source: Gillian O'Brien via Twitter

"I think our jargon and collective theological vagueness sometimes gets in the way of welcoming new people. And YET, the theological vagueness is part of what makes room for people of different backgrounds to worship together."

—A response to the final question, "Any closing thoughts?" on my survey asking whether and when you prefer the term "Friend" or "Quaker."

I have so many mixed feelings about this insightful statement. It almost makes me want to post a whole new survey, with such questions as ...

• Does your corner of the Quaker world consider itself jargon-ridden and/or theologically vague? 
• If so, what advantages and disadvantages of these features have you experienced?
• If not, is your greater conformity a source of strength and joy, or a result of not wanting to reveal your doubts? (Or both or neither!?)
• For what purposes do you want to welcome people of different backgrounds and make room for everyone?
• How much unity, if any, do you consider necessary to worship together? (For that matter, what is worship?)

Based on this Friend's other responses, I'm guessing that they're in the unprogrammed side of the Quaker movement, among whom there tends to be more theological diversity than where I am. But in any case, the big question for me is: why do we gather as a Quaker community? To put it another way, Who or what gathered us?

(Related: A great people to be gathered.)

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A couple of years ago I saw this banner hanging on the outside of Friends House in London: "IN TURBULENT TIMES ... BE A QUAKER." I'm relatively sure no irony was intended. Here's my guess at an interpretation: "In times such as these, be someone who is capable of centering yourself in quietness, while at the same time being engaged on behalf of social justice and earth care." I'm not sure literal quaking at the word of God, as early Quakers preached and experienced, is directly recommended by the banner. We may have been the 17th century forerunners of the Pentecostal movement, but that's not the comparison that comes to mind now.

(Related: Happy birthday, Charismatics.)

On that same visit to London, we visited the Westminster Friends meetinghouse, location of the first British Quaker meeting for worship I ever attended, back in 1975.

On that more recent visit, I was intrigued by an outreach of that meeting in the form of an attractive invitation to its "Drop-in Silence ... Bringing peace, tranquility and silence to London's busy streets." Especially interesting were these promises in capital letters at the bottom of the notice: "NO PHILOSOPHY, NO RELIGION, NO CATCH / JUST PEACE, TRANQUILITY & SILENCE."

The Drop-in Silence Web site makes it clear that this weekly period of quiet is not a Friends meeting and is solely intended to provide a safe, unconditional place of calm. But Westminster Meeting's qualifications as host of Drop-in Silence are hinted at on the meeting's own Web site, in its tagline: "An oasis of calm in central London."

There is a modest reference to Friends on the Drop-in Silence Web site. Those who are curious about the sponsorship of the Silence can find links in the "About" pull-down menu. These links go to Westminster Quakers, to Britain Yearly Meeting, and to the Wikipedia article about Quakers—the last one making it clear how diverse our movement has become since the days quaking was more or less normal.

Londoners can come into the weekly Silence with the assurance that there is no proselytizing intent in Friends' offer of an oasis of quiet in the city. But there is a side of me that Eastern Christianity has influenced, which is why I can't help believing that those visitors are entering a space that is drenched in decades of prayer.

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Back to my survey. The ways respondents identified themselves in the conventional categories we Friends use were interesting. Many were not content to choose just one category; for example, the Conservative/Wilburite category (yes, I know they're not exactly the same) included two who also identified as Liberal, and two who also identified as Evangelical.

Two respondents said they encompassed practically the whole spectrum: Liberal, Orthodox, and Conservative. To my mind, these intriguing responses don't necessarily indicate theological vagueness, but instead point to the inadequacy of these categories. I suspect I know at least a couple of these people, and there's nothing vague about them. 

Seven included "other" in addition to specific categories. Five simply chose "other."

Eleven people responded to the questions in the section addressed to people who aren't now Quakers. Eight said that they understood that the two terms, Quaker and Friend, are synonymous, and three hadn't understood that. Five were more familiar with the term Quaker, four with Friend, and two said that both terms were familiar. I would love to have more data from people who aren't involved with Quakers, but the great flaw in that aspect of my survey is that non-Quakers pop into my readership very randomly, probably as an odd result of an Internet search, and most don't stay on my blog very long.

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Speaking of random encounters with the term Quaker, my last quotation from the survey follows.

I prefer the full title Religious Society of Friends of Truth, because I think dropping the last phrase obscures the significance of history of the former words.  And I do wish that P&G or whoever is responsible for past or current Quaker brands, such as are referred to above, would drop them.  I consider they're offensive effrontery.  Would they use Methodist or Anglican or Catholic or Mormon or any other church name?  It's absurd, and fixes Quakerism in the quaint past, along with comparable Racial totems like Aunt Jemima - I speak as an American Quaker...

When I read this comment, this jingle came unbidden into my head: "Quaker State your car, to keep it running young." Although the motor oil brand is probably referring to the state of Pennsylvania rather than to our religious movement, it does reinforce the respondent's point. But I also have to ask, whose fault is it that it's so easy to fix Quakerism in the quaint past? Have we been marginalized by others, or have we marginalized ourselves?

Many thanks to the survey participants for giving me so much food for thought.

(Part one. Part two.)

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Here's the late Mariellen Gilpin on prayer and place—and Moscow Friends: The Cloud of Witnesses.

Here's Britain Yearly Meeting on observing George Fox's 400th birthday. Note the link to the Friends World Committee's page on the same subject.

Is There a Balm in Gilead? Prospects for a Palestinian/Israeli Peace. George Fox University's Woolman Peacemaking Forum this year features Jonathan Kuttab. Tuesday, February 13, 6 p.m. Pacific time.

Do unexpected megastructure discoveries challenge the cosmological principle?

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I'm going to hurry up and publish this blog post in case we lose power in this icestorm. But not before I provide some blues dessert.... The late James Harman had been in "this same racket since 1962...."

"Quaker" or "Friend"? An informal survey

This is one of those times when I'm sorely tempted to explain my motives behind posting a survey, but doing so would almost certainly influence some of the responses. So I'm holding my tongue and hoping that you'll dive into the survey. It's a lot shorter than most of my surveys....

Eagerly awaiting your input!

(You can also help by spreading word about this survey. Here's the direct link: blog.canyoubelieve.me/p/survey.html.)

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Related posts:

A good Quaker is hard to find.

Who owns the Quaker brand?

Quakers' best-fit market.

The Quaker movement: decline and persistence.

Diffident no more.

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Ryan Grim on Gaza and the empathy gap. (Thanks to David Finke for the link.)

Quoting Sarah Aziza: “But what about Hamas?” I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people’s right to survive. “What about Hamas?” It didn’t matter if I’d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. “What about Hamas?” they’d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup.

Charlotte Higgins: A literary festival in Lviv—and the difference a year makes.

Kristin Du Mez (author of Jesus and John Wayne) on why she is still a Christian. ("Ask a Reformed girl, get a Reformed answer.")

Author Rebecca Renner on the Florida Everglades and the appeal of alligators. (Meet Jeff Babauta, hunter of alligator poachers.)

Andrew Franklin in the Bulletin of the Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends: The most important challenge.

A people who bear fruit: Micah Bales on Matthew 21:33-46, the parable of the tenants.

How would we be different from the wicked tenants, the devourers and thieves and murderers–the ones who occupy lofty posts, guard the fences, and sit on the watchtower to maintain their position? What does it look like to be a humble, receptive people, who welcomes the servants of God when they come to us with the Master’s message?

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Konstantin Kolesnichenko: Blues from Dnipro, Ukraine. "I'm Ready."

Al Ahli Hospital and the search for villains

Screenshot from source.  

Statement from the Patriarchs and
Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem.

Yesterday's statement from the patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem, concerning the missile strike and resulting loss of life at the Al Ahli Anglican Episcopal Hospital in Gaza, is blunt:

"We unequivocally declare this atrocity as an egregious crime. one demanding the severest censure and international accountability."

I read the full statement carefully, but found no direct accusation of blame. Censure and accountability imply that those guilty must be identified. So, who are they?

The prevailing assumption among Palestinians is that Israeli forces are responsible for the attack. The cancer center at the hospital had already been hit by an Israeli missile several days earlier. And all of this was against the backdrop of over 3,000 casualties already resulting from Israeli air strikes against the Gaza Strip.

Israeli claims are also weakened by their own intelligence failures around the original October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel. If their constant surveillance and infiltration of radicals in Palestine proved inadequate to prevent Hamas's atrocities, why should we believe in their precision targeting now? Even if Israel has no intention to hit hospitals and schools, they're nevertheless being hit.

On the other hand, nobody could claim that the rockets used by Palestinian militants are accurate, and a misfire in the Al Ahri case is not at all out of the question. A significant minority of rockets fired at Israel fall short and land in the Gaza Strip.

Complicating all of this is everyone's investment in one villain or another. Israel is blamed by those who want to blame Israel; Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are blamed by those who want to see Israel cleared of blame. Those of us who honestly don't know who is guilty and aren't willing to assign blame based on our political loyalties, do not have the resources to investigate independently.

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It is worth the effort to find out whose willful action or whose deadly mistake resulted in all that sudden death and destruction. Terrorism (whether by non-state actors or by governments) must not become normal. I hope and expect that the same care that went into investigating Malaysian Airlines flight 17 should be applied to Al Ahli.

However, we do know some things:

Israel chose to respond to the Hamas crimes of October 7, not by finding and arresting the culprits, as befits the role of the power controlling the territory from which the crimes were launched, but by (functionally) declaring war against that territory.

Israel uses the language of "war" as if the Gaza Strip were an independent, sovereign country, which it is not. The civilian population of Gaza depends on Israel for its security and well-being, and Israel's government has made it very clear that these people and their security and well-being have no priority in comparison to the rest of Israel's territory. Their lives don't count in the same way.

Israel's allies who see the danger of this moment for the people of Gaza are pleading for concessions such as the restoration of water and electricity (water alone is not enough; water pumps require electricity, water trucks require fuel) and the opening of the Rafah crossing point with Egypt. Whether or not any of these pleas get satisfied, the overall context remains: Gaza is still a zone where Israel corruptly believes it has the right to ignore international law.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and several other militant groups claim to provide the defense and protection that Gaza would have if it were a country. But they too do not carry out the function of a protective force within international law. In opposition to the  Palestinian Authority, they reject any collaboration with Israel, and in fact claim to be pursuing the mythical goal of eliminating Israel altogether. They too show no concern for civilian life. 

For Palestinians who are have little hope for a future under Israeli occupation, it's understandable that they might see the militants as the only people actually showing some resistance. For this symbolic comfort, they are apparently willing to let millions of their own neighbors suffer as the militants' fake armies poke Israel in the eye in the service of their myth. So they poke, and Israel bombs, and they poke again, and Israel bombs again, and innocent people die.

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There are Israelis who see the full absurdity of this spectacle, especially in light of biblical ethics, and their own history. Likewise, there are Palestinians who also are not fooled by the myths and deceptions of those who see violence as the key to a better future. My best hope is that we who follow the Prince of Peace will keep finding ways to connect these prophets and peacemakers across all the lines that separate them. In times of despair, it's especially important to let them know they are not alone.

Politically, it's important to remind our own legislators that our tax money must reflect our values and our commitment to international law. (In the USA's case, the billions of dollars in military aid that flow to Israel annually are supposedly conditional on those values.)

Spiritually, it's important to be just a bit humble. When we see huge spectacles of violence here or there, we know that the myth of redemptive violence is having a field day. But that myth is widespread. We ourselves often let it gain inroads into the ways we treat each other, our political opponents, even ourselves. If we feel tempted to despair, let's take the time to remind ourselves of God's love for us and for our enemies. Let's claim our God-given authority to demand that the spirit of violence, of revenge, of cheap shortcuts to win conflicts, be ordered to leave our bodies, our homes, our world.

Speaking of being humble... It may be easy to criticize Israel's leaders for the inhumane and vindictive spirit of their response to the atrocities of October 7. Then I had to remember how the USA responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The rush to violence is not peculiar to any one country or region. It's normal behavior for our species. Our challenge as peaceworkers and evangelists is to make available a whole new way of regarding each other, a Divine source of energy for the ministry of reconciliation, and communities near and far who support each other in this way of life.

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Lon and Raelene Fendall at Camp Tilikum, 2017. Source.

Raelene Fendall, our wonderful friend of many years, died on September 26. Nineteen days later, on October 15, Lon Fendall joined her on that same eternal path. Their memorial meeting is scheduled for October 28, 2 p.m., at West Chehalem Friends Church, Newberg, Oregon.

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Japanese Maple, by Lucy Davenport. Source.

Friends Committee on National Legislation offers a briefing on the war in Israel and Gaza. October 25 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Ahmad Amara, an Israeli Palestinian: Gaza is a test of human morality.

Baptist News: Unlike American evangelicals, religious bodies from Quakers to Catholics urge care for Palestinians and Jews alike.

Gaza in Quaker history: American Friends Service Committee's work with refugees in 1949. (A related film.)

Parker J. Palmer on becoming civilized. (Thanks to Faith Marsalli for the link.)

Why do we persist in trying to “solve” problems with violence, despite the fact that violence threatens our survival? That question has several valid answers. But the one I want to pursue here has yet to get its due and takes us directly to a key function of the spiritual life: violence arises when we do not know what else to do with our suffering.

Why Christian families should consider secular universities: Chris Gehrz interviews InterVarsity's Joe Thackwell.

The Quakers of Newmarket, Ontario, paid a price for their pacifism.

Lucy Davenport on bonsai as icon.

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"I've been falling and rising all these years, but you know my soul looks back in wonder, how did I make it over?" Mahalia Jackson.

Listening to the bombs

Memorial Buildings tablet, Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting. Blitz bomb damage map, area around Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting. (Source.) Quaker mission buildings destroyed in blitz. (Image from source.)

Last Sunday, the weather in London was beautiful—perfect conditions for holding meeting for worship in the courtyard outside Bunhill Fields Friends' meetinghouse.

About halfway through meeting, the sun began to feel very warm on my back, and I moved to a place near the boundary wall of the property. It's the same wall that supports George Fox's burial marker and holds the Memorial Buildings tablet shown in the photo to the right.

It's likely that all of us were troubled in our spirits by the horrors (a weak word!) of the previous day's missile attacks and armed incursions on Israeli cities, towns, settlements, and kibbutzes, and a desert music festival, on the part of Hamas fighters based in the Gaza Strip. The majority of the victims of Hamas's murderous brutality were civilians, including children, making these actions a war crime. Another war crime: taking innocent hostages.

Aside from Israeli responses within Israel, air strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip began the same day and continued overnight and into Sunday.

That morning, as I sat in the shadow of the wall, I listened intently. Somewhere underneath the bird calls, the traffic sounds, and the children playing in the nearby playground, I seemed to hear distant echoes of bombs and missiles.

The London borough of Islington suffered several Nazi bomb attacks during the Blitz, and one of those attacks destroyed the Memorial Buildings housing Friends outreach missions and the large meetinghouse, located a few feet away from where we were now sitting, leaving only the narrow brick building that still serves the meeting.

The death and destruction of the Blitz bombs on Islington happened eight decades ago, but in that moment they seemed very fresh and vivid, and merged in my mind with the war being raged that very hour in Israel and the densely populated Gaza Strip.

The question came to me as we sat in peace and safety, removed by time and space from any bombs, any missiles, anyone aiming guns at innocent civilians: what do we do with our safety?

Here are a few things I don't want to do.

• First, as a supporter of Palestinian rights and an opponent of apartheid in all of the territories occupied and controlled by Israel, I don't want to minimize the cruelty of the Hamas attack in any way whatever. No matter what the individual Hamas killers thought they were fighting and dying for, they were mobilized by leaders who apparently intended to inflict pure evil on civilian populations.
• On the other hand, I don't want to join the unseemly political competition to be the most outraged by the Hamas attack. In the heat of this competition, some have illogically and cynically blamed the attack on the U.S. president, or used it to argue against humanitarian and development aid to Palestine, or proposed banning the Palestinian flag. None of this helps Israel or anyone else.
• I don't want to forget, in the heat of crisis, that everyone on all sides of this awful conflict is created in the image and likeness of God, but all of them (us) may all be very tempted to forget this reality—about themselves and about their so-called enemies. The principalities and powers that sanctify violence rely on our willingness to let them define who is an enemy, who must be eliminated or put behind barbed wire or denied food, water, medicine, or elemental respect. In Jesus' name, I want to say "no" to those systems, and encourage you to do so, too.

I find it fascinating that Israel's near-microscopic surveillance of Palestinians, including the Gaza Strip, did not pick up advance warnings of last Saturday's attack. This tells me that the vast majority of Gazans were as surprised by the attack as Israel was. This attack was not backed by popular pressure, despite the miseries of living in an apparently permanent Israeli chokehold. If there had been a widespread conspiracy to mount this attack, I'm certain that Israel's sources would have found out.

I also find it bitterly ironic that neither Israel and its allies, nor Hamas, seem to have "learned the lessons" of the previous round of lethal conflict. Hamas found a way to escalate, despite the promises of Israeli leaders in 2021 to teach them a decisive lesson. And once again, Israel follows the Hamas script by raining destruction on Gaza City, exactly what Hamas seems to need to retain their hero status.

With Gaza already under the threat of a total siege and blockade, how does Israel escalate this time except by imposing measures guaranteed to cause more innocents to suffer and die—innocents whom Israel is bound by international law to protect? In my fantasies, Israeli and Palestinian law enforcement, with international assistance, would cooperate to find the Hamas leaders responsible for this bloodshed, even as they seek to respond to legitimate Palestinian grievances. That's a lesson that nobody seems to want to learn, despite all the bloody evidence that bombs and missiles and massacres of civilians do not bring a sustainable peace.

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Timothy Snyder on terror and counter-terror.

For the victim, terror is about what it is. For the terrorist, it is about what happens next.

. . .

When you have been terrorized, the argument that I am making seems absurd; the terrorists can seem to you to be raving beasts who just need punishment. Yet however horrible the crime, it usually does not bespeak a lack of planning. Usually part of the plan is to enrage.

Lesson: "I will never lose my optimism. There are people on both sides who want peace. The real battle is not between Israel and Palestine, but between those who want to coexist and those who dream of expelling or killing the other side." — Palestinian educator Khalil Bashir, in Yousef Bashir's The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine.

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The "nones" (nonbelievers or people not associated with any form of organized religion) are not just a European or American phenomenon. The Associated Press Religion Team reports on "nones" in several parts of the world.

What do Charismatics and Quakers have in common? I've covered some of this topic over the years (here's a wordy example from 2007) but I highly recommend this compact and thoughtful article by Andy Stanton-Henry.

From the Martin Mary Center's Sightings: The "salesman" as American icon ... and the cost of relentless positivity.

The CBC ends a tradition that I remember well from my years in Ottawa: the daily time check.

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Magic Slim and the Teardrops in Italy.