The Cost of a Christian Witness

It's been obvious to me for a while now that being a Christian witness in the world is not the same thing as upholding American patriotism. The two are different; they are not equivalent. Seeing the difference between these two things means that I can never again go along with the agenda of the American Religious Right. But that has brought me to a question: what does it mean then for Christians to uphold God's interests in this present world? What would God have us do?

It's a question I am trying to figure out, although I have a very rough idea. Does God want us to advance His Kingdom on earth? Or does He want us to invite people on earth to come out of the present social arrangements of this world and to become subjects of His Kingdom? Is advancing God's Kingdom on earth the same thing as inviting the citizens of this world to join a kingdom that is coming? If our goal is to try to make all the nations of earth conform to the laws of God's Kingdom, I don't know if such a goal can be accomplished by fallible mortals as long as this present age lasts. That's something that only God can do, although His earthly subjects can exert some influence over the things that happen on earth. But if our goal is to invite the citizens of this world to join God's Kingdom, that is more achievable. Our invitation to others to join that Kingdom consists of us acting as witnesses of that Kingdom.

But the witness must first and foremost be the witness of our lives. Talk is cheap, and too many people have already said too many words. And the deeds of some of these people have contradicted their words. On the other hand, deeds are costly. Living out the Sermon on the Mount can be very costly, especially at this time in history when our present global economic and political systems are failing, when moral and ethical expectations that were common a few decades ago are trampled, and when life as a whole is becoming more chaotic. I read a lot of blogs and articles relating to Peak Oil and financial collapse. And I read (and sometimes witness firsthand) the stories of the breakdown of American society, stories about ordinary Americans doing increasingly bizarre and incredibly selfish things, like trampling store employees to death just to be the first in line to score a deal on discounted consumer electronics.

Hearing about these things leads to anxiety. Certain things could ease that anxiety, I suppose. I could hoard my resources instead of sharing them. Or I could buy a gun. My neighbors have several guns. One neighbor and his wife are active in their church, but they are also armed to the teeth. I could also get back into martial arts, which I haven't studied since I got out of high school. If that's too much for conscience to bear, I could cheat just a little bit – maybe put up a punching bag in the garage, do a bit of shadow-boxing, rig up a few homemade devices to practice with to improve my speed and coordination. But there's Matthew 5:38-42, and the Lord's words to Peter in Gethsemane: “All those who take the sword will die by the sword.” And taking up the sword would disqualify me as a witness, I think. So there's a conflict.

That conflict was especially pronounced this week when I drove to a restaurant (one of the few times I drove this week; I suppose I should have walked or ridden my bike instead) and found upon leaving that someone had smashed the passenger window of my vehicle. Whoever did it was too stupid to take anything valuable, like the radio or my vehicle registration; instead they just lifted a pair of gloves that had been on the seat. My vehicle is over ten years old and wasn't expensive even new, so I wondered a lot about why someone had chosen to target me. Later came the anger and fantasies about what I would have done if I had caught the vandal in the act.

I think I'll have many more occasions to face this conflict between the requirements of Christian witness and the natural desire to preserve myself. Every time the conflict comes, I'll be faced with a “Gethsemane moment.” I'm facing one now.

Ted Haggard, Sociopath, Rises Again

Ted Haggard, disgraced former minister of New Life Church in Colorado, is seeking to make a comeback as a preacher. (See http://news.aol.com/article/is-disgraced-pastor-reinventing-himself/258087?icid=100214839x1213997335x1200907067) This is less than a year after he was ordered by his church to refrain from preaching for a period of a few years in response to the revelation of sexual sin and drug use by Mr. Haggard.

Haggard is justifying his earlier return to preaching by pointing to his "gift" and "call from God," and he has a band of supporters and yes-men who are singing the same tune to anyone who will listen. Rather than face the fact that he has become a toxic person, he has sought to shift the blame for his toxicity onto others, going so far as "chastising church leaders for missing an opportunity to use his scandal to 'communicate the gospel worldwide,'" and boasting that he has emerged from his scandal with a stronger Christian faith and marriage than he'd ever had.

This is really bizarre, yet it is typical of many fallen and disgraced "ministers" in American evangelical culture. The fact that they are able to stage "comebacks" after exposure of serious, long-standing sin says something about the people who are still gullible enough to listen to them. It shows that there are still too many of us who call ourselves "evangelical" who are willing to give their lives and resources to leaders whose gift consists of nothing more than being able to organize or speak well and entertainingly, and who don't know how to live what they preach.

It also shows that too many of us don't have enough confidence in our own ability to understand the Bible, and is seen in our insecure search for "experts" whom we worship as heroes. And it shows that there is still too much money to be made in starting a big megachurch ministry. It's the money that ruins things, by attracting unscrupulous men to positions of power in much the same way that flies are attracted to hot, smelly dung.

A Few Rabbit-Trails

Shortly after I started this blog, From SoC to Points North, I began to fear that I would quickly run out of things to say. I never had this fear with my original blog, TH in SoC, nor with my other blog, The Well Run Dry. But I guess if people are attuned to the things that happen to them every day, they can find something to talk about – especially in these present times.

I had another dream about my old church, a church which I must ashamedly describe as an aberrant and abusive group of people, as I described them in TH in SoC. But I also had a flash of insight after the dream, and I figured out why I still have dreams about that place and those people. It has to do with community. Like many high-demand, totalist groups, these people held out the promise of instant community to anyone who was willing to submit to their demands. Because they set themselves as the definers and mediators of “community” and because their demands were so intense, many of us who left had trouble establishing our own circles of community after we left.

I know it has been a struggle for me. While I lived in Southern California, during the days after I left that church, I had some healthy distractions and experiences of community in which people were free to be themselves. For instance, there was the experience of getting to know the neighbors on my street and talking to all of their kids. The kids used to come to my front yard so often to hang out that I once humorously thought to myself that I should have become a child psychologist instead of an engineer. Then there was a guitar class and a creative writing class I was involved in, and my discovery of Peak Oil two years ago, which took my mind off a great many other things. (Ah, but Peak Oil is a subject for another blog...)

Anyway, since I left Southern California over a year ago, the process of rebuilding the experience of community has been rather slow. It is not that there are not opportunities here; in fact, it seems that it would be easier here than it ever would in the vast suburbs of So. Cal. It's just that it's up to me to do the rebuilding, and not to lazily cede control of my social life to some authority figure usurping the place of a parent in my life. And the rebuilding involves adults coming together as free individuals who are free to be themselves as they interact with each other. Once that rebuilding is underway, I will be able to say that a major portion of the damage done to me by that old church is fixed, and that I've scored a victory over them.

There are other things I've been thinking about, such as the place of Christian art in the present world, and how to find and support artists whose work doesn't stink like corporatist cheese. I am also pondering the challenge of being a Christian witness in a dangerous world, as I think about the things I have learned over the last two years concerning energy, climate, and the evils of the present worldly power structures. That makes me think of a statement on Stormchild's blog Gale Warnings: “...most of us spend our lives as prey, economically and psychologically...” In a world dominated by rich and powerful predators, living as a Christian and not becoming prey will be a very big challenge. I've also been seeing the need to re-learn the “mechanics” of how the supernatural actually works. This is because of my exposure to wacky teaching in my old church over the years, as well as the craziness I have been seeing among many who are involved in the Charismatic/Pentecostal side of Christendom.

But this next weekend I am going on another long bike ride with a local club, providing that it doesn't rain on us all. I may even take pictures. To anyone reading this, I wish a happy Thanksgiving.

The 2008 Election - A Rearview Mirror Look

They say that you're not supposed to talk about politics and religion. I wonder if that means that people are not supposed to talk about these subjects publicly at all, or whether it just means that you're not supposed to talk about them together at the same time. Perhaps politics and religion are like two substances that, when mixed together, undergo a hypergolic reaction and burst into flames. Anyway, I've been careful in my blogging not to do as “they” say. I hope I haven't set anyone on fire (but maybe it would be good if I had). And I'm about to talk politics and religion again. Why here instead of on my other blog, The Well Run Dry? Because I'm in the midst of covering alternative transportation and peak oil on that blog, and I don't want to interrupt the flow. So if you are flammable, you may want to stay away from this blog post.

The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States has produced some rather interesting reactions from various sectors of the American public, including reactions from many leading members of the Religious Right. According to a recent article in The Daily Advertiser titled, “Clergy Urge Prayer for Obama,” James Dobson told his radio audience that he was “bereft” after the election, “in the midst of a grieving process...over the loss of things that (he) has fought for 35 years.” Earlier in the year, he had threatened to sit out the 2008 election if John McCain was chosen as the Republican nominee, but later reversed course and endorsed McCain after McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, stating that “it's probably obvious which of the two major party candidates' views are most palatable to those of us who embrace a pro-life, pro-family worldview.” There have also been stark warnings from Georgia Republican congressman Paul Brown calling Obama a Marxist with a Nazi agenda. And there is a Roman Catholic priest in South Carolina who told his parishioners that any who had voted for Obama needed to do penance before partaking of holy communion.

On the other side of the aisle, there are reports of joyful dancing in the streets among Democrats and those who call themselves “progressive.” Many of their spokespeople have called this election an historic moment in which old racist and class barriers were broken, and they speak of the dawn of a new day of “tolerance” and “diversity” and “progressiveness,” dwelling much on the symbolic value of this past election.

To both sides, I have a few things to say, things that will be very hard to swallow. Since I am a conservative evangelical Christian, I will start by addressing the conservative side of the aisle.

As I have said, I am a conservative evangelical Christian. I believe that the Bible is actually the inspired Word of God. My theology is summed up in the Apostles' Creed. I believe that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that becoming a Christian means repenting of one's sins. I also believe that homosexuality and abortion are sins, because the Bible says that they are. Such beliefs are in direct contradiction to the views of most people aligned with the Democratic Party. In fact, I disagree with Barack Obama's position on these issues.

Yet I voted for Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.

Some who know me will say that I voted for Obama because, like me, he is black. Others will question my Christian credentials, unable to grasp the reasoning behind my vote. Really, though, it is very simple to explain. My vote for Obama was not because he is black, although there are advantages to having a man like Obama in the sort of public spotlight granted to presidents. Obama – urbane, thoughtful, educated and well-spoken – is a powerful contradiction of the stereotypical def'-jammin, jive-talkin', b-ball, gangsta-thugga-rappa portrayal of black culture typically presented by the mainstream media. This stereotype is frequently the only portrayal shown in mainstream entertainment, so that when real-life events force people like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama into public view, it's a surprise to many. Now at least, America gets to be surprised every day for the next four years.

Why then did I vote for Obama? Because the conservatives, Republicans and members of the Religious Right proved themselves to be supporters of a corporatist agenda that benefited a small group of rich elites while destroying poor nations and the poor of this nation, as well as destroying the earth. The evidence of that destruction has been well-documented on my blog, TH in SoC, in the posts titled, “Fighting With Broken Weapons” and “The Sins of the Right.” Here I will list just a few examples: the Iraq war, which was started on a pretext solely to seize Iraqi oil; the subsidizing of biofuels and genetically-modified food which inflated the price of basic food and lead to widespread hunger; the expansion of the private prison industry, which brought many people convicted of nonviolent crimes into long-term slavery while forever depriving them of the right to vote; the promotion of global laissez-faire neoliberal trade policies which destroyed the local farms, manufacturing enterprises, natural resources and economies of foreign nations while enriching Western corporations; the privatizing of public utilities and services in order to enrich private corporations at the expense of the poor and working-class; and the refusal to admit the reality of anthropogenic global warming and environmental degradation.

These are just a few sins of the Right. Many more have been documented in books such as the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, and on websites such as the OXFAM site, Casaubon's Book and Navdanya by Vandana Shiva. Eventually these things would lead to the ruin of the United States and any other nation which allowed its economic elites to practice such sins. But the coming ruin has been accelerated by the increasing speed of manmade climate change, as well as the decline in resources due to Hubbert's Peak. Because of resource peaks and climate change, our present corporatist economic system is breaking. Yet under President Bush and the Republicans, average working-class people are being forced by their government into continued reliance on that system while being deprived of the ability to build a safety net of alternative systems. After examining the public service records of John McCain and Sarah Palin, I was convinced that these two persons would have continued the corporatist agenda pursued by President Bush. Therefore I voted against them.

The American evangelical “Religious Right” has sought to portray the Republican party as the party of godliness, Christianity and “family values,” stating that the Republicans are the most “pro-life” of the two major parties. I personally believe that the spokesmen for the Religious Right have been acting simply as builders of a political power base for candidates who have a corporatist agenda. The leaders of the Religious Right have pushed two issues to identify whether a candidate has a “Biblical” worldview and agenda, yet they have ignored the fact that the Bible does not confine itself to just two issues. Also, the Bible defines being “pro-life” much more broadly than just being against abortion. Abortion is sin – make no mistake. But oppressing and robbing those who have already been born is just as much of a sin as killing the unborn; yet the Religious Right is silent when it comes to condemning the murderous practices of rich Western elites.

But suppose I were to believe that the leaders of the Religious Right are sincere in their lobbying and use of political action to try to make America a “Christian” nation. It would be a great stretch to believe this, since they are just as vocal about opposing issues about which the Bible says nothing, issues like mass transit (since when is that a sin?!) and climate change legislation. Still, what if I were to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they sincerely think they are doing God's work? I believe that I would still end up scratching my head in wonder at them. Take Sarah Palin's statement to James Dobson before the election: “I'm going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done.” Indeed, there were many prayers and calls for prayer made by Religious Right leaders in the days up to November 4. One minister at an Iowa McCain rally prayed for a McCain win because an Obama win would cause Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists to think that their god is bigger than the LORD. Let's assume then that religious evangelical conservatives were wholeheartedly committed to the rightness of their cause and to their strategy of political action as a means of advancing the Kingdom prior to November 4.

What then did November 4 teach them? Things certainly turned out differently than they had hoped and prayed. God didn't give these people what they asked for. Does this mean that God does not exist? Is God weak? Was it merely that these people did not have enough faith? Or could it be that they are mistaken about who God is and what He considers important? Most of us evangelicals have been down the political action road before. For years, I unquestioningly supported the Republican party as the party of God and country. For years I actually believed that it was possible to make a nation Christian in character through laws and elections. Much later I realized that this approach cannot work, because it's impossible to get unsaved people to act like Christians via political action. God is calling His people to live on this earth not as supporters of earthly empire, but as strangers, aliens, and witnesses of new life. Certainly all the political agitation of the Religious Right has produced less-than-stellar results. In fact, the country has gone very much in a direction opposite to that in which the leaders of the Right were trying to lead it. Yet they are unwilling to think on the implications of this. Perhaps it's true that the mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different result.

I assert that while the American Religious Right has stated that it's agenda is to use political action to create a Christian nation, its real agenda has been to legitimize the agenda of the rich and powerful, and to promote American (and Caucasian) domination of the world. Their narrow focus solely on homosexuality and abortion galvanizes potential members of their political power base, yet it poses no threat to established economic elites.

What then of the Left? The Left has historically been a critic of the greed and excesses of the Right. The Left has produced many spokespeople who were fearsomely anti-corporate and anti-capitalist, people like Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King, and folk singers such as Woody Guthrie. Yet in recent years, traditionally “left-leaning” mainstream media outlets have re-defined the “Left” solely in terms of rejecting Biblical sexual morality and being “progressive” regarding sexual issues. This too poses no threat to established economic elites. Thus we were told during the Democratic primaries that we should vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman with “progressive” values, and that a vote for her would be a vote for “change!” We know how Barack Obama was able to market himself as a “progressive” candidate, a “change agent,” with a message of “hope” and “inclusiveness” for America. Now that Obama has won, the mainstream media focus has largely been on spokespersons and proponents of sexually “alternative” lifestyles who are celebrating and giving their views on the meaning of Obama's victory for their cause.

My vote for Obama was not a vote for sexually “progressive” values, but a hope that he might tackle a far more difficult job, namely, the preservation of our country from ruin at the hands of economic and political elites. The danger is that the elites of our country may succeed in defining “progressive” values solely in terms of “alternative” sexual morality just as they defined evangelical conservatism solely in terms of sexual morality. Defining societal values in these terms poses no threat to the members of these elites, and allows them free rein in continuing to practice immoral deeds which enrich them while ruining, robbing and enslaving the poor of the earth. Yet by their actions, these elites are on the verge of destroying our nation and our planet.

Therefore I have a challenge for Mr. Obama and the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. If they are as “progressive” as they have been saying they are, they will quickly enact legislation to break the power of the rich and to prevent the possibility of any one individual or small group of people gaining inordinate wealth or power over the many. They will tell the truth to the American people about our present economic, environmental and energy crises, rather than trying to maintain the unsustainable American lifestyle of ever-increasing consumption. They will lead us into a truly sustainable way of life in which each person's needs – not greeds – is met. And they will remove the power of multinational corporations to extract the wealth of poor nations while destroying the people of those nations.

A good legislative/executive agenda for the first year of Obama's presidency might well look like this:

• Break up economic monopolies and oligarchies in America, starting with the media. Enact rules and laws preventing one man or corporation from owning more than one percent of all newspapers, radio/television stations or Internet media services. Period.

• Stop bailing out failed businesses that are dying because they based their business models on unrestrained growth of profits. The Big Three automakers don't need a bailout. If they are to be saved at all, let them re-tool to make railroad rolling stock and components, or to make bicycles. Poor “Joe-the-Blogger” Americans do not want to be turned into collateral for bailouts given to cover the bad choices of the rich.

• Repeal all government regulation enacted by the Bush administration to prevent poor and working-class people from finding alternatives to products offered by big business. Abolish the National Animal Identification System for starters. Abolish all rules and laws which hinder small businesses through excessive regulation while letting big business off the hook.

• If you want to “stimulate” the economy, require creditors to forgive the majority of debts owed by members of the working class, and to forgive all subprime mortgage debt. This will rein in many of the excesses and evil effects of our present credit economy, and will force a change to a more sensible economic arrangement.

• Bring American troops home from their far-flung bases, ASAP. Bring the troops home from Iraq NOW. They never should have been sent there in the first place.

• Repeal the Patriot Act NOW.

• Shut down Guantanamo NOW.

• Start NOW to build the policies and infrastructure that will help Americans live in a future with far less natural resources and energy. This does not require new leaps of technology, but simply requires that we honestly face reality. This is imperative, because a poorer, lower-energy, lower-consumption future is coming our way whether we like it or not.

Obama, you and the Democrats have identified yourselves as the “progressive” party, the party of “change.” How about it? Are you enough of a change to enact an agenda like this? Symbolism means nothing to me; I'm only interested in deeds. Show me what you've got.

Wanted - A Good Bard

Lately I've been exposed to some interesting music videos from the late 80's and early 90's. One captivating example is the Billy Joel video The Downeaster Alexa. It tells the powerful, evocative story of fishermen struggling to make a living and provide for their families against the backdrop of the depletion of their fisheries by overuse and environmental damage. It's a very good video from a technical standpoint, and The Downeaster Alexa is a strong song, a good story well-told. Its lyrics were pounding in my head last Saturday as I rode my bike along the Columbia River in the early afternoon, pushing against a hard wind while yellow leaves fluttered and went airborne and gunmetal-colored clouds scudded overhead.

That song and its story have got me thinking. Christianity is also a strong, rich, multilayered story, and its bards should be just as skilled, just as excellent as artists like Billy Joel, if not more so. Yet the last time I checked out a “Christian” bookstore, all I found was commercialist cheese. My blog, TH in SoC, was in part a protest against the commercialism which has taken over Christian culture in recent decades. Hearing The Downeaster Alexa has aroused a hunger in me. I need a good story. Good stories, skillfully told, instruct and inspire pilgrims on their journey and help to keep them oriented toward their goal. But I don't know where to look for a good story. I am wary of going to the usual places to find stories, fearful that I will be charged lots of money for mediocre work.

I've started wanting again to be an artist. Not to (starve while trying to) make a living at it, mind you. Being an engineer is a reliable gig and it gets the bills paid. But I want to be an artist, not as a way of making money, but as a way of learning to tell the best and most edifying of stories. As Aaron Tate once wrote, “So I write a book of life/using the best words I can find/for some struggler to snuggle up/when the world becomes unkind.” I want to learn to tell good stories as a freewill offering. But this means two things: first, learning the craft of good storytelling, whether poetry, visual art or music; and secondly, being a living, breathing example of what I preach. It's the second part that's the hardest, since often I am tempted (and sometimes I yield to the temptation) to act in a way that denies the truths I profess. Anyway, I've been itching to start practicing guitar regularly again.

But that alone won't satisfy my hunger for a good story. I want especially the sort of stories that can be packed into short, pithy poems. I can take these with me and remember them when going to work or when stuck behind my computer doing a project. Maybe I should search other people's blogs, since I have recently been learning many though-provoking things from the blogosphere. And blogs are freewill expressions; most bloggers don't ever dream of making money from their writing, so the commercial motive is not present to corrupt what they say. Are there any blogs by skilled bards out there? Does anyone have any suggestions?

A Scripture for the Election Season

As anyone reading this blog can probably tell, I've started regularly reading the Bible again. It's something we were compelled to do in my old abusive church, and something I did for a bit even after I left. But work got busy and other projects took up my time, and my regular reading became highly irregular. I don't know that I feel very guilty about this. Maybe I should, since the psychological damage I experienced in my old church environment did not go so far as to render me incapable of bringing myself to read.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now. But a couple of weeks ago I read something in Deuteronomy that hooked my interest, and I went back again tonight to study it in more detail, because I wanted to write about it for this post. The oddest thing happened while I was studying the passage, and it had nothing to do with what the passage was saying. I had to remind myself that I am not in the Assembly (the name for our old church) anymore, and that I am not preparing a “word of ministry” for Sunday morning. I'm just re-formatting my soul's “hard drive” and re-installing software that had gotten corrupted, if you get my drift. It's amazing how much it takes to fix good and noble things after bad men have gotten their hands on those things to screw them up.

But on to the passage. It is Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and it reads thus:

When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me”; you shall surely set him king over yourselves, whom the LORD your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.” Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel. (Quoted from the World English Bible, a public domain translation.)

Among the things that struck me from this passage was the command that the king of Israel must not be a materialist – “Only he shall not multiply horses to himself...neither shall he multiply wives to himself...neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” The Bible elsewhere equates greed with idolatry. Getting “stuff” was not to be the king's priority, and his choices and lifestyle were to be a reflection of this.

What was the king's priority to be, then? The law of God, the word of God – the king was to study it in order to obey it, that his reign might be an expression of the justice of God on earth, and that the king might remember always that he was simply one of the sons of Israel – "one of us," not superior to his brothers and sisters – and that all people are under God.

Note the contrast between the distraction of lusting for material possessions versus remembering the justice of God.

I am not quoting this passage in order to argue about what a “Christian” nation should look like; nor am I trying to force America to submit to the law of Moses. But if one looks at our most recent leaders, one sees a remarkable contrast between what this passage in Deuteronomy says and the character of the lives of our leaders. In order to get into elected office, they must both have and raise lots of money. While they are in office, they are servants of a corporatocracy, and after they leave office their corporate masters reward them richly with extremely lucrative appointments to leadership roles in the private sector. I think of former President Clinton, who according to some reports is one of the richest ex-presidents ever, and who was still busily shoveling dollars into his bank account as of the beginning of this year (See http://www.newsweek.com/id/105650, and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?pagewanted=print, for instance.) But I also think of the greed of President Bush and the Republicans, as seen in such things as their tax cuts for the rich and their multi-hundred-billion dollar taxpayer-funded “bailouts” of their friends in high places.

In short, I see our former, present and (possibly) future leaders stuffing themselves with earthly wealth, gorged to bursting with possessions, and unable to stop themselves from their continued bingeing. While I am not reading or discussing the Deuteronomy passage in order to push some political action plan, I guess I am thinking about this passage as an aid to help me understand why our government seems so warped right now. Understanding is a key to coping.

I've gotten enough campaign mail in the last month to choke a camel. Most of it has very little effect on me, since I know who and what will get my vote in this election, and I hold no illusions about any of the candidates I am voting for. Yes, I am voting. But I am also doing other things as I see fit, in order to adapt to the future I think we will all face. Am I cynical? Maybe not; maybe I'm simply being realistic. But I'll be glad when, after this Tuesday, my mailbox contains only bills again.