What 10 would you choose?

Jonathan Romain, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian proposes the following as THE TEN COMMANDMENTS he will try to follow for 2009:

1. You shall not complain about a tragedy in the news without doing something about it (be it sending a donation, writing a letter of protest or whatever else is helpful).

2. You shall play your role in protecting the environment by cutting back on waste, recycling materials and other measures, even if they involve effort or inconvenience.

3. You shall not look the other way when you hear someone cry out in the street, but either give help yourself or alert others to that need.

4. You shall regard giving to charity as an essential everyday activity and budget for it in your weekly expenditure.

5. You shall enjoy life as much as possible, although without doing so at the expense of someone else.

6. You shall seek to fulfill your own potential, so that each year is a new year and not a repetition of the previous one.

7. You shall not hurt other people with malicious gossip or betraying confidences.

8. You shall not protect wrongdoers, whether they be at work or in the family, but shall expose misdeeds.

9. You shall not give up on a task because it is enormous but start the work and make your contribution to it.

10. You shall see part of yourself in all whom you meet and recognise both the failings and the abilities that you share.

Were you given the opportunity to write a Top Ten List of Do's and Don't's for yourself, what would they be? Would a new personal list make a greater impact on your life than the Ten Words from Exodus 20?

Auld Lang Syne

The end of a year typically brings out lists - top books, top movies, top news items, etc. There are even lists of the best lists making the rounds.

Among the lists that I always like to see are the ones that detail the top religious stories of the year. Time Magazine has one, for instance, but you can find others. Some pitch the story in the other direction; on BeliefNet, for example, the Progressive Revival lists the 10 Worst Religious Stories for 2008.

Then, you can find those media outlets who try to cast ahead and make predictions about 2009. No, I am not referring to the National Enquirer here. In the Washington Post ON FAITH section is a series of essays about what to expect from religion and things religious in the coming year.

With all of that, if you made a list of the top religious stories of 2008, what would you include? If you contemplated the impact or force of religion in the new year, what do you anticipate?

I would love to have reader's responses for either of these categories, but, if you choose not to respond, Happy New Year anyway.

Religion items in the SLC Tribune

Usually, it is as I am looking at diverse news sources that something catches my eye for inclusion in this blog. Today, I was struck by the items in the hometown newspaper. (Well, actually, there are two hometown papers - The SLC Tribune [describing itself as "Utah's Independent Voice since 1871] and the Deseret News).

** Massacre at a Catholic Church in the Congo with both the government forces and the rebel armies accusing each other of perpetrating the atrocity.
Church folks are frequent pawns in territorial conflicts as one side or another try to prove something. Wouldn't it be wonderful if churches could be considered "off-limits" in such territorial conflicts?

** Teen sexual abstinence pledges - which are predominantly religiously based - do not reduce the number of teens who become sexually active. Teens who make such pledges, though, engage in riskier sex, that is they are less likely to use condoms or other birth control methods. This is based on a new definitive study from Janet Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
I hope this finally convinces the US Government, local school boards, parents, ministers, and churches that the best way to reduce unwanted teen pregnancies is through a comprehensive sex education program that includes the message of abstinence and proper instruction in birth control methods. Unfortunately now, with the Freedom of Conscience ruling pushed through HHS by the Bush White House, pharmacists can honor their own religious preferences and refuse to provide any birth control methods to anyone, even if prescribed by a doctor. I wonder who thought that would help the situation?

** A Catholic man in Maine who is an outspoken critic of the way the Roman Catholic Church has dealt with the sexual abuse scandal has been threatened by Bishop Malone with losing the right to participate fully in the sacraments of the church if the man persists.
I do not know what the man has done to annoy the Bishop, but doesn't this seem to be an abuse of ecclesiastical power to tell someone that God's presence and grace will be withheld from them for protesting? I am glad that I do not have that power in the Congregational Church.

** It has been interesting to me for a number of years to see how various religious groups put aside religious differences in order to achieve a common goal. I speak here most prominently of campaigns to limit marriage to one man and one woman, campaigns to deny rights and benefits to homosexual couples, campaigns to limit abortion, and campaigns to promote abstinence-only sex education in public schools. This was seen most recently and publicly in the joining together of the LDS Church and the conservative Christian groups like Focus on the Family in the California blitz on Prop 8. Perhaps now, that alliance is beginning to show cracks. As a result of pressure from other, more (?) conservative Christian groups, FotF has pulled an on-line interview with Glenn Beck, conservative talkshow superstar, from its website because he is a convert to the LDS Church. Quoting from the article, the FotF spokesperson said, "While Glenn's social views are compatible with many Christian views, his beliefs in Mormonism are not. Clearly, Mormonism is a cult."
Does this qualify as a "love 'em and leave 'em" policy after they - whichever they you may name - are no longer useful?

What do you think, good reader? Do you pay attention to the religion and culture items in your own newspaper?

Israel and Gaza

Much of the international news is filled with the stories of the Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza. The US papers, in general, give at least tacit support to the Israeli government for defending their nation against the rocket attacks that have been launched against Israel from Gaza.

Certainly, any nation has a right to self-defense. In the attacks, however, many Palestinian citizens, innocents in this situation, have also been killed. As I condemn the attacks on Israeli citizens by suicide bombers, I also condemn Israeli attacks that kill Palestinian citizens.

In the media coverage, the voices of Israeli citizens who may not approve of the attacks are largely lost. On the Progressive Revival blog site on BeliefNet is this posting from Rabbi Arthur Shaskow of the Shalom Center:

Today the starkest choice of values and visions of the future was laid before the Jewish people throughout the world.

On the one hand, Jews throughout the world were reading in synagogue the Prophetic vision of Zechariah, no stranger to exile and humiliation, writing from the midst of the Babylonian Captivity 2500 years ago and looking forward to the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the relighting of its Menorah --- both of which had been destroyed by Babylonian militarism.

This rebuilding and relighting, Zechariah proclaimed, must be achieved not by mobilizing might and power against Babylonia but by drawing on the Infinite Spirit, God's power. A vision reinforced by the Rabbis who chose the passage to be read on the holy day that might easily fall into a celebration of the military might and power of the Maccabees.

On the other hand --- on the very same day!! -- at least 225 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs in one more attempt to quell by might and power the use of violence (on a much smaller scale) by Hamas, in what Hamas sees as itself a retaliation against the Israeli blockade and semi-starvation of the people of Gaza.

There is plenty to bewail and plenty to examine in the details of this crossroads-moment in the history between our two Families of Abraham. Tonight (Saturday night) I cannot gather the strength to do this -- having just, after a pleasant Shabbat of synagogue and family dreidling, discovered this crushing news. We will look more deeeply together into these choices, in the next several days.

But what I can do now is simply ask us all to face the choices, to experience the deadly vertigo of choice between these choices.

A hard but necessary moment to send you the blessings of shalom, salaam, peace. --- Arthur

May we all pray for peace for all people in the Middle East.

A Christmas Prayer

On the BeliefNet blog site, Progressive Revival, Paul Raushenbush, grandson of the well-known early 20th century Baptist pastor Walter Raushenbush, has this prayer:

Creator God,

On this Holy Night, still our frentic pace, and calm our worried minds so that we might experience the miracle and wonder of Christmas. Send your Holy Spirit to pierce the shadows of these uncertain times, rekindle our hope for the future, and guide us by the shining star of Bethlehem to the humble manger where your Love made flesh awaits.

Thank you for the beauty of this world and for the simple, true blessings of family, friends and loved ones. Guided by your spirit of compassion, help us to be loving, forgiving and gentle with one another. May the life giving spirit of Christ sanctify our celebration so that this might truly be a Holy day and bring us closer together as families and as a community.

In this world confounded by the false glitter of materialism and afflicted by the sin of greed, help us to repent of our selfishness and callousness. As we worship your son, born in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn, help us to see in Jesus all who lack the basic dignities of shelter, food, employment and healthcare. We remember especially those who are out of work or who have lost their homes in this time of economic crisis. May we be in solidarity with the suffering of others and each work to usher in your reign of justice, peace and good will on earth as it is in heaven.

We remember all those serving in our military in Iraq and Afghanistan. May they find joy and know that our thoughts and prayers are with them and with the people of those war torn nations. We pray for Israel and Palestine, the Congo, and cities around the world where violence and strife tear and the fabric of life. As we worship the one called the Prince of Peace, we pray that the day come soon when swords are beaten into plowshares and sisters and brothers of every nations, race, and religion live in peace.

Loving God, On this Christmas Eve we give you thanks for your son who loved the outcaste, healed the lame, preached Good News to the poor, was crucified and rose again; who was born so that we might be born again. May our lives reflect our gratitude.

Amen

Joy to the World

In time for your Christmas meditation is this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet who lived from 1875-1926.

Joy is inexpressibly more than happiness. Happiness befalls people, happiness is fate, while people cause joy to bloom inside themselves. Joy is plainly a good season for the heart; joy is the ultimate achievement of which human beings are capable.

When you sing "Joy To The World" during this Christmas season, I hope these words from Rilke will enrich you.

Freedom of Speech

In the current issue of The New Yorker is an essay written by Mark Twain in 1905 entitled "The Privilege of the Grave." In it, Twain comments on the delusion of free speech for those who are still living. Enjoy some of Twain's brilliance:
Its occupant [speaking of the grave] has one privilege which is not exercised by any living person: free speech. The living man is not really without this privilege - strictly speaking - but as he possesses it merely as an empty formality, and knows better than to make use of it, it cannot be seriously regarded as an actual possession. . . . Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact. By the common estimate both are crimes, and are held in deep odium by all civilized peoples. Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always - when committed. Which is seldom. There are not fewer than five thousand murders to one (unpopular) free utterance. There is justification for this reluctance to utter unpopular opinions: the cost of utterance is too heavy; it can ruin a man in his business, it can lose him his friends, it can subject him to public insult and abuse, it can ostracize his unoffending family, and make his house a despised and unvisited solitude.

Twain made this observation long before the advent of the internet and blogging. It seems now, that, while one person's opinion will surely enrage someone, someone else will see it as a pure elixir of golden thought. So, do Twain's observations still hold true?

Do you refrain from expressing your true feelings on matters because you know the people around you will reject you? Should that be the case? Do you wish that you had the courage and the opportunity to voice what you truly believe on any subject to everyone you know? If so, what would you say?