Being is Believing: No, You Can't!

No, You Can't!

Being Anita Hill

Listening to Anita Hill this morning, I am reminded of how impressive she appeared before those awful hearings and how outraged I was by Clarence Thomas and the smear machine. Smear worked then as a mode of conservative operations. But it does not seem to be working in this presidential campaign.

In a recent article in the Boston Globe Ms. Hill takes a counterintuitive bent on race and this election. She writes about "racial amnesia" and the importance it may play in this presidential outcome. Ms. Hill sees economics trumping race and points to the remembrance of the past "fading or being altered." In this regard, she sees "racial amnesia" as a plus. I do too.

But while there something of great value in getting beyond race, there is also something for the appreciation of culture and difference. Like Ms. Hill, I am incredibly hopeful that "after this election, we may never see race in the same way again." I also, like Ms. Hill, realize that "getting people to address racial disparities in education, employment, and health care still won't be easy."

Whatever happens tomorrow, we will be better because of this presidential process. Look at how far we have come.

Being Pro-Justice

Recently I posted a piece entitled Being Pro-Israel where I wrote of the defamation of Barack Obama and the respected Palestinian scholar, Rashid Khalidi (who remained nameless in the post), with implications of being terrorists. I was incensed by this allegation.

A good friend of mine who knows the respected scholar, Professor Khalidi and his librarian wife, Mona, very well was also outraged by the defamation. He wrote to me of his personal concern for his friend and his friend's family by the terrorist allegation. He also wrote of the daily injustice faced by Palestinians.

It might be noted that we can be "pro-justice" -- which to me feels larger than "pro-Palestinian" or "pro-Israeli." I often wonder if people who say they are "pro-Israeli" could really be "pro" years of systematic daily oppression, degradation, home seizure, and murder -- when we, our country, has also paid for the weapons regularly used for this nightmare.

It is common knowledge. Saying one is "pro-Israel" without acknowledging the profound failings of the official Israeli state --is questionable. All violence should be rejected, by Christians and Muslims alike, or they have no right to claim any religion.

With the desire to become larger than politics and closer to the message of Christ, I henceforth proclaim that I am pro-justice and believe that love, instead of revenge, must be the clarion call for all people who have experienced injustice anywhere in the world.

Being Inspired by Others

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e e cummings

Being Funny VI

Senator McCain shows once again that he's a good sport (wish we has seen more of this early on) and that he has great comedic timing. (Remember the Al Smith Memorial Dinner? Funny!) As heard by the raucous response to his jokes, the live audience was quite appreciative. Audience members were also appreciative of Senator McCain's mere appearance on SNL. He received a great round of applause, even from an elite New York non-patriotic audience.



Here's the Weekend Update. What a sport! He's very different from Sarah Palin who did not participate, but was a mere observer of her own image. Yuck! Enough of her, here is Senator McCain, the comic.

Being Compatible

While the Catholic church found Galileo guilty of heresy in the 16th century, later vindicating him in the 20th century, it is just good to see that science and religion can come together on agreeable terms, even if the beliefs haven't always been believed to be compatible.

In this sense it was particularly wonderful to see that the Vatican invited the brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking, to speak at an event given by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. "There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," said Pope Benedict.


In an interview with Reuters last year Hawking said that he was "not religious in the normal sense." Many of us would not be considered such either. "I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he continued. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."

The laws of God and those of science may be indeed compatible.

Being Inexpressible

When I first heard this duet from the Pearl Fishers with Jussi Bjorling and Robert Merrill I was 12 years old. Sitting alone, I remember weeping uncontrollably. I didn't know why.



Today, many years later, after years of study and singing, I weep still. I do not know why. I suspect it has something to do with the undefinable, the oft inexpressible nature of life and love, heartache and beauty.