War and Remembering

Two cock pheasants, formerly friendly to each other during the long winter, seemed to enjoy jousting with each other this spring. It got pretty vicious outside my south window. Now they have adjacent territory, and we occasionally see a few hens in the vicinity. It's clear they have learned to coexist. I wonder if they even remember their previous battles. But there never was, as far as I could tell, any bird bloodshed.

Humans are different. We kill each other one by one, and it's called murder. We kill each other by the thousands, and call it war. We have a few thousand years of history to teach us how to remember battle casualties. We tend to remember and bear grudges. This remembering often leads to more bloodshed.

Jesus insisted on being remembered. He and the gospel writers were explicit about his bloody, violent death. He explained why his followers would not be fighting to preserve himself and his mission (John 18. 36f). He didn't expect that our remembering his unjust death would nurture demands of vengeance. For his followers, his death was his victory. The motley crew of early Christians instead launched an opposite, more powerful remembering that would put in place the principles of justice, fairness, respect, and righteousness upon which this nation itself was founded. If acted upon, these principles still become powerful tools of battle against evil in this world.

Yet Jesus agonized over the sacrifice. Soldiers confronting violent death in war might ask, "Why me?" Jesus's words echo those of the soldier when he said, "If it's possible, let this cup pass from me!" No one wants this kind of violent death. Yet Jesus knew that his encounter with evil would remain triumphant.

St. Paul knew this too. He put remembering Jesus into action. He framed his specific instructions for remembering Jesus' death on the cross, and these instructions are still the most important source for our communion services in our churches. But often omitted in our remembering is Paul's expectation that this communion ritual will dismantle human prejudice and hatred, and peace will be built. The two are connected. St. Paul wanted the Corinthian's memorializing of Jesus' violent death to heal human strife (See 1 Corinthians 11. 17-33). It follows that memorializing Jesus' death isn't really right if the participants are steeped in hatred and division.
Today, as we celebrate Memorial Day, the highest patriotic remembering will not call us to

blindly prepare for the next generation's sacrifice on the altar of warfare. Remembering will mean examining carefully and rationally the injustices that naturally arise in our world community, just as injustices arose in the first century A.D. That was Jesus's and Paul's teaching.

As our remembering this Memorial Weekend prods us to wonder, to question national priorities and policies, to consider alternatives to the next generation's sacrificial deaths, let's hold our heads with pride.

There is no greater patriotism, no greater honor to bestow on any who have made the ultimate sacrifice, than to creatively and energetically pursue the path carved out by Jesus and Paul. The freedoms won by blood-shedding sacrifice for our nation are many. But none are greater than the freedom to reveal the truth of war propaganda, and the truth of the powerful options to combat evil without modern warfare (See A Force More Powerful, by Jack Duvall, or check out the DVD, or come borrow my copy).

It's amazing to me that the critters on the world's back 40's seem to understand these alternatives better than us humans. Sure, they fight. But it's extremely rare for them to kill each other. They quickly learn respect for each other's place at the table of God's nourishing earth.

Coexistence is an assumed postulate of their conflict. If we can't learn from Jesus or Paul, let's at least watch the critters in our back 40's.

Comments and previous Spirit and Dust columns: http://greenwoodback40.blogspot.com/

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034

Musings from the Back 40

Humans and Humus

Human: adj.  ME 3. Prone to frailties associated with man as an imperfect being. Made from dust (humus), destined for dust. 

 

To be human is to know we are dust. Yet we know the gift of life remains, despite death and decay. In the Creator's plan, dying is not in vain; it leads to life as surely as humus, the moldering rot of previous life, becomes the nutrient source of new life.

 

Humus: n. An organic substance consisting of decaying vegetable matter that provides nutrients to living plants and increases ability of the soil to retain water for plant roots.

 

Spring 1961.

I wielded the shovel aggressively, but Dad said, "Careful now," and placed a restraining hand on my shovel.  He marked a larger perimeter in the soil around a healthy young sapling growing from dark, moldering soil.  That's where I was to dig a narrow, two-blade-depth trench.  I dug.

 

He stopped me again and held up a lump of soil packed with many root hairs. 

 

"Here," he said, "is humus.  It's what makes trees grow.  If the root hairs are broken and the humus separates from the roots, no point trying to fix it."

 

He sent me for the gunny sacks in the pickup.  I helped him rip them into wide bands and bind them tightly around the root ball with baling wire.  Only when the delicate soil-root system was secure did he allow me to do what I intended earlier: I pierced the taproot with the blade of my spade. Then I pried up the root ball, and the gunny sack bands secured the fragile network of root hairs and humus around the tree roots.

 

We took several dozen oak, maple, and elm saplings that day for him to plant along newly paved streets in our hometown.  The following spring, when I came home from college, he proudly pointed out the flourishing trees transplanted from our farm.

  

Spring 2010

Our nation's broken health care system is being dug up and transplanted.  The past three years of political wrangling leading up to the new health care reform law have badly damaged the older American values of compassion and trust. These were the values that guided health care until the mid-70's. Profit then was a corollary, not the priority.  Since profit-maximizing business was not dominant among providers, health care functioned responsibly. The insurance companies generally trusted doctors, recognizing the bottom line was not maximum profit.

 

Now two major competing values of our health care system have been at war for decades, and health care is in crisis.  On the one hand is the right of any citizen to health care.  On the other hand is the right of health businesses to maximize profit.

 

No one, Democrat or Republican, in Washington seems to have the guts to stop healthcare profiteers from gorging at the tax-payer trough.  Republicans claimed the expense of the Obama plan would bankrupt the country. Yet Obama refused the obvious: to let the proven taxpayer-paid and -run health care systems of Medicare, Congresses' health care, and veterans' health care become the model for total reform, drastically reducing profit-maximizing business to pre-70's levels.  That's what would also lower the costs that now burden each citizen. And it would provide the fiscal foundation for health care for all.  Almost everyone in Washington, including the President, is bought off to refuse this proven solution.

 

The media have not reported on this mistaken bi-partisan consensus.  Instead they favor the contrived controversies funded with billions$$ by the health industry to skew American citizens away from this best solution. Washington easily refuses an honest debate on this racket, enjoying instead the noisy Republican vs Democrat gridlock over minute intricacies barely questioning the power of profit priorities in the health care system (see on line a relevant Frontline report. Search words: Obama's Deal Frontline, or use this ULR:  www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamasdeal/).

 

Our roots need nourishment from the humus of these older values: compassion and respect.  They used to bring people together networking around human need, and can still provide support for our nation's health care in the changes ahead. It depends on how the heavyweights view the old values that built American health care into the world's best system in the 70's.  We need those values again, like never before.

 

That's the way I see it from the back 40.

 

"No one can serve two masters. . . you cannot serve both God and money."

            –Jesus of Nazareth, AD 32.

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT  59034
graberdb@gmail.com
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

Musings from the Back 40

The Power of Mercy

 

"What does the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy God."  — Micah 6.8, The Bible, King James Version.

 

Most of us agree we want the most effective, strongest tools to deal with the reality of evil people in this world. Here is my bias: Mercy is often neglected as a strong strategy to stop evil people.  What does research say?  For this, I refer to scholars of social anthropology and historians specializing in cultural theory.  Perhaps foremost among these is René Girard, who has researched and written extensively into the origin of human mass violence. 

 

But I'll set aside elite academics for another question: What does the Bible say?  Answer: It agrees with the research I've seen.

 

In many human cultures, as well as ours in the past, the practice of mercy was valued as a strong alternative to reciprocal violence in the face of extreme evil.   That's the subject of a Bible story I wrote for this column, a story that leaves big questions unanswered.  I thought it was good to challenge Big Horn County News readers' thinking.  But my cadre of preview commentators said it's too much.  So I decided on a drastic rewriting.   

 

I did keep the story.  If you think you qualify to read it, use the link below to my blog, or look up the original short news report in 2 Kings 6, The Bible.

 

Meantime, here's a synopsis:  Aramean tribesmen were conducting nighttime raids from their mountain hideouts on farm villages in the valley.  When a planned raid turned up no one at home and nothing to take from one small village, the Aramean king suspected that one of his raiders was a spy for the Israelis.  When told that an Israeli holy man, Elisha, had ability to divine this information from a distance, he sent his raiders on a mission to capture him.  Through some trickery and miraculous power, Elisha managed to lead the raiders to the capital city into the hands of the Israeli king's soldiers.  The king, knowing the terror the villagers were suffering, sought Elisha's permission to kill the raiders.  But he ordered the king to prepare a banquet for them, and set them free back to their master.  This ended the raids, according to the writer of 2 Kings. 

 

A modern, much longer version of doing good to counter evil, in this case the jihadist Taliban of Afghanistan, is Greg Mortenson's book, Three Cups of Tea.  This book is now on a required reading list at The Pentagon for military officers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Greg is from Bozeman, and has written a second book, Stones into Schools. 

 

I recommend anyone, especially script writers for children's Saturday morning cartoons, to incorporate such powerful good alternatives to the usual bloody entertainment fare of how good has to turn bad to defeat bad evil.  And, you might check out King David: Psalm 23. 5, St. Paul: Romans 12.20, or Jesus of Nazareth: Matthew 5.43f and Luke 22.30, all of whom allude to the above story from 2 Kings 6, The Bible.

 

David Graber

http://greenwoodback40.blogspot.com/

 

The Story:

The Holy Man and the Raiders

 

Long ago in a valley far across the ocean lived a peaceful people. They cared for the fertile soil of their valley, and it produced grain and forage for animals.  They celebrated their life, and worshipped one Creator God from whom all good things come. 

 

But they could not remain at peace. A rag tag royalty raider bunch from the hills around began nighttime raids on the valley below.  The farmers and their families were terrified of them, the Arameans.  It was not without reason; periodically they lost stores of grain, a sheep or a goat, even children and wives.

 

One evening the king of the Arameans assembled his officers to plan another raid.  They selected a small village. They choose the night, the route to the village, the escape route, and each member of the war party.  The plan was in order.

 

The chosen night arrived.  Carefully they crept up on the first house, curious that the sheepfold outside contained no baa-aa's. They easily entered the house, and no one was inside.  They went through the whole village and found few animals, little grain, and no people. 

 

They returned back to the hills frustrated.  The king called his officers and inquired, "Who among you is the traitor who revealed our plans to the enemy?"

 

The reply came from his most trusted lieutenant. "The enemy has a holy man who puts his ear to the ground and hears your speech, O king, even your most secret words spoken in your sleep." The king replied, "Where does this holy man live?"

 

"In Dothan," they replied.

 

"Then go get him, and bring him to me immediately!" ordered the raider king.

 

Dutifully the raiders set off for Dothan, and camped for the night on a hillside outside the city gate.  

 

It was just before dawn.  The holy man barely stirred when his sidekick left the house for a trip outside the gate.  He happened to glance up on the hillside, and was terrified.  He knew the colors of these tramps, and knew they were out to get his master, if not himself.  He rushed back in to tell the holy one the bad news. 

 

"No problem." Said the holy man.  "Go out again, and look above the hills.  Come back and tell me what you see."  He went out, looked, and saw a huge host of the heavenlies above the hillside.  Again he ran back inside, and the holy man said, "Let's go out and greet our guests.  We have nothing to fear."

 

They went out.  The gate closed tight behind them.  As the raider commander with his officers approached in the breaking dawn, the two unarmed targets wanted to break and run.  But they stood their ground.

 

"Where is the holy man who lives here in Dothan?"  demanded one of the officers.

 

(To be continued.  At this point the 20 inches for my column are past.  This story could be continued next week, or linked to my blog for the ending.  What's your idea??  If it's continued I would need to write a synopsis.  Dave.)

 

"Yes, he lives here, but he has gone to Samaria.  May I take you to him?" said the holy man.

 

"Yes, please."  Answered the commander.

 

The commander roused his hungry, tired terrible troops, fed and watered them, and they were on the trail again. 

 

After marching many hours, they approached the city, shimmering in the afternoon heat.  The gates were open, and surprisingly, with their colors, no one paid them attention as they entered.  Crowds were gathered in the market place.  They were about to start buying food when the holy man disappeared in the crowd, along with his sidekick.  The tired, thirsty, hungry men fingered their swords, knives, and clubs under their robes.  They were nervous.

 

Not without reason.  Suddenly the crowds of people became soldiers, many more and better armed than they, strong and ready for battle.  With barely a skirmish the tired raiders surrendered. 

 

The king of the Samaria was ecstatic.  He came to the holy man saying, "Father, just say the word, and my men will exterminate this plague of insects from our land."

 

The holy man replied, "Did you capture with your sword and bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink: and let them go to their master." 

 

The king and his men   "…prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master.  And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel." —2 Kings chapter 6, The Bible. NRSV*

 

*This story is alluded to elsewhere in Scripture: Psalm 23. 5, Matthew 5.43f, Luke 22.30, Romans 12.20.

 

 

 

--
David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT  59034

406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
Bonnie's email graberbj@gmail.com

Spirit & Dust for Easter week.

Musings from the Back 40

 
Why Did Jesus Die?

by David Graber

www.bighorncountynews.com/news.html

Agape n. <Gk. Christian love: the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which Christians were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God, among one another, and with enemies.

Just before 300 A.D. a farm boy near a small town just upstream the Nile River from Thebes was working crops in a field near the river with other young men. Pachomius, 20 years old at the time, and others his age hardly noticed a Roman ship with soldiers aboard pulling the ship upstream. But the centurion aboard did notice the young men in the field. He was on a recruiting mission, and knew farm boys had the strength to make good soldiers. He stopped. His methods were simple. He deployed his soldiers with chains and swords. The young men were caught, chained together in groups, and marched to the waiting ship. They cast off and drifted downstream to the city of Thebes, where the centurion stopped to wait for favorable winds before venturing from the Nile into the Mediterranean.

Waiting on the shore in chains, Pachomius and the new recruits were in shock. They were hungry and cold, and had no money. But more than that, they grieved knowing they might never see their homes and families again. Citizens of Thebes heard their cries in the night, but paid no attention. They knew it was best to ignore the affairs of the Roman army. But a small group of citizens had the courage to take the risk. To the amazement of the young men in chains, they brought money, clothing and nourishment, and quickly departed.

In a day or two the wind turned favorable, and they set sail. Held with the other recruits on board, Pachomius asked them the identity of the citizens who dared come to aid them. Only one knew anything. He told Pachomius he had heard of a new cult of Jesus the Christ, a resurrected God who commanded followers to do good to all, even enemies. Pachomius, on the boat on his way to war against his will, was determined to seek out this God. In the night, he made a vow that if he were to survive his military duty, he would commit himself to the Christian god and abandon the gods of the empire. Thus began Pachomius' life as a Christian (Information from translated writings of Tabenna and others. See www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/PACHOMI.htm or use search words such as Pachomius Thebes Tabenna Christianity)

I was a farm boy raised to believe that God's love demanded Jesus's obedience to love neighbors and enemies, and to refuse the sword when threatened because of acting on this love (see Matthew 5).

My family has a copy of the book in publication longer than any other, second to the Holy Bible: The Martyr's Mirror (Theileman J. van Bracht, Dort, 1659). All stories in this 1157-page volume, illustrate the Gospel stories of why Jesus died, as generally understood in the first three centuries of Christianity. Historical narratives of martyrs in this book extend from Jesus of Nazareth to the date the first edition was published.

Early Christians took literally Jesus' life and words, and felt the most absolute of all were his words about love, especially agape. He demonstrated this with his disciples, with sworn enemies chosen from both insurgents and collaborators with the Roman occupation in first century Galilee. Five days after crowds followed him on the Appian Way into Jerusalem at the beginning of the first Holy Week, he was arrested, tried in court and tortured to death the Roman way. His disciples, ready to fight for him with swords, were rebuked. Roman records corroborate Gospel accounts of his death.

Some of Jesus' words important to Christians the first centuries:

"Love your enemies, and be good to everyone who hates you… .If you love

only someone who loves you, will God praise you for that?" (Luke 6:27, 32 Contemporary English Version)

"Put your sword away. Anyone who lives by fighting will die by fighting." (Matthew 26:52 CEV)

"My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight." (John 18:36 New Revised Standard Version)

Mary's "Magnificat" (Luke 1: 46-55)

The "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5, 6, and 7).

So Jesus died because of love? The scripture statements are clear. Jesus died, as God's son, in a consummate outpouring of God's love for the whole world.

This understanding has left questions to ponder, just like the Bible record does. Today there remain a variety of precise explanations of what happened between God, Satan, the politicians who executed Jesus, all humanity, and Jesus himself. Among Bible scholars, these are known as theories of atonement. The history of Christianity includes the rise of these theories, a special focus of Constantine's council agenda at Nicea in 311 A.D. Since then atonement theories have clashed in Christianity. But among them all, this understanding of God's love, short on specificity and leaving questions unanswered, has endured through the dust of European Christianity.

To access the Spirit & Dust blog site and write your response:

http://greenwoodback40.blogspot.com/

Home web site:  www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

Getting Radical: 11 March 2010

Paradox <Gk. paradoxos, conflicting with expectation : para, beyond + doxa, opinion <dokein, to think

Radical <ME. of a root < radicalis, having roots adj. 1. Arising from or going to a root or source: basic

I've thought a lot about what on earth I'm doing writing a column like this. I have many more questions than answers. In fact, I'm prone to question answers. Especially when I hear those two-word answers that threaten a revolution to throw out what I hold dear about this country.
Here's a paradox. Check out the oldest roots of the word "radical," from Webster above. Maybe this dusty word in our usage is useful after all. This reminds me of an incident in China that had me quaking in my shoes. Looking back, I couldn't believe how "radical" I spoke, and how well it turned out.

My department head, with a lead from the Communist Party boss of our department at XiHua University, called me into his office. He said he heard complaints I was talking about my faith in my classes. I told him I think the Judeo Christian Bible is the most important source book on our nation's culture, and so should be part of a class on American culture. I explained how, though a Christian, I deeply respected the views of all my students, Buddhist, atheist, or whatever. I also explained that I trusted his judgment on whether the students could handle reading this material usefully, and would definitely follow his recommendation. Amazingly, he agreed, after a conversation of almost an hour, and encouraged me to use the passages I had chosen. We parted friends.

I went to my apartment and sweated over how close I was to being labeled "Foreign Proselytizer." It was beyond me to pull this off. I remember a confident, calm spirit about it all from the beginning of my conversation. I'm confident it was a Spiritual source that helped me answer with a back-to-the-basics radical approach, with respect. Similar sourcing can help resist the inflammatory ideas hiding paradoxes around, us pushing us to cast off basics of our country's existence.

Here's another example of the convoluted problems that arise when we fail to get radical, by which I mean go back to the roots of issues and take them into account when we make decisions.

We have a problem now in this country with forest fires. They have become more and more destructive. Many more homes each late summer go up in flames in the West.

Suppose we go back to before the "government takeover" of forest fire fighting. At that time, people had sense enough to build their houses away from forested areas. And if they didn't, they either planned very well, or they paid big insurance bucks, or stayed in their house and burned. Now everyone who buys or builds houses in forested land is grateful for the government takeover of forest fire fighting. So are the local young people who hire on with the government to fight fires in Arizona and California.

But because the government stepped in to aggressively tackle wildfires, we also reduced the incentive to plan, have insurance, and be smart about fire prevention. Homeowners didn't have to think about those issues.

Now think with me, beyond the opinions, to the root of the matter and its paradox: Has the increased government-paid fire suppression of the last century in the forested west led to increased occurrence of hotter, larger, longer-lasting forest fires? Isn't it worth risking a responsible scientific study, regardless of the outcome?

--
David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT 59034

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org