Jan. 27 joint letter to President Donald Trump from some Catholic groups.
This letter from some Catholic groups in the United States of America exemplifies the difference that I see between the pro-life movement and Pro-Life, which seems to me to place extraordinary if not exclusive emphasis on being "Pro-Birth". If you are truly pro-life then your concern has to extend beyond protecting the unborn and, in protecting the unborn, to do so in the most compassionate and effective way possible in the long term, not merely the most vociferous and judgemental - which is a common perception of Pro-Life. Interestingly, another difference between pro-lifers and Pro-Lifers seems to manifest in a difference of support for Donald Trump as president.
Monday, 30 January 2017
Wednesday, 28 December 2016
Who is responsible for my decisions and choices?
I found this in my Facebook stream. It is there attributed to Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, an author and self-help guru.
At the risk of alienating some Facebook friends, my response is that this seems to me like a half-truth that mainly applies to middle and upper classes in the First World. What's written is largely true except, sometimes, the age part. I understand where this is coming from. The author is telling us to take responsibility for our own lives and not get bogged down on blaming others for the hole we find ourselves in. But the temptation is to turn it around and wash our hands of responsibility for others by saying that they are responsible for themselves..
What's missing in this inspirational message is that the choices we make before reaching the age of reason or after acquiring dementia could not be responsible choices. After that, the choice options available to many people are often very dependent upon where they were born, where in the world or city they live, whether they even have a job or schooling, the weather in a world of climate change. Choices available to child soldiers and girls sold off in arranged marriages are zero to none yet they are often held responsible and punished, or abandoned, as if they had freedom of choice. Adults and juveniles in families facing severe hunger and deprivation make choices under desperate conditions but often are still held equally accountable as their more privileged counterparts.
You are responsible for your choice only to the extent that the choice is understood and freely made with full knowledge. Such freedom and knowledge is on a sliding scale, not on an on/off switch. This is why politicians who preach simplistic, slogan-based responsibility with automatic, minimum, punitive sentences are so dangerous.
For all these reasons and more, I do not agree with the catchy slogan: you and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make.
However, I also operate on the principle that I had better take responsibility for getting myself out of the hole I am in regardless of whose fault it is that I am in the hole.
At the risk of alienating some Facebook friends, my response is that this seems to me like a half-truth that mainly applies to middle and upper classes in the First World. What's written is largely true except, sometimes, the age part. I understand where this is coming from. The author is telling us to take responsibility for our own lives and not get bogged down on blaming others for the hole we find ourselves in. But the temptation is to turn it around and wash our hands of responsibility for others by saying that they are responsible for themselves..
What's missing in this inspirational message is that the choices we make before reaching the age of reason or after acquiring dementia could not be responsible choices. After that, the choice options available to many people are often very dependent upon where they were born, where in the world or city they live, whether they even have a job or schooling, the weather in a world of climate change. Choices available to child soldiers and girls sold off in arranged marriages are zero to none yet they are often held responsible and punished, or abandoned, as if they had freedom of choice. Adults and juveniles in families facing severe hunger and deprivation make choices under desperate conditions but often are still held equally accountable as their more privileged counterparts.
You are responsible for your choice only to the extent that the choice is understood and freely made with full knowledge. Such freedom and knowledge is on a sliding scale, not on an on/off switch. This is why politicians who preach simplistic, slogan-based responsibility with automatic, minimum, punitive sentences are so dangerous.
For all these reasons and more, I do not agree with the catchy slogan: you and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make.
However, I also operate on the principle that I had better take responsibility for getting myself out of the hole I am in regardless of whose fault it is that I am in the hole.
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| credit: worldartsme.com |
Saturday, 12 November 2016
David Remnick from The New Yorker: last interview with Leonard Cohen
This is a beautiful interview. Perhaps, not so much an interview as a testimony.
I hope this doesn't sound too glib, but I honestly believe a major strength of Leonard Cohen was his preparedness and ability to hold paradoxical contradictions in tension as, perhaps, only a poet can do: life, death; sex, love and loneliness; dark and light; brokenness and healing; guilt, melancholy and humorous self-deprecation; relentlessly seeking God, banging on God's door which for the longest time seemed to be closed; and then, at the end of his life, in his "white-knuckle" pain, relaxing into "hearing God speaking" - no longer in judgement, but compassionately: "Eat something, you're losing too much weight."
I hope this doesn't sound too glib, but I honestly believe a major strength of Leonard Cohen was his preparedness and ability to hold paradoxical contradictions in tension as, perhaps, only a poet can do: life, death; sex, love and loneliness; dark and light; brokenness and healing; guilt, melancholy and humorous self-deprecation; relentlessly seeking God, banging on God's door which for the longest time seemed to be closed; and then, at the end of his life, in his "white-knuckle" pain, relaxing into "hearing God speaking" - no longer in judgement, but compassionately: "Eat something, you're losing too much weight."
Thursday, 10 November 2016
Remembrance Day - Lest We Forget
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| Wilfred Owen credit: standpointmag.co.uk |
Source: Poetry Foundation
Anthem for Doomed Youth
BY WILFRED OWENWhat passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
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| Credit: Flowerinfo.org |
Sunday, 6 November 2016
Christmas storm in a coffee cup
As a Christian I feel the need to speak out and defend the right of coffee vendors not to put Diwali decorations on their take-out coffee cups, nor Eid decorations, nor Chanukah decorations nor Christmas decorations. They have the right to decorate or not decorate their coffee cups in any way they choose subject to the law of the land. If we do not uphold and defend this right then the alternative will be too ghastly to contemplate.
Denigrating them for not decorating their coffee cups with our particular flavour of religious celebration may be free speech, but it borders on harassment, badly models our own religion and is certainly one way of opposing the vendor's right. Tolerance is a prerequisite for the love that most religions claim as their hallmark. Let's at least get that much right as the festive seasons unfold.
Denigrating them for not decorating their coffee cups with our particular flavour of religious celebration may be free speech, but it borders on harassment, badly models our own religion and is certainly one way of opposing the vendor's right. Tolerance is a prerequisite for the love that most religions claim as their hallmark. Let's at least get that much right as the festive seasons unfold.
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(Photo
credit: adweek.com)
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