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Author: Tim

Senior pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ. Ordained in May, 1983. Called to First Congregational UCC in August, 1994. Retired July 1, 2018.
March for Our Lives

March for Our Lives

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A poem I received today from my friend, David Walters …

March for Our Lives

Students lost their childhood! walk with parents and us old codgers,
Won’t wait for official declarations or that lonely bugle’s call,
Side by side they rise up strong celebrating the right to live,
United in country heartlands and busy cities, onward we march!

We remember proud native Americans cut down like tall grass,
Living alongside noisy buffalo roaming free on endless prairie,
Made nearly extinct by long guns and, greed the ammunition,
Oh, how we white newcomers tried killing their hope in a future.

No, it’s not too late! the time is right now!
Refuse to die one by one, school after school,
America, awaken! death’s hands knock at our door,
Ban those damn rifles built for war aimed at our babies.

Gather persons who love children more than their guns,
Leave fear behind, free your heart’s courage, rise up!
Let our brave, precious youth whom we love be the guide,
Will you join the kids as they march for their lives?

david walters ©2018

From John McCain

From John McCain

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The torture of detainees in U.S. custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history. The Senate must do its job in scrutinizing the record & involvement of Gina Haspel in this disgraceful program.

Not giving torture a pass

Not giving torture a pass

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More on the nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA. From the Atlantic, an article by Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent and participant in terror suspect interviews. He writes,

I know firsthand how brutal these techniques were—and how counterproductive. In 2002, I interrogated an al-Qaeda associate named Abu Zubaydah. Using tried-and-true nonviolent interrogation methods, we extracted a great deal of valuable intelligence from Zubaydah—including the identities of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the would-be “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, both of whom would be arrested shortly after. Yet some officials later tried to manipulate the record to make it seem as if this intelligence was gained through torture, even going so far as to misstate the date of Padilla’s arrest, which in fact occurred before Zubaydah or any other al-Qaeda suspect was waterboarded.

Unsurprisingly, the CIA’s own inspector general concluded that the torture program failed to produce any significant actionable intelligence; and I testified to the same effect under oath in the Senate. What’s worse, the program has gotten in the way of justice: To this day, we cannot prosecute terrorists such as the masterminds behind the USS Cole and 9/11 attacks, in large part because the evidence against them is tainted by torture.

Against this backdrop, it is reasonable to ask the nominee: What does she think about the techniques used under her supervision? Did she condone torture at the time, or was she just following a superior’s orders? How, if at all, have her feelings changed over the years? Does she stand behind the attempts to mislead the public as to the techniques’ effectiveness?

Read the rest of the article: Ali Soufan

It matters

It matters

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A large number of advocacy groups are joining forces to oppose the nomination of Gina Haspel to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency, including two groups which I support: the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Center for Victims of Torture. Read more at the Daily Beast:

There were no legal consequences when Gina Haspel oversaw the torture of two men at a secret CIA prison in Thailand 16 years ago. There were no legal consequences 13 years ago when Haspel aided in the destruction of 92 videotapes showing Abu Zubaydah and Abdul Rahim Nashiri’s torture. But now that Haspel is two Senate votes away from running the CIA, a coalition of civil liberties groups is gearing up to ensure that she will at least face political consequences.

This morning, I listened to an interview on NPR with John Rizzo, a lawyer with the CIA during the time of Haspel’s involvement with CIA “black sites.” It was appalling to hear him refuse to label waterboarding, simulated executions, and other interrogation techniques involving extreme physical and emotional abuse as torture and to excuse such measures because of historical context.

Context never changes what is right and wrong. Otherwise, right is merely what is expedient and wrong what is merely inconvenient. Torture is never right and to excuse it is inexcusable. As a nation based on the rule of law and defense of certain inalienable human rights, we are better than that. We must be better than that.

To let this nomination proceed unchallenged is to betray the values for which we claim to stand.

Sierra Hull live

Sierra Hull live

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Heard Sierra Hull play the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis last evening with bassist Ethan Jodziewicz and guest pianist/accordion player, Sam Reider. Scott Mulvahill, bass player, songwriter, and sometime band member with Ricky Skaggs opened. It was an extraordinary evening: pure singing, exquisite arrangements, remarkable musicianship, joyful and uplifting tone. Here’s a live sample of the concert from Sierra’s Facebook page …

What will we do about guns?

What will we do about guns?

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From the Weekly Sift …

Numerous people have called for banning the AR-15 from civilian use. The tricky thing here is getting the definition right: The AR-15 is one of a class of military-style weapons, and if it were banned some other assault rifle would replace it. Banning all assault rifles has been done before, but there’s a legitimate complaint that “assault rifle” is not really a class of weapons — it’s more of a surface description that doesn’t really address the heart of the problem. Vox reported:

It’s quite easy to turn a military-style gun into something that Congress wouldn’t consider an “assault weapon” under its various definitions.

The key issue isn’t whether a weapon looks like something the military would use. It’s how many bullets it’s able to spray out in a short time, how long it can be fired without reloading, and how easy it is to reload over and over without providing a time-window for potential victims to rush the shooter. Those are the features to regulate.

Emotion is a valid motivator: distress, frustration, anger, a sense of futility about our inability to prevent or limit the incidence of mass shootings and about the entrenched opposition of the gun lobby to any sort of increased regulation. But we need to be sensible and practical and informed. This is helpful: focussing regulation on the capability of a particular weapon, because a weapon that can fire many bullets in a short time frame and is easily reloaded — and it is then purely a weapon, not a hunting tool — has no place, absolutely no place, in the hands of civilians.

It is difficult to imagine a scenario where our nation would significantly reduce the sheer number of guns “in circulation,” but I pray that we will find some way to start down that road.

Chasing the wind

Chasing the wind

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Chasing the Wind book coverI have published my first book entitled, Chasing the Wind: Meditations on Ecclesiastes. It is available at lulu.com. Here is an excerpt from the preface:

Ecclesiastes is a strange and wonderful book. It is a strange book because of its startling cynicism and words of wisdom that offer very little of the solace we might expect from sacred scripture …

And yet, Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book, precisely because it is strange. Like Job, and like Jesus, it will not let us fall back on ready answers or take comfort in a religious orthodoxy that satisfies our need for order and predictability. The Philosopher takes us to a place well beyond the limits of our understanding, well beyond our capacity to know and do and control our own destiny. The Philosopher, like Job, and like Jesus, leads us well past the borders of our comfort zones to the place where God — and God alone — is.

Because?

Because?

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Jorge Garcia was brought into the United States at the age of ten by an undocumented relative thirty years ago. He is married with two children, holds a job, pays taxes, and has committed no criminal offense.

Yesterday, he was deported to Mexico. Because? What possible national interest is served by this deportation? Just following the letter of the law for the sake of following the letter of the law?

“How terrible for you! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy …” (Jesus)