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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.
secret proceedings

secret proceedings

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From a March 8, 2007 article by Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:

Campaigners have condemned the Bush administration’s plan to proceed with secret proceedings [Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT)] against 14 “high-value” terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of organising the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the formal status of the prisoners have been open to reporters. None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present …

Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents one of the men due to go before a CSRT, Majid Khan, said: “This is a system designed to obtain a pre-determined result.”

Mr. Dixon said that Mr. Bush had admitted the 14 men had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques which he said was a euphemism for torture. He added that under the CSRT rules the government could use information obtained under torture. He added: “You don’t know what is true until you have given them a fair trial.”

Secret proceedings, no lawyers, “enhanced interrogation techniques” …… “High-value” suspects or not, this is no recipe for justice, and no recipe for winning the hearts and minds of the international community which is the key to winning the war on terrorism! If we want to win that war, we must show we are committted — truly committed — to justice for its own sake, and to the rule of law as a matter of principle, not just when it happens to suit our purposes or serves to protect those we choose to protect.

the desire to please you

the desire to please you

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A prayer from Thomas Merton:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I had never seen this prayer quoted before, but now I have “happened” upon it twice in three weeks! Three weeks ago, I used it in my eulogy for a ninety-two year-old retired music teacher and unretired Christian who had it cut and pasted into the front cover of his Bible. And today I read it again quoted as an afterword to a book entitled Listening Hearts, a book about discerning the call of God and the role of community in discerning call and supporting ministry.

It is a wonderfully humble and wonderfully hopeful prayer!

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

There is much that we do not know and much that we will never know. And it is true that even when we want more than anything else to do what God wants, we may struggle with knowing just what that is or how to do it. But if wanting itself matters … If it is our passion itself that pleases God … If it is our love itself that honors God … May it be so! And may we love God with all our heart minds and strength!

And may we walk side by side with our Christian sisters and brothers with this prayer on our lips, because if we do, if we come to our common Christian enterprise with this kind of humility, with this kind of passion, with this kind of trust, there will be little to drive us apart, and much to hold us together. I do not stand over against you or your values or your opinions, but with you in our common desire to please God, as we acknowledge to ourselves and to each other that even in our zeal we are not always certain of the way!

a better way to deal with iran

a better way to deal with iran

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From a piece in The Washington Post by Bill Richardson entitled: Diplomacy, Not War, With Iran

Saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate. But it is a good way to start a new war – a war that would be a disaster for the Middle East, for the United States and for the world. A war that, furthermore, would destroy what little remains of U.S. credibility in the community of nations.

A better approach would be for the United States to engage directly with the Iranians and to lead a global diplomatic offensive to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. We need tough, direct negotiations, not just with Iran but also with our allies, especially Russia, to get them to support us in presenting Iran with credible carrots and sticks.

No nation has ever been forced to renounce nuclear weapons, but many have chosen to do so. The Iranians will not end their nuclear program because we threaten them and call them names. They will renounce nukes because we convince them that they will be safer and more prosperous if they do that than if they don’t. This feat will take more than threats and insults. It will take skillful American diplomatic leadership.

May we prove as skillful and persistent and dedicated in making peace as in making war!

I am encouraged by the opportunities presented by the regional conference called by the Iraqi leadership for March 10. The Bush administration is doing its best to minimize expectations for the conference and to make it clear that it is not changing its position on Iran, but it is a start. It is something new. It is hopeful … to get representatives from Iraq and the United States and Great Britain and Iran and Syria in the same room at the same time and talking with each other!

Let’s pray. Let’s pray for the unexpected, for steps — even the smallest of steps — toward defusing the war of threat and suspicion and pride between the leaders of our nation and of Iran before it becomes a war of bombs and death, and before the world becomes all the more terrifying a place for all of us.

love and war

love and war

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We were visited by a major winter storm in Iowa this weekend, and our Saturday and Sunday plans (which were many!) were cancelled. We enjoyed some good down time, a fire in the fireplace, and we watched two movies, two among the list of movies we have been wanting to preview. The two movies could not have been more different!

The one was about beauty: the beauty of love, of loyalty, of humility, of service, of human creativity, of the smallest details of the natural world. The other was about ugliness: the ugliness of war, the ugliness it does to people, the ugliness it makes people do. The one was lyrical in its storytelling; the other disturbing.

The Scent of Green Papaya cover imageThe first movie we watched was The Scent of Green Papaya. It was made in 1993 in France and is set in mid-twentieth-century Viet Nam. The film won the Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

It tells the story of Miu, a girl perhaps ten years old when we first meet her. She comes to Saigon to live as a household servant with a family of six: a father and mother, three sons, and the father’s mother. Through Miu’s eyes we see the pain and grief and anger and longing of the members of the family, but we also see the beauties of the world they inhabit, beauties celebrated and appreciated in intimate detail: thin strips of fruit shaved from a papaya, an ant carrying off a kernel of rice, the milk dripping from the stem from which the papaya was cut, the crickets Miu keeps as her “pets,” fried meats and vegetables tenderly arranged on a bed of rice, frogs hopping through a rain-soaked garden. The photography — colors, textures, perspectives — is exquisite.

The last part of the film is set ten years later when Miu moves to a new household, to serve there a young musician from a wealthy family, a friend of the oldest son of the family she had been serving. Slowly, quietly, tenderly, there unfolds a new story, the story of one who comes to recognize the beauties in her …

The Ground Truth cover imageThe second film we saw was The Ground Truth. It is a documentary made in 2006, chronicling the psychological wounds of returning veterans of the war in Iraq. It provides them a stage to tell of the horrors they have witnessed and the horrors they have done and the horrors of what the war has done to them, in their own words. It is disturbing to see the war through their eyes, to understand what it takes to make a man or a woman into an effective soldier, an effective killing machine, and to feel their shame and their loss and their struggle to live anything like a normal life on their return home.

no war with iran!

no war with iran!

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From a statement signed by more than one hundred Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders urging a diplomatic, rather than a military, strategy to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

As Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, we are deeply concerned about the nuclear weapons danger in Iran, in the Middle East, and around the world. The teachings of the Abrahamic tradition command us to keep human life sacred and to act as stewards of creation. We consider all weapons of mass destruction – whether nuclear, biological or chemical – immoral and unacceptable for use in any circumstances. In pursuit of that principle, we strongly support international diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Our nation and the international community must pursue this goal without using military force for at least two reasons:

  • First, short of full scale war and complete occupation of Iran, military actions will not remove Iran’s potential nuclear threat ; indeed, it would likely intensify Iran’s goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.
  • Second, another American-led war or military attacks in the Middle East would likely prove disastrous. To initiate another war in an area of the world already engulfed in turmoil and human tragedy would intensify political extremism throughout the Middle East and beyond. It would add fuel to the fires of violence already consuming the region. It would exacerbate anti-American hatred and produce new recruits for terror attacks against the United States and Israel. Significant military opinion says it would not work. Responsible theological evaluation suggests it would not be morally or strategically justified.

Go to the Words Not War website to read the full statement and to add your signature.

“warring for control of the american soul”

“warring for control of the american soul”

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., quoted from an interview with Mark Jacobson:

There is an ancient struggle between two separate philosophies, warring for control of the American soul. The first was set forth by John Winthrop in 1630, when he made the most important speech in American history, ‘A Model of Christian Charity,’ on the deck of the sloop Arbella, as the Puritans approached the New World. He said this land is being given to us by God not to satisfy carnal opportunities, or expand self-interest, but rather to create a shining city on a hill. This is the American ideal, working together, maintaining a spiritual mission, and creating communities for the future.

The competing vision of America comes from the conquistador side of the national character and took hold with the gold rush of 1849. That’s when people began to regard the land as the source of private wealth, a place where you can get rich quick—the sort of game where whomever dies with the biggest pile wins.

What is the American Dream? We will hear the American Dream extolled and re-promised many times over during this presidential campaign season. So what is it?

  • Is the American Dream an equal opportunity for every one of us for unlimited personal advancement?
  • Or is the American Dream a unique opportunity for all of us to make something together for the benefit of the rest of humanity?

And will the candidates, any candidate, be able to discern — and articulate — the difference?

a new look

a new look

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You may have noticed. My blog has a new look!

Actually the blog has several new looks, and you may choose which look you like the best. Find the heading “Themes” in the sidebar and click on any one of the theme names — “Falling Leaves” or “Island After Sunset” or Misty Look” to change the appearance of the blog. My current favorite is “Island After Sunset.”

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

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Ehren Watada is a lieutentant in the United States Army. He refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit, claiming that the war in Iraq is illegal. He is currently being tried by a military court on charges of abandoning his unit and of conduct unbecoming an officer.

Is he a good man, a brave man, a conscientious citizen for refusing to “go along” with an action that he considers illegal and immoral, even when such a refusal subjects him to censure and dismissal from his job?

Or is he a disgrace, an opportunist, a dangerous threat to the chain of command necessary to permit the effective functioning of “the guardians of American freedoms?”

Read these two divergent assessments of the man and his actions … and let me know what you think!

Watada took talk too far … an opinion piece by Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times

What Watada did is military disobedience. And no matter how opposed you may be to this war, you’ve got to stop and think: Do we really want officers who run the most powerful fighting machine in the history of the world deciding what rules to follow as they go along? Even if this time you might agree with this particular officer?

Conduct Unbecoming … a blog post by Jayne Lyn Stahl

While making public disparaging remarks about a war in progress is deemed to be an actionable offense, Watada argues that “under military law those in the military are allowed to refuse, in fact, have a right to refuse unlawful orders.” It is his belief that the U.S. is in Iraq under false pretexts, and illegally; he thinks it is his duty to refuse those orders.