someday we'll live our lives out loud

"Someday"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYh3olR9xKA


You can go
You can start all over again
You can try to find a way to make another day go by
You can hide
Hold all your feelings inside
You can try to carry on when all you want to do is cry

[Chorus:]
And maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to make things better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

Now wait
And try to find another mistake
If you throw it all away then maybe you can change your mind
You can run, oh
And when everything is over and done
You can shine a little light on everything around you
Man it's good to be someone

[Chorus]

And I don't want to wait
I just want to know
I just want to hear you tell me so
Give it to me straight
Tell it to me slow

Cause maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

[x2]
Cause sometimes we don't really notice
Just how good it can get
So maybe we should start all over
Start all over again 

Remember the Immigrant

We serve a God who directs us to care especially for those most vulnerable in society. Our Scriptures tell us of God's special concern for the "alien" or the "stranger," or as more contemporary translations say--the immigrant.

For the Lord our God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the immigrant, giving the immigrant food and clothing. And we are to love those who are immigrants, for God's people were immigrants in Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

We ask God to open our eyes to the struggles of immigrant workers, for we know that:

We must not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether the worker is a resident or immigrant living in our town. We must pay the worker the wages promptly because the worker is poor and counting on it. (Deuteronomy 24:14)

God's desire is that those who build houses may live in them,

And that those who plant may eat. (Isaiah 65:22)

And yet we know this is not possible for many in our midst.

We know of:
farmworkers who cannot feed their families,
construction workers who have no homes,
nursing home workers who have no health care,
restaurant workers who could not afford a meal in the restaurant.


We know that too many immigrant workers among us are not receiving the fruits of their labor, nor the justice required by the courts.

God charges our judges to hear disputes and judge fairly, whether the case involves citizens or immigrants. (Deut. 1:16)

But our laws do not adequately protect immigrants. Our legal and social service programs exclude many immigrants. Our education programs undervalue immigrant children.

God tells us that the community is to have the same rules for citizens and for immigrants living among us. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. Citizens and immigrants shall be the same before the Lord. (Numbers 15:15)

When an immigrant lives in our land,

We will not mistreat him or her. We will treat an immigrant as one of our native born. We will love an immigrant as ourselves, for God's people were once immigrants in Egypt. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

And a special word to those who employ immigrant farmworkers:

Make sure immigrants get a day of rest. (Exodus 23:12)

To those who craft our immigration laws and policies, we lift up God's command:

Do not deprive the immigrant or the orphan of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that God's people were slaves in Egypt and the Lord our God redeemed them from there. (Deut. 24:17-18)

To all of us who seek to do God's will, help us to:

Love one another as God has loved us. Help us to treat immigrants with justice and compassion that God shows to each of us.


--------------------------
This was one of the prayers that were shared last night at the rally in opposition to the new immigration law in Arizona. It was distributed in pamphlets by Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org).

More info about the rally:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/may/29/rally-in-opposition-to-immigration-law/

Eastern and Western attitudes toward nature

A seventeenth-century Japanese haiku by Basho:

When I look carefully

I see the nazuna blooming

By the hedge!

A nineteenth-century poem by Alfred Tennyson:

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower--but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

The Buddhist philosopher Suzuki (1960) observes that the Japanese poet does not pluck the nazuna but is content to admire it from a respectful distance; his feelings are "too full, too deep, and he has no desire to conceptualize it" (3). Tennyson, in contrast, is active and analytical. He rips the plant by its roots, destroying it in the very act of admiring it. "He does not apparently care for its destiny. His curiosity must be satisfied. As some medical scientists do, he would vivisect the flower" (3).

Tennyson's violent imagery is reminiscent of Francis Bacon's description of the natural scientist as one who must "torture nature's secrets from her" and make her a "slave" to mankind (Merchant 1980: 169). Principles of monism, holism, and balanced complementarity in nature, which can temper perceptions of opposition and conflict, have largely given way to the analytic urge in the recent history of Western culture.

(from "A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical Anthropology: Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent" by Margaret Lock and Nancy Scheper-Hughes, 1990)

Being one with life

I feel pressure within myself to become what I am not yet. I have a constant feeling of failure as I don't seem to achieve the status of who I should be. I feel guilt for not being all that I could be. I fear wasted potential in the use of my time and in the amount of energy invested. I dream of how much I could accomplish if, only if, I would do more and be more.

But the truth is that right now I am who I am, and that's all that I can be now. There's nothing wrong with that. Accepting such truth seems to be the first step to being one with life.

I don't need to be anyone else--I couldn't be anyone else! If I see the need of changing my deeds and beliefs then I should do so without fear of lagging behind. Who sets the standard anyway?

Today, I'll be one with myself; I'll be one with life.

(yep, that's a dialog with myself but you're welcome to comment on it ;)

On Science and Spirituality

"Science, conceived as evidence and radical questioning, may advance understanding by enabling realistic appraisals of life and its circumstances--for example, by showing that lightening is a giant electrical spark passing from positive to negative cloud particles rather than an expression of anger from the gods in heaven (and hence lightening conductors save lives, while prayer wastes time, preventing escape)--without claiming omnipotence or total knowledge. Some degree of empirical accuracy may be only the beginning of understanding, as existential philosophy argues." (Peet and Hartwick, 2009)

I ask: why understanding? What's the worth of knowing the chemical reactions that happen all around  me if deep inside I feel empty and meaningless?

Science can make life more “efficient” and “better”, true. But efficient and better doesn't necessarily mean lasting “satisfaction” or “contentment”. (For example, I know people that have many luxuries but are always unhappy 'cause they see no purpose in life.)

If, as Geertz said, “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,” then I rather spin webs of meaning that bring joy and fulfillment to my life. If worshiping the sun and starts brings peace and joy into my heart, then I'll do so (even if science disqualifies my beliefs).

Rather than seeking scientific advancement, let's advance spiritually—in love, tolerance and honesty.

“What, in human life is truly richness and progress?"
(O'Conner and Arnoux, 1993: 12-13)

To clarify: I do like knowing how the natural world (including our physical body) works. Chemistry and biology are fascinating! However, I have a problem with human existence dependent on science and technology. We are a society fascinated with shinny tinny tech-stuff! But we are a society that has lost its soul, its imagination, its sense of community, its purpose.. because those are things that you cannot find thru science!