I have put many mp3s of my own music on the sidebar for public perusal — so please, feel free to click and listen as you check out my site! There are clips from the upcoming release Troublin’ Mind from One Soul Records, as well as full length tracks from Light into the World, my new Eucharist service, and plenty more besides…

And I have found some extremely insightful blogs in cyberspace that are worthy of linking, and have added them to my “Friends” and “Blogs I Like to Read” sections of my sidebar. I’ll just say a few words about a few of them here.

1. jeshua erickson is an amazing singer/songwriter and activist
2. joel erickson is his father, an incredible lutheran preacher
3. cynthia gustavson is my mother, a poet and social worker
4. katharina schuhmann is my girlfriend of three years, with lots of pictures of us on her blog:)
5. lars clausen is the creator of www.onewheel.org, and an incredible fellow
6. sollicitudo rei socialis is a catholic blog dedicated to poverty and social concern
7. religiousliberal is exactly what it purports to be — a brilliant site of religious liberalism
8. beppeblog is a blog about religion and politics — with a Quaker spin
9. bethquick is a blog about social justice and religion — great insight from another minister
10. chuck currie is a brilliant writer about spiritual and social issues — a site I visit every day
11. connexions is written by a methodist pastor in wales — politics and religion. great site
12. evangelical expatriate is written by a woman who worked with jeshua as an intern at sojourners magazine. incredible insights here

That’s enough for today — check out all of these insightful Christians’ blogs!

There was a wonderful article hiding in the New York Times ‘Beliefs’ section on February 12th by Peter Steinfels about Lincoln’s Second Term Inaugural Address. He includes a quote from Mark Noll’s book, “America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln,” (Oxford University Press, 2002):

Almost alone among his contemporaries, Lincoln did not presumptuously assume that the moral high ground belonged to only his side. By questioning the righteousness of the North and by failing to denounce the South in absolute terms, he joined a very small minority in the spring and summer of 1865. If Lincoln’s magnanimity and his moral evenhandedness were generally religious, his view of providence was distinctly theological. More than any other feature of this address, Lincoln’s conception of God’s rule over the world set him apart from the recognized theologians of his day.

And, in my opinion, Lincoln’s understanding of the world, even today, sets him far ahead of the leaders, religious and political, of this country. Neither north nor south were alone the ‘chosen.’ Both sides were dealing with horrible loss, and terrible pain. And now, in Iraq, in Cuba, in Afghanistan, on September 11th here, all sides are suffering in some way. As many as 100,000 Iraqis have died, among them thousands and thousands of civilians. As I pointed out in the blog I wrote about St. Valentine and torture, neither side is justified in committing acts of torture, not both sides.

War is wrong. War is terrible. War should be avoided at all costs, and if it is undertaken, it needs to be stopped. From Lincoln’s Second Term Inaugural Address:

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away…”

Who would have thought that the government really has more control over PBS than it does over Fox network’s The Simpsons?

I am amused to no end by the controversy that stemmed from Postcards from Buster’s visit to Vermont to tap maple trees with folks up there. I once checked out the show, and was really pleased and amused that the show was so wholesome and so clever. If I was a kid, I would definitely have tuned in, just like I did to Mr. Rogers until I was about 15 (I always have liked wholesome programming — Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, you know the type).

And the Simpsons is the reason Fox is on the map, and probably indirectly responsible for the propagandist media coverage. But the Simpsons is the one show on television to be able to spoof the government, and country’s feeling about gay marriage without getting death threats from people in power (or maybe they’re just tough… they can take it).

So all the power to Fox — I never thought I’d say it. We should all boycott public television. Wait! What am a I saying… I take it back…

But seriously — it is really a tragedy that the government has such a hand in saying what PBS is allowed to show — and power to the people that the show aired most places anyway due to great local stations — but a scary thing that ‘censorship’ of something as harmless as two women teaching a kid how to tap a maple tree in Vermont has become such a national norm.

Couldn’t we just suffer through a weekly fundraiser on PBS, and not have to deal with the government at all? I’m sure the government would, likewise, be happy to take another public service off the table and save a few bucks anyway.

David L. Pettite, a retired Master Sargeant in the US Military, from Knoxville, TN, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times on Feb. 15, 2005, the day after Valentine’s Day.

St. Valentine is thought to have been put to death (martyred) for rescuing Christians from Roman prisons, where prisoners were abused and tortured. He sent a letter to his unrequited lover as he went to be killed — and professed his love, and signed the letter ‘From your Valentine’…

Fitting that MSgt. Pettite writes about torture. He comments on the NY Times editorial from February 15th called “Self-Inflicted Wounds.” I haven’t read that article, but he quotes that article…

“[The way the ‘enemy’ is being treated] debases the nation at home and abroad”

Mr. MSgt Pettite writes that he served in the military for 20 years, and also in the Persian Gulf under the first president Bush, and didn’t deal with prisoners. But he writes…

“During survival school we were given a taste of what we would endure if we were caught behind enemy lines… The treatment that we received does not differ from the treatment of the prisoners in our possession. I also feel that we would be treated no differently if we were the enemy combatants and we were in their hands…”

What I think is very interesting is that Mr. MSgt. Pettite has made a brilliant point, and doesn’t realize what he himself has proven. We are just like them, they are just like us. I don’t think that Mr. MSgt. Pettite would like to be a prisoner of war, and I don’t imagine that he would like if he or his charges were tortured by ‘the enemy’. And in his quote, he expresses the futility of war, and of the term ‘enemy,’ and the terrible truth of abuse and torture in this world.

It really isn’t about the color of our skin, the religion we preach, the uniforms we wear. It’s about what we value as human beings.

Torture is wrong, whether it is our guys being tortured, or us torturing them. It doesn’t make sense to argue that we should both torture each other because that’s the way the world works. It just doesn’t make sense.

St. Valentine certainly preached freedom from torture, as did Christ. And the God I know stands with both sides as they are suffering.

Let’s remember St. Valentine today as a liberator, and a martyr against torture. I’ll bet Mr. MSgt. Pettite didn’t know he was celebrating the life of a long-hair anti-torture activist when he bought his wife flowers and chocolates:) God works in mysterious ways.

Jeshua linked to a letter from a man stationed in Iraq to his friends and family in Minnesota. The letter is powerful. Read it here.

Jeshua’s other recent entry is about the Iraq war, and the continued loss of life, the day after day toll of lives lost.

In the New York Times today, there was a single man’s name. I read it, and I forgot it. Every day there are names — sometimes just one, sometimes dozens. And I often forget that these are just kids over there, most of them.

I had a terrible experience, like the young man who describes the horror of seeing friends in pain — my father and I were in a terrible car accident where he very nearly died. And I have been in a warzone, where there is the fear of ‘attack’ at any time.

But I have not been a soldier. I have not taken as my profession a job that is purely to serve, and to endanger one’s life.

I am a pacifist, but I understand that these kids over there are in pain, and that they need our support. I do not support this war, but I am praying tonight for the young man from Minnesota who will never be young again.

At the same time, I pray for the countless Iraqi children who have died in this horrible time. I don’t know what to believe, but I don’t doubt the figures of Iraqi deaths that touch 60 or 100 thousand people. I pray for the broken families.

And today in the newspaper, there was an article that I could only half read, and pictures that I could only half look at. Nicholas Kristof wrote a powerful and disturbing article in today’s op-ed section of the New York Times that talks about the pictures from the Sudan that no reporters ever show, and that no one wants to see.

It is a hard world, with suffering on every side. And at the same time, it is so remarkably beautiful here. The snow is melting, the days are getting longer. Winter will slowly turn into spring, and the flowers will poke their heads through the salt and dirt the plows dumped on the roads all winter.

My good friend Jeshua has now put his whole last album up on the internet as a free download! Jeshua Erickson: House Called Chalet: Free mp3s

This album was recorded in the space of a few hours in the most remote of remote places I know of, Holden Village, where we both lived for a few years of our lives.

His new album is called Swords into Plowshares, and if you visit his website, you will also find that you can stream almost the entire album. Check out his website at jeshuaerickson.com

Jeshua’s are powerful songs about faith, society, love and more. He wrote a recent entry in his blog about the process of recording his album Swords into Plowshares — where he also talks a good bit about me — I played on almost every track with him. Check out Jeshua’s blog.

His newest CD, Swords into Plowshares is available from the Sojourners magazine website at www.sojo.net