“For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

“Remember James Watt, President Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

“In public testimony he said, ‘after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.”

– Bill Moyers, after winning the fourth annual Global Environment Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

Funny that the first thing I think of when reading this text is the Lorax from Dr. Seuss, one of the best books ever written about environmental degradation and oppression… “Perhaps, if you plant this seed, and protect it from axes that hack, the Lorax and all his friends will come back…”

And here are people that believe that Christ requires the kind of strife that is happening in Iraq and in Jerusalem for the final day when he will come back and claim the chosen. Can we take the gospel of John so literally that we design our environmental policy and our social policy in our nation based on a belief that all civilization must come to ruin before Christ will come again? Is that what Christ came to preach?

The Christ that I believe walked the earth, as God’s arm down to the oppressed and the weary, the downtrodden and the sinners, sat with lepers and with tax collectors, came to say that even those who have nothing, who are destroyed and broken… even they have God…

And Martin Luther suffered in his time for saying that we needn’t pay for God, for redemption, for grace. God is with us, Emmanuel. This is the Christmas season, and yet we cling to destruction, we cling to the passion, and not the birth. We cling to the resurrection and not the human God among us.

What should we see in this new year? Should we eat McDonalds every day, and buy more stuff, and build houses and buy cars, and teach our children to love violence and hate our enemies… is this the preparation for the kingdom?

I am a Christian, and I use the bible as my guide, in my beliefs in social justice and in my personal values. But I do not believe in the bible as the incarnate word of God on paper. I do not believe in the literal ‘truth’ of these words. I believe in God, and I believe in the teachings of the words that are written there on the pages of my bible. I believe in Christ as Emmanuel, God with us, and I believe in the teachings of Emmanuel, the parables, the stories, the life he led among us.

There is a gospel song that I love the sound of, but I would never sing: “Are you afraid to Die.” This song’s words are: “Are you afraid, are you unsaved, are you afraid to die…” This is not my theology. I don’t believe in a theology of fear. I believe in a God of hope, of grace, and of compassion. When I see hatred in the world, I think of Lazarus, and of Jesus sitting by his tomb and weeping.

I don’ t believe that God wants us to destroy our environment, and support the aggressions in Jerusalem and in Iraq. Climate change is not a sign of the Second Coming.

In a brilliant passage in his book, Lars Clausen, my new favorite author, in his book, One Wheel, Many Spokes, http://www.onewheel.org, writes about a religious service he took part in at the Grand Canyon, where the preacher talked about how God was a lighthouse. Lars writes about how crazy it is, so far away from any water, from any shore where a lighthouse would be needed, to compare Christ to a lighthouse, when Christ was in every rock, in every river, every dry bush in that huge and wondrous canyon.

So many people are blinded by their own false reality. The television tells them the way to believe. They home-school their kids, they buy special books that tell a different history, and special textbooks that shield their kids from geology and biology because of the word ‘evolution.’

Let’s open up our eyes today to the great presence of God around us, in the trees, or in the fields, or in the people we meet.

Winter has come, long and slow to Long Island finally. This week we had a strange peak of 65 degrees for two days, rainy and hot… It made the recovery from a nasty stomach flu just a little more difficult!

I hope you are all well — this is that hard time of the year between holidays, before the days get longer, when the earth seems to be moving just a little too slowly, and toes and noses freeze at night under the covers.

I will be very grateful this week to sit in a warm, heated room with a cup of hot chocolate and a hot plate of food after only having chicken soup for a week!

But it has given me a lot of time to reflect on the way things are in the world right now — the floods and the mudslide — the people in the Sudan who so hope for peace, and for the peace process in the middle east — the elections so forced and dangerous.

I have a lot to be grateful for this 2005, a wonderful family, and so many friends around the country, and support from so many with all of my projects. And I must be grateful for all of the wonderful music of 2004, with Jeshua on his new CD http://www.jeshuaerickson.com, and with Micah on Live in Vermont and with Stolen Shack http://www.onesoulrecords.com — and my work on this new project, which might involve my old friend Wissam Murad in Palestine, and already involves the incredible percussion work of Jamey Haddad — who recorded with me out of total kindness…

I have a wonderful girlfriend as well, Kathi, who has lots of our pictures posted at her blog, katharinaschuhmann.b logspot.com — and we have had lots of time to spend with one another this year — she has been getting her master’s at Stony Brook where I am getting my doctorate…

It is a beautiful world, with so many wonderful things happening for all of us, and so much beautiful music, art, writing — and I am blessed.

Have a wonderful day.

Take Care

I just got off the telephone with an incredible man, Lars Clausen. Lars is the holder of two Guinness World Records for distance unicycling, and wrote a book about the people he met on his 9,000 mile trip across the country on his one wheel.

This book has changed my life. You MUST go visit his website right now — http://www.onewheel.org — his story is your story and my story, and all of our stories. He tells the story of a country divided on political and racial and religious lines, and of a country united after 9-11, all in the casing of an adventure on his unicycle. He is truly an inspiration.

The quote he encloses from Mark Twain to sum up his entire book, all of our lives, and the way he sees the world is this:

“Twenty years from now you will be
more disappointed by the things
you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I wrote to him my life’s story after I finished the book because I felt so closely connected with him after finishing the book — and you will too.

His trip was also not only for himself, but for a very important endowment supporting Native Americans in Alaska. Please visit his site at http://www.onewheel.org

Here is an incredible portion of his book where he talks about the present political divide in this country:
“Having protested the War in Afghanistan, I appreciate Twain’s 1905 essay on war: ‘The half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightaway got such a a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.’ In the first months after 9-11, it felt almost traitorous to critique our government.
The hospitality we are experiencing on our unicycle journey is a complete contrast to the fear, violence and hostility that dominate public discussion. Our family is living into this hospitality state by state, person by person, and the cumulative effect is powerful. I am convinced that this hospitality can make a difference in our world. I find myself wishing our roads could be filled with cyclists, out gaining this view of life’s compassionate side.”

Clausen is a visionary come unicycling into our lives with his knee and elbow pads.

New York Times, January 15, 2005, Front Page.
“Jerusalem, Jan. 14. — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Friday that all government officials cut ties with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gaza Strip be sealed until Palestinian leaders moved to curb terrorism.”

Yet again, the promise of ‘peace’ lasts a day.

I went to Jerusalem on September 11, 2000, full of the hope of a young boy, wanting to change my world. Wanting to achieve that ‘peace’ that people sing about, that I sang in “Where have all the flowers gone” — ‘when will they ever learn…’ — I truly believed that all people had to do was learn, and that peace would happen.

And then my childhood was broken apart just as easily as a few words are spoken, as easily as a few bodies were shot and torn.

Still, 5 years later, they are still at the same point. Do we truly believe that all is possible because of the death of Yasser Arafat? Was everything his fault in this whole conflict?

In the year 2000, when Arafat and Barak were meeting at Camp David with Bill Clinton and Aaron Miller, they had agreed on everything — everything was simple — the Israelis pull out from the land that they have illegally claimed in the last 40 years, and the Palestinians stop acting out in violence. There had been no ‘terrorist’ attacks in 3 years. Are we better off now? What happened between then and now.

Yet here we stand again in the ‘peace’ process, three steps backwards, and three steps forwards…

Will there be peace? Can there be peace? What does it mean to have peace in Palestine, in Israel, in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in Tel Aviv?

For the Israelis, its a big big wall — its a cage around Gaza — keep the animals in, and they won’t hurt us. For the Palestinians, it is freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of resources.

Sharon suspends Palestinian ties. What do we think when we read this in the paper. This has happened before — Sharon does this all the time — it’s a trick — make everybody around the world think that you want ‘peace’ — and then pull out at the last second, pointing your finger at the other guy, saying everything’s their fault.

God be with the children in Gaza tonight, angry and poor. God be with the children in Israel tonight, scared and secure.

I know many Israeli children, and they are all good. I know many Palestinan children. They are all good. Children need not pick up stones and M-16s to fight their parents’ useless war. Children need not pour this concrete to build up their parents’ wall.

The wall gets higher every day. More cement poured, more barbed wire layed down with razors on the top.

And somehow, it all seems so silly. I read a story about the death of a man who was climbing over the wall and shot by Israeli soldiers as he scrambled down the other side. What was he doing? Going to work? He certainly was no spy — he was ‘armed’ with a table knife… And yet the newspaper article portrayed him as a terrorist…

I think there are no terrorists, there are no soldiers. There are children, there are adults, and there are human beings. Each one lost is another tear from the eye of God.

Take Care.