Archive for December 2008
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Lately I've been kind of obsessed with John Denver. Now, before you go thinking that John Denver sucks, allow me to say, I know. Believe me...growing up in the 70s, John Denver on the radio was like community-sanctioned child abuse.
(That's one of the interesting things about music: even the greatest songs, played too much, can, at best, lose appeal, and, at worse, drive you nuts.)
But a few weeks ago PBS showed a special about John Denver. (This was during their pledge week, when they pull out all the old music to tug on the heart- and purse-strings of their Boomer donor demographic.) Suddenly childhood memories were washing over me in his melodies--from the early 70s when I was 3 or 4, through to the end of the decade.
And I had to appreciate again that John Denver kind of kicks ass. There is definitely a reason he was so insanely popular.
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"If we are to have peace on earth…we must develop a world perspective."
--Martin Luther King Jr., December 24, 1967
"Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!"
--Commander Frank Borman, Apollo 8, December 24, 1968
Forty years ago, on Christmas Eve 1968, an astronaut orbiting the moon took a photograph that changed the world. As we near the end of the 40th anniversary of one of the most heart-breaking years in our history, it is worth remembering that the year of trauma ended in triumph.
As '68 dawned, the Tet offensive dispelled illusions of easy victory in Vietnam. Later that spring, in the early evening of April 4, one of the world's most visible and visionary activists for justice was shot down in Memphis, triggering waves of outrage and sadness, as more than 100 cities burst into flames of despair and rebellion. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Throughout '68, student protests and general uprisings broke out in Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere. In Mexico City, the Summer Olympics set the stage for the raised-fist defiance of John Carlos and Tommie Smith. In August, police and demonstrators clashed violently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
This was the troubled world that the crew of Apollo 8 left behind in December, as they became the first humans to journey around the moon. Just as it seemed the world was falling apart, the astronauts on Apollo 8 took a photograph that would bring us all together, and forever change our image of the planet and ourselves.
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"This is widely recognized as a transformative moment in the history of the USA and, perhaps, the world. The neo-liberal model - which views greed as good and wealth as a reward for virtue; which believes that markets possess infinite wisdom and regulation and unions can only detract, and which discredits every objection to rising inequality and upward redistribution of income as an unwarranted assault on the class that creates prosperity - has, for all intents and purposes, imploded. It clearly is no longer viable. How else to explain Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's nationalization in all but name of the insurance giant AIG? The admission by former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan that he was wrong to believe financial markets would self-regulate?"
--Eileen Appelbaum, TruthOut, Dec. 14, 2008
Like many of you, I wept a tear or two the night Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The tears that flowed for so many across the country gave testimony that the last 8 years have been trying. But more than that, the tears of joy and relief--springing from the depths of our national soul--testified to four centuries on the fault lines of freedom and slavery. A history filled with trauma, though not without triumphs.
November 4, 2008, was one of those triumphs.
I felt giddy when my dad called early in the evening and said, "It's over. Obama won Ohio." Though the networks wouldn't call it for another hour, I went to the fridge and popped a bottle of champagne. Channel-surfing the live TV coverage with my son, we were watching Jon Stewart's show when he told Stephen Colbert and a delirious crowd the official news: Obama would be the 44th president. Involuntarily, my chin buckled a bit, my chest quaked, and I did something like a half-sob. On TV, the usually ever-ironic Colbert was wiping his eyes.
The tears around the world were not only mirrors of the past, but also libations for the future, dedicated to the proposition that we can heal and transcend the brutal shadows of history, see the full picture of the present, and manifest a transformative tomorrow.
The election of President Obama represents a stunning moment in the history of systemic racism in this nation--a profound moment in the spiritual journey of the country, and an amazing moment in the history of the world.
But as Obama said on election night, " This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. " Looking at the past, we see that history is made by mass movements, more so than by a single person--even a prophet or a president. To reverse catastrophic climate change and runaway global warming, we need a movement. To dismantle institutional oppression, we need a movement. To save the Earth's biosphere--the sacred, fragile and disappearing web of living species--we need a movement. To end poverty, and the unnecessary, unconscionable suffering it causes, we need a movement. To transform our country from an empire into an ally, we need a movement.
We desperately need to start a new story.
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Changing the structure and rules of the global economy will require a mass movement based on messages of compassion, justice, and equality, as well as collaborative and democratic processes…If we stay positive, inclusive, and democratic, we have a truly historic opportunity to build a global movement for social justice.
--Medea Benjamin
The future will have no pity for those who, possessing the exceptional privilege to speak words of truth to the oppressor, instead take refuge in cynical indifference and cold complicity.
--Frantz Fanon
The history of tomorrow is the struggle, which has already begun, between conquerors and artists...Political action and artistic creation are the two faces of the same revolt against the world's disorder, the same desire to give the world unity.
--Albert Camus (1947)
For me the process of art and the idea of political freedom have always been inextricably mixed, not always theoretically, but since I can remember, in feeling....Within the human psyche…poetry is a secret way through which we can restore authenticity to ourselves.
This is perhaps why poetry has been so important to feminism and the feminist movement. Language itself had made us invisible to ourselves. The very vocabulary we inherited locked us into a diminished state of being.
--Susan Griffin, " Poetry as a Way of Knowledge"
When art is made new, we are made new with it. We have a sense of solidarity with our own time, and of psychic energies shared and redoubled, which is just about the most satisfying thing that life has to offer.
--John Russell
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Has anyone else noticed that "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" sends a terrible message to kids? Basically Rudolph gets used like a tool and we're supposed to be happy about it. At first Rudolph is shunned by the other reindeer because of his appearance, ostracized from their clique-ish "reindeer games." (And where is Santa during this bullying?)
Then, for no reason other than meteorological happenstance, the tide turns dramatically "one foggy Christmas Eve," when suddenly Rudolph can be useful to Santa and Blitzen and the rest of the 'foggy-weather friends.' It would be perfectly reasonable for Rudolph to tell them to kiss his red ass...but I commend him for taking the high road of reconciliation.
Christmas Song Grade: B- Engaging story; catchy tune; terrible lesson.
On the other hand, I love "The Little Drummer Boy."
First of all, you can't beat the hook: the killer snare drum line echoed vocally with the "pa rum pum pum pums. " Second, the story is awesome, if legendary. (I hear the Little Drummer Boy cried when the Jesus Seminar voted that his existence was unsupported by scholarly evidence :)
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Thomas Berry at the Temple of Minerva, Assisi, Italy, 1991 (Photo: Drew Dellinger)
The Center for Ecozoic Studies has published a special issue of their journal, "The Ecozoic," focused on Thomas Berry, the influential environmental writer and thinker. Over 150 of Berry's friends, students, and appreciators contributed reflections on Thomas and his work, including noted activist Joanna Macy and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai.
I was grateful to be able to contribute the following piece, "Travels with Thomas Berry," in honor of Father Thomas and his immensely significant work and profound cosmological vision.
--Drew
Travels with Thomas Berry
By Drew Dellinger
Thomas Berry can shift your worldview with a single sentence.
For example, imagine that one minute you are just a simple person, thinking simple thoughts, and then the next minute you hear Tom Berry say: "The universe--throughout its vast extent in space, and its long sequence of transformations in time--is a single, multiform, celebratory event." And furthermore, Berry says, you, as a human, "are that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself."
(Say what? The universe is a celebration . . . and I am the universe thinking about itself?)
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.jpg "Drew at the Whidbey Institute, delivering the Thomas Berry Legacy lecture, October 2008")
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