My head is full of politics today, and not in a good way. I listened to Rick Santorum blasting Obama for being a "snob" for saying that 'every child should be able to go to University'. What unadulterated crap! Such wilful misunderstanding as part of the political process demeans the whole enterprise.
And it isn't any better north of the USA/Canada border. Our current government is trying to avoid dealing with the accusation that its minions used "robophone calls" to misdirect senior voters on our last election day, so they wouldn't be able to get to their appropriate polling station! Of course, PM Harper has self righteously crowed that unless the opposition can show him proof that his people were actually involved, these are "just allegations." Shades of Gordon Liddy and the Watergate! The possibility that our government got itself elected by means of such underhanded means makes me wonder why we even think we live in a democratic country. This sounds like Syria!
So I'm depressed. I guess I'm naive enough to think that the political process should involve honour and dignity and concern for the people who elected you. Instead, the whole thing seems to be about raw power, gotten which ever way you can; legal, illegal, above board or underhanded. How can we ever encourage young people to get involved in government without also transmitting to them the notion that the reason for being in government is to make money at the expense of any good for the populace?
Looking at this stuff is such a bummer after the exalted reading I have been doing about the spirituality and theological meaning of quantum physics. Such an elegant and transparent way of understand God and the ways in which God (whatever you call God) unfolds reality. Reading O'Murchu's take on this material, I see the absolute wisdom of the stance of Progressive Christians: do not tolerate statements or concepts of God and the religious quest that are made against a backdrop of 17th century cosmology, rather than against the backdrop of the most current understanding of the nature of reality. The evolutionary process is God working; the evolutionary process is God, the Ultimate, the Ground of Being, as Tillich said, so many decades ago. My internal response to this approach is one of profound awe. I am a part of the universe, made (as someone wrote) "of stardust." Being grasped by these concepts is not the same as being able to explain or outline them for another. It's quite likely that, if any one reads these wrds, they'll think I've lost my mind, or strayed a bit ovr the edge of whatever reality I live in.
Nonetheless, it is heady stuff, and provides a way to hold the Christian understanding of life in a context of integrity with today, rather than having to bend one's mind around the 17th and 18th century world that lies behind so many of the intellectual statements of 'the faith of our fathers and mothers.' A good place to stop, since I cannot think of how to elucidate this for others yet. Another day…
And it isn't any better north of the USA/Canada border. Our current government is trying to avoid dealing with the accusation that its minions used "robophone calls" to misdirect senior voters on our last election day, so they wouldn't be able to get to their appropriate polling station! Of course, PM Harper has self righteously crowed that unless the opposition can show him proof that his people were actually involved, these are "just allegations." Shades of Gordon Liddy and the Watergate! The possibility that our government got itself elected by means of such underhanded means makes me wonder why we even think we live in a democratic country. This sounds like Syria!
So I'm depressed. I guess I'm naive enough to think that the political process should involve honour and dignity and concern for the people who elected you. Instead, the whole thing seems to be about raw power, gotten which ever way you can; legal, illegal, above board or underhanded. How can we ever encourage young people to get involved in government without also transmitting to them the notion that the reason for being in government is to make money at the expense of any good for the populace?
Looking at this stuff is such a bummer after the exalted reading I have been doing about the spirituality and theological meaning of quantum physics. Such an elegant and transparent way of understand God and the ways in which God (whatever you call God) unfolds reality. Reading O'Murchu's take on this material, I see the absolute wisdom of the stance of Progressive Christians: do not tolerate statements or concepts of God and the religious quest that are made against a backdrop of 17th century cosmology, rather than against the backdrop of the most current understanding of the nature of reality. The evolutionary process is God working; the evolutionary process is God, the Ultimate, the Ground of Being, as Tillich said, so many decades ago. My internal response to this approach is one of profound awe. I am a part of the universe, made (as someone wrote) "of stardust." Being grasped by these concepts is not the same as being able to explain or outline them for another. It's quite likely that, if any one reads these wrds, they'll think I've lost my mind, or strayed a bit ovr the edge of whatever reality I live in.
Nonetheless, it is heady stuff, and provides a way to hold the Christian understanding of life in a context of integrity with today, rather than having to bend one's mind around the 17th and 18th century world that lies behind so many of the intellectual statements of 'the faith of our fathers and mothers.' A good place to stop, since I cannot think of how to elucidate this for others yet. Another day…
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