An Exploration of Unconditional Love cont....

The man had a predictable built-in reaction to this, which was "Oh shit! Here we go again. Why can't I ever have a relationship work out? Just when I was thinking about us moving in together, she wants to back away. This is how it always goes. I am never quite good enough. I am good, but not good enough." As you see, the condition by this time had become two minds relating to each other as "Its", coming out of the same mouths that used to be used by their beings for love. They are both right about each other when they say "you changed" because, of course, both have changed. In just six weeks, they have changed from beings out of their mind with love into minded beings.


Half of these wonderful beginnings split up. If they are "like-minded" beings, they stay together in boredom the rest of their lives. If they escape their minds' beliefs about each other repeatedly, they have a successful relationship.

I talked to this particular man alone, and then to his lover and him together. I suggested that the way they had been telling the truth to each other in the beginning, and even in the moment of our speaking together, was what a powerful relationship is made of. I recalled to him and to myself how badly some of our previous relationships based on romantic love had worked out. I said, "Soap operas are full of people who are in love and start withholding from each other. The nostalgia for what used to be, combined with resentment and hope for renewal, produces what we call romantic love. Romantic love is highly overrated.  Romantic love is not as strong as a new friendship based on telling the truth. Romantic love is still fun, though not as romantic, without the tragic overtones of soap opera that come from withholding and being secretive.  Romantic love recurs, every now and then, rather than dying after the honeymoon is over, if people have open-to-each-other relationships. Keep working on telling the truth about everything that goes on with each of you and you can work your way through to a powerful relationship." That was my stand, and the place I listened to them from, and though I did my best and so did they, they didn't succeed. Those guys didn't make it. They parted, having learned another increment of information about relationships, but not a sufficient one to allow them to make that one work.

Musical Monday: Larry Norman and Repurposing the Gospel Aura

Paul Harvey

A couple of musical posts to liven up your Monday. First, blog friend David Stowe, author of the very-soon-to-forthcome No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism (which we blogged about a few weeks ago), has a guest post at the UNC Press blog based on a conversation in 2007 with Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman, shortly before he (Norman, that is) passed. The stories, full of musical celebrities, are fun. And he continues:

Were all these stories credible? Who knows. He told me he’d chatted in an airport lounge with a woman in a beautiful jacket who claimed that her husband was Bob Dylan. Andraé Crouch, who happened to be there with Norman, confirmed the woman’s story. Norman confirmed something that my ears had told me: that Dylan’s Grammy-winning single “Gotta Serve Somebody” was closely modeled on Norman’s song “Righteous Rocker,” released several years earlier.

This is a fun read, highly recommended.

As is Douglas Harrison, Repurposing the Gospel Aura, in today's Religion Dispatches, which takes the use of a gospel choir as a backdrop to Eminem's much-commented-upon Chrysler/Detroit commercial as a way of reflecting on how and why this music invites audiences "to imagine themselves as part of a colorblind fellowship of humanity bound together by the soulful sound of a black gospel choir." Harrison reflects on what is gained, and what is lost/missing, in that process. Black gospel is a "universal language of inspiration and transcendence that cuts across race, class, and history," but in the process, "the very real racial tension surrounding the struggle for equality of opportunity in America isn’t so much resolved or reconciled or even recognized. It is simply ignored in these digestible little pageants of musical and psychosocial harmony."

Thinking of this post at Religion Dispatches, it's a good time to congratulate our blog contributor Gerardo Marti, who has just finished his book manuscript, for Oxford, on a very similar theme: Worship Across the Racial Divide: Notions of Race and Religious Practice in Multiracial Churches, coming out with Oxford next year. Gerardo talks about how African American music comes to stand for authenticity in the churches he studies. And he talks about much else besides -- maybe we can entice him to do a little post here in celebration of mailing off the manuscript, telling us about his work a bit more? Let's hear it, ya'll.

Tues, March 1 Symposium on Religion and Politics in DC

Religion in American Politics and Society: A Model for Other Countries?

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Copley Formal Lounge, Georgetown University, Lunch will be served.

Keynote address by Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver

Featured panelists include Imam Feisal Rauf, Rabbi David Saperstein, Jim Wallis, and John Witte

These and other panelists will discuss the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian perspective in three sessions.

Is the dominant American approach to religion, society, and the state worthy of emulation in other countries? The question is not only academic, but it has policy implications both for the American future and for U.S. efforts to promote religious freedom and democracy worldwide. It intersects with global controversies about international norms, national self-determination, proselytism, and the rights of religious communities. On March 1, 2011, Georgetown University will bring together leading scholars and practitioners to discuss these issues. Three panels will examine these questions from the perspective of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, respectively. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver will deliver a lunchtime keynote address. The symposium is sponsored by Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and is made possible through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

For additional information including the day-long agenda, please see the event website.

An Exploration of Unconditional Love cont...

Next, after a few of these arguments, the two parties alternate between feeling insecure and feeling angry. When one gets angry, the other gets scared he or she is about to be abandoned. This alternating process occurs a few times. Then, a discussion like the following one occurs.

The fellow is his age makes no difference, has been divorced more than a few times, and is in a relationship with seeker who is being coached on having relationships based on telling the truth. His last lover had walked out on him; he still "loved" her, of course, since she had rejected him.

"I really love you", he said. "These month's since we met have been just great. I have never told anyone so much, or had such an honest relationship. I thought, in the beginning, there would be all kinds of bells and whistles. But there aren't any bells or whistles or rockets going off. I have dreaded this conversation for a some time now. I think I am more involved with you than you are with me. We have great sex. We laugh together all the time. But your not 'in love' like I have experienced before. And since we have been so honest about everything else I think we have to be honest about this."

An Exploration of Unconditional Love cont....

Intimacy is not the same thing as romance.


Being "in Love" at the beginning of a relationship is wonderful. I think it is the result of us getting in touch with being, through another person. When you fall in love and get in that blissful state, you just love being, your being, and the being of the beloved, and the being of all beings in the world. You are "home" in that rediscovered sense of unity and bliss. As Kris Kristofferson sings:

She wasn't quite as pretty as
some others I have known,
and she wasn't good at
conversation when we were
alone,
but she had a way of makin' me
believe that I belonged.
And it felt like comin' home
when I loved her.

'Cause she brightened up my day
like the early mornin' sun
and she made what I was doin'
seem worth while.
Its the closest thing to livin' that
I guess I've ever known,
and it left me feelin' warm, when I loved her.

Kris Kristofferson, "When I Loved Her" 1968, BMG Music Publ.

It is not the way they look or how good they talk that makes us love who we love. Their ability to be with us is more powerful. It is their ability to make us "believe that we belong" that "leaves us feeling' warm", that renews that old spark that first happened in Mom an eternity ago.

Too bad that once we are warmed, and begin to "believe that we belong", the feeling becomes a belief to be preserved, and guarded, and defended, so the feeling will never go away. This of course, makes the feeling go away.

We end up resenting the person, with whom we used to be in love, for changing. When you start expecting the other person to live up to your expectations based on what you felt before, you are going to get disappointed and pissed off. If both people are in this place at about the same time, a nasty argument ensues. This hurt and anger get formulated into belief instead of gotten over. In a short while, you are trapped in the thought, "How could that bitch/bastard be so wonderful and so shitty to me? How can she/he be so cruel?"

Continues:

An Exploration of Unconditional Love - cont..

A Short Story –


One day many years ago I and a friend visited Mesa Verde for the first time! Upon entry into the park I had a short vision of the whole place going up in smoke. Two weeks after we got back home the park burned – every bit that was burnable when up like tinder.

In the picture below you can see that it was taken from a vantage point across the canyon. This can easily be reached by a short drive. It is in fact an overlook on the western edge in which one can look at all the buildings on the other side.

On this day it was hot I recall 104 degrees and there was not a whisper of air moving anywhere. Nothing…

I felt very close to the ancestors here and I thought I could feel them clustered around us everywhere we went. From a pouch that I carried for sacred acknowledgements and thanks I pulled a pinch of corn meal, said a prayer and then let it trickle out of my fingers. As it left my fingers a breath of wind came up and blew it straight across to the dwellings before it fell into them.

I was indeed shocked as were all the people around us who numbered about 15 or 20 people. I have two particular friends in spirit that walk my same path and in fact at times they allow me to communicate with them. I knew they were there and I knew they peaked my curiosity. I said to them if that was the ancestors I need to see this again because I am human and filled with doubt as is everyone one a path of the Sacred. I heard “do it again”! I did – and from a silent air a wind arose and blew the corn meal across to the dwellings again.

From that point on I have had a special connection with the Anasazi and Mesa Verde and when things get hard for me as they are at this time in my life I get great relief from allowing my SELF to travel to Mesa Verde and talk to our people who are still there and ready to sooth and heal a hurt heart and soul.

From this special connection – no one person can totally take my attention away from the important things in life which are indeed few in number! The Sacred Path is life’s priority and all else falls a distant third to it! While the hurt may be real, it comes from unreal beings that have no consciousness outside themselves and therefore when they set out to hurt another, they in reality only hurt themselves. That is a special teaching if one fully understands the context one can thank the ancestors and Creator for finding a place of solace for you when you need it.



Aho

Two Feathers

Reassessing John Brooke's The Refiner's Fire

Christopher Jones

In 1994, Cambridge University Press published John L. Brooke's The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. As indicated by the subtitle, Brooke's work aimed for a wholly unique and provocative re-interpretation of Mormonism's origins. While it was generally met with praise in the academy and won the Bancroft Prize in 1995, the book was almost universally panned by historians who specialized in Mormon history, and received its harshest (and most polemic) critiques from believing Latter-day Saint scholars (and especially from pseudo-scholarly apologists, some of whom seemed intent on making the most out of the publicity that might come with reviewing an award-winning book).

In the almost two decades since Brooke's work appeared, the sometimes hostile and always intentionally-unique world of Mormon studies has undergone significant changes (though the ever-earnest apologists remain). So have the disciplines of history and religious studies. All of these changes have led a younger generation of Mormon historians to reconsider Brooke's argument and approach. When I recently re-read The Refiner's Fire while preparing for comps, I was surprised at what I'd missed last time through and at how much I liked much of what he was trying to do (and indeed, did). Over at the Juvenile Instructor, Matt Bowman has posted his own brief thoughts on The Refiner's Fire, together with those of Steve Fleming, whose currently in-progress dissertation aims to expand on and revise some of Brooke's central ideas, and Mark Ashurst-McGee, editor of the Joseph Smith Papers project, whose research focuses on Joseph Smith and folk magic and Joseph Smith's social and political thought.

Matt explains by way of introduction his own take on the book and its importance:

It’s my opinion that the further we get from the publication of John Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire, a wildly inventive examination of Mormon origins through the lens of various esoteric European -isms (including occultism, the quest for hidden and often mysterical knowledge; hermeticism, a particular brand of the occult supposedly derived from ancient Egypt and for Brooke basically a restorationist concept that sought to regain Adam’s access to God, and the non -ism alchemy, or the transformation of the mundane into the exalted) the more interesting a book it seems. Its flaws - most revolving around the difficulty of transplanting such quirky early modern concepts as these to frontier America, though Brooke gives it a go with the vehicle of Masonry – have been well documented; its strengths have been less well recognized by LDS historians, who have tended to find the book, frankly, weird. Thus, too many of the doorways Brooke opened have remained unused.

The whole entry is really quite interesting and well worth the read.

Yes, Researchers Do Know Something About Teaching

Art Remillard

On the final day of FSU’s Graduate Symposium, I had the pleasure of joining Kelly Baker, Betsy Barre, Howell Williams, and Joseph Williams to talk about, "Life after Graduate School." A recurring theme was the difference between teaching and research schools. We outlined strategies for interviewing at such schools, and gave insights on what daily life is like as a teacher or researcher. We also emphasized that, despite outward appearances, folks at teaching schools take research seriously, and folks at research schools take teaching seriously. This point--that researchers strive to excel in the classroom--could use some publicity. Many of the best professors I've known are also productive scholars. They have an infectious enthusiasm about their subject, and give as much thought to their course designs as they do to any article or book. They are also creative, always looking for something new to enliven the classroom. Take our own Paul Harvey, for example. UCCS's Teaching and Learning Center featured Paul and his use of blogs in undergraduate courses. He also elaborated on his jazz-inspired teaching philosophy. No "teacher-centered" or "student-centered" approach for the good Professor Harvey.

I focus on a theme-and-improvisation model, that allows for the discipline and intellectual rigor of a theme while also encouraging soloing and improvisation. I find this model best fits the notion of learning as an active and dynamic process, that occurs for different students on varying levels. I have also found it works to make students feel they have a voice and that their participation is valued and drawn upon in course preparation, even while assuring them that discipline and intellectual rigor have not been sacrificed.

Blogging, jazz, intellectual rigor--very nice. How about some one-upmanship from Mike Pasquier, who has been collaborating with LSU’s Coastal Sustainability Studio to have his students conduct oral histories in Bayou Lafourche. Take a minute and listen to this podcast where Mike and his students discuss the project. The description:

Today’s show is an interview with one of the Center’s partners, Dr. Mike Pasquier, a professor here at LSU in the Religious Studies Department. Dr. Pasquier is working with the Center to establish the Bayou Lafourche Oral History Project. He and his students collected oral histories to gain a better understanding of the role of religion in everyday life among Bayou Lafourche residents. He’s also partnering with the Coastal Sustainability Studio here at LSU, and is using this material to garner a better understanding of how south Louisiana culture is being affected by wetland loss. He teaches courses in U.S. religious history, Christianity, and world religions and his research focuses on the history of Roman Catholicism in the American South, Catholic devotional culture, and religion in colonial Louisiana.

In this episode, the director will speak with him about his ongoing project in Bayou Lafourche, how he uses oral history in the college classroom, and how this research will be useful to a larger, interdisciplinary study assessing the impact of land loss on residents of the area. We’ll get to hear some clips from interviews recorded by some of his students with Bayou Lafourche residents. So join us today as we hear about men murmuring the rosary during Hurricane Betsy, about school children being punished for speaking French on state property, and about how the land and waters where people fish, work, and live is disappearing before our eyes.

An Exploration of Unconditional Love Pt. 4

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
-Leo Tolstoy

As you might have noticed I changed the title of this series. In retrospect while the concept of intimacy turning to hate is a very real problem in our society that is not the message I am trying to get across. I am not in a place of hate and I don’t want to give that impression.

I am in a place of wonder however at the gross inept society that we live in.

To return America to a land of real honor you must first ask the indigenous people to forgive your forefathers mistakes and sins.

America is by far the most violent nation in the world today. Why America is so violent is the subject of much discussion and debate but never is anyone speaking to the real reasons or offering any real solutions.

Gun control, they say. We must put more controls. Yes more controls will do it. How about bullet control? Why not cutting everyone's hands off so if they want to shoot - only shooting with their feet. Yes, more controls. Let them keep their hands so they may vote for us. All in favor say Yea! The Yea's have it. More controls it is.

You want to understand why America is so violent, we are saying now; it is a curse from heavens for the violence committed upon the Native people upon their native soil. What goes around comes around.

Why is the Middle East suffering? For the same reasons, the sins of their ancestors who betrayed Prophet Muhammad and his companions and their continued disbelief - no effort to make amends. No remorse or sorrow.

Violence begets violence. It comes in many forms but the most destructive, abhorrent and vile violence is created within the family or the relationship and is mostly subtle and not immediately detectable. It comes in many forms such as a child being disrespectful to their parent or vice versa. Or woman seeking out a man for various reasons the most prevalent is support (gold diggers) but there can be excitement of the person as a reason or power or a host of other reasons and men do the same to women. What is worse is when they decide to get married and they make vows to each other not even having the slightest idea of what they are doing.

Does anyone anymore have any idea the power of a Vow and what happens when you break it? No it seems people only want instant gratification and to hell with the consequences. I once had a friend that I considered my best friend and she was from a people who would have rather died than break a vow. In fact they did die for their vows – century after century. I knew this going into the relationship and I knew how much she respected her ancestors and when a deeper connection came before us I readily agreed to it because I thought she knew the consequences of breaking those vows. But she did not or she thought the Universal Rules of Life didn’t apply to her or something because a few years later she broke those vows. When you break a vow, you effectively put a curse on yourself – most often for life.. You inevitably will suffer for this negative energy that you have surrounded yourself with. It may not be immediately apparent but it will come as sure as father Sun will be covered by the clouds of the cycle of life.

I would venture to say that most of the personal suffering that we do is a result of the breaking of Vows. How do I know such things? I pay attention to the minutest details of life and I listen to my ancestors. For example – the contemplation of the breaking of those vows came over a long period of time – I’m talking at least a year if not more. For a while the energy in our home was great and we were constantly in love with each other but there came a time when the contemplation and planning began, the energy turned very negative in our home to the point that even she was smudging the home to clear the energy on a daily basis. But it was no use because as she contemplated, the energy came back so day after day we suffered through this process. I knew what was up for having experienced this many times in the past. So I became fearful as well which did not help the situation.

Then the day of separation came. I dropped her off where she wanted to go. I went to work and came home. The energy was clear in my home and has stayed clear ever since she left. The first time I felt a need to smudge was 2 months later.

My point is this. First you never make a Vow that you don’t intend to keep. If you break it – you will pay for it in spades. As well as sometimes happens your loved ones will suffer along with you!

You say you are not responsible for what your ancestors have done? You say no, but you perpetuate the crimes and continue to reap the perceived rewards. But still you say you have no responsibility? You willingly inherited the benefits. Look all around you now at the world you have created…

Religion and Labor Protest in Wisconsin

By Heath Carter

For those who have been following the labor situation in Wisconsin, there's an interesting report in today's Guardian entitled, "Finding Faith with Wisconsin's Pro-Worker Protesters." The author, Becky Garrison, cites a number of key religious leaders who have come out in vocal support of public-sector unions and goes on to cite a Reuter's report that the Tea Party contingent in the streets pales in comparison to the pro-labor forces. She concludes, "the visible lack of support for the Freedom Rally held on Saturday, 19 February in support of Walker sent a strong signal that the Tea Party may indeed be all sound and fury. But in the end, they signify nothing."

There is certainly some evidence to support Garrison's view. The Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E Listecki, has issued a statement of opposition to the pending legislation. And so have a broad spectrum of other religious leaders in Madison, including for example the Church Council at First United Methodist, the Senior Minister at First Congregational UCC in Madison, and the Rabbi at Temple Beth El.

The diverse array of religious leaders that have mobilized against Governor Scott Walker's attempt to end public-sector collective bargaining in Wisconsin bespeaks a sea change in the relationship between religion and labor since the era that I spend much of my time in, 1865-1914. My research on this earlier period suggests that, to the extent there has been attitudinal transformation, we can attribute it in part to the agitation of Gilded Age and Progressive Era workers. Their movement was political in the broadest sense - encompassing not only fights for just wages and hours but also campaigns to reform religious authorities and institutions that allied themselves with capital.

All this being said, I think Garrison's Guardian piece far too sunny. She cites but too quickly moves on from Julie Ingersoll's sobering post over at Religion Dispatches. Moreover, in so breezily downplaying the Tea Party's reach Garrison seems to forget that, just three months ago, the state of Wisconsin elected Scott Walker to be its governor.

To have a fuller sense of the relationship between religion and labor in present-day Wisconsin one would need to pay close attention to the rhetoric that everyday people are using on both sides of the debate - who is marshaling religious language and arguments to support their view, and to what effect? (It would be interesting, for example, to study the language on signs that demonstrators on both sides are carrying). In addition, one would need to know more about what happens this weekend, in synagogues and churches around the state: will rabbis, priests, and ministers broach the labor dispute, and if so, what notes will they strike? Most interesting to me - and most difficult to recover - are the conversations that will happen over meals following those religious services: in the restaurants and kitchens where ordinary people will debate the meaning of religion for economic life. It is in those places and amongst those people that lasting change begins.

What the Foucault (Do We Know)?: FSU's Grad Symposium Redux

Kelly J. Baker

As I am still recovering from a whirlwind weekend at Florida State University's Tenth Annual Graduate Symposium, I wanted to note how much I enjoyed my time this weekend and what a boon this conference is to religious studies graduate students. What you all should know from the outset is that I am not a neutral observer. I love this conference, and Mike Pasquier and I even organized it long, long ago. (Hat tip to our own contributor Emily Clark was the organizational guru this year).

Now, I did not attend every panel nor did I attempt to, so I encourage readers and participants who attended other panels to send their reflections along. What I was able to do was to talk to graduate students of alma mater and other institutions about their own work and mine as well. The paper presenters swung for the fences, and I enjoyed their energy, evidence, and historiographical strategies. Grads in American religious history presented on papers ranging from Emily Post to Christian manhood to the Holy Land Experience to body studies to Burning Man to border saints to the problems of "lived religion" to beards and shaving. The brilliance of this symposium is that it allows a welcoming and encouraging environment for grads to present their work with feedback from the likes of John Corrigan, Amy Koehlinger, Amanda Porterfield, Kathryn Lofton, and Sylvester Johnson to name only the Americanists. (Any graduate student in religious studies writ large should plan to go next year.)

The keynote with the best title ever was "What the Foucault Do We Do Now?" with Matthew Day, Sylvester Johnson, Matthew Kapstein and Katie Lofton interrogated the place of power in the study of religion, the institution of the academy, and the genealogy of religious studies. The panel paired scholars of ranging interests from methods and theory to Buddhism to American religious history and posed the question of how power (read Foucault) functions both for our subjects of study but also for our positions as scholars. For the interest of RIAH readers, Day, Johnson and Lofton proved to engage exactly what is at stake in religious studies from very different positions. Johnson prodded the strange bifurcation between the academy and the "real" world, and he argued compellingly that just because the origins of religious studies are bound to colonial endeavor does not mean we (religious studies scholars) should burden ourselves solely with origins. Instead, our knowledge and expertise applies to the "real" world because the academy, despite various attempts, is still bound to our contemporary moments. We are experts, we have power, and we should use it.

Lofton employed IBM advertisements to discuss the merger of power and subjectivity. She suggested that these particular ads did not uplift individuals but rather created a powerless collective at the whim of power grids, bad traffic, and other mundane problems of contemporary life. Each of us faces the similar hum drum, and the ads questioned our agency even in how companies market products not to me or you, but some amorphous us. From ads to religion, Lofton noted that perhaps religion is best understood as repository in which things, ideas, and brands collect. My sense was that religion was archive, hodge podge, even bricolage in this analogy. To understand religion is to understand the pile-up.

In my assessment, Day's contribution offered the opposite of Lofton--religion as empty. Day was troubled by the category of religion, the discipline of religious studies. Building upon Bruce Lincoln and Russell McCutcheon, Day argued that religious studies scholars don't problematize religion, so that as a category religion is valueless because of its infinitude. He asked can it be art or sports? Moreover, he wants religious studies scholars to question the reliance upon "experience" as a measure of religion. What does it mean? Or more importantly, what is at stake when we gesture to experience? Day's critique suggested a need for a critical edge about what is religion and what we study when we assert religion as our subject matter. Moreover, does the gesture to experience limit our subject matter?

During Q&A, I asked Lofton and Day to compare their stances about religion as repository or as empty. What is at stake in empty or full? Their answers are theirs, but I couldn't help but wonder what my own assessment of this was. Part of me wants to claim the middle path of "can't it be both?", but that is terribly unsatisfying. The power of religion as a category is what is at stake in their assertions, and I wonder how often religious studies scholars interrogate what exactly religion is in our own work. Is it empty or full? Is it value-free or value-filled? Do we craft our own categories of religion as experience, belief, practice, etc? Do we use the categories of those we study? In my own work, I confront the strange yet different assumptions about "good religion"(read helpful and therapeutic) versus "bad religion" (read harmful or malicious) because I work on the "bad." The commentary usually moves something like "bad religion" is not religion at all. What is religion becomes, then, essential to how to approach the Klan, the hate movement, or even my newer fascination with apocalypticism. How I make the case that this is actually religious becomes significant. I point to the pile-up: theology, ritual, practice, and belief that all show the Protestant nature of the Klan. Yet, I could also point to the emptiness (malleability) of Protestant as a label, of religion as a construct, yet I don't. I could though. Empty or full?

Graduate students, if these kinds of questions are interesting to you, plan on attending next year's symposium at FSU. If they aren't, plan on attending or presenting anyway because you can't beat the encouraging environment, the weather, or the chance to ask, "What the Foucault do we do now?"

An Exploration of Unconditional Love Pt. 3

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.


Leo Tolstoy

In many if not most tribal settings the children’s upbringing is a function of the whole tribe with the moral teachings coming from the aunts and uncles, not the parents. The feeling is that an aunt or uncle are enough separated from the emotions of a mom or dad that the advice they provide will be more attuned to the consciousness of the child and not the wants and needs of the parent.

The children are not punished but are subject to the peer pressure of their age groups and much emphasis is placed on how each child is viewed by the tribe as whole. It seems a child will react much more positively when they are directed by the opinions of other people besides their parents whom a child will much more likely rebel against. This in turn results in the ability of the parent to show the child how much they are loved if the parent does not have to then discipline the child which puts the child in a place of doubt about how much their parent truly loves them if they are constantly correcting them. This creates a competitive environment for the child where their emotional growth is encouraged instead of repressed as in other races who take the attitude of get out of my space you little brat so I can live without the stress or the responsibility that I know I have created for you but am too damn selfish and into what I am doing to have any time for you…..

To me our white/black society is positively the most ignorant selfish environment a child could have the misfortune to be born into that one can think of. If a non-native would take the time to study and get to know the native culture of this land and see how differently a native child grows up and responds to positive surroundings and carries this into adulthood we wouldn’t be seeing the high numbers of crime, divorce and suicide that we see. To add insult to injury the native culture has done this for thousands of years. Who the hell is keeping this secret? Who in the end are the losers? The white materialistic Smith vs. Jones monetarily completive morons you see out there struggling to be adults in a sub-teenage emotional state of non-growth or the poor families of most Native groups who put their society and its healthy survival ahead of their own selfish desires?

To add even more insult to injury many tribal people have adopted the outside influences that are destroying their children and their families.

I’m not just making a general statement about the USA; I’m talking about how kids are raised all over the world. People cannot figure out why 2/3rds of the world hate us! It’s not about how much we have here vs. there; it’s about the influences our selfish, self-serving ignorant smug citizens have on the rest of the world’s impressionable people. They see our riches and excesses and then they see how our people are towards each other and the calculations do not add up. It seems to these people of different countries that if you do goodness all your life and help your societies to stay well then you’re doomed to lack, want and suffering. But if you do evil and I am making no bones about this – our country is attuned to evil. Don’t believe that? How do you explain what is happening in Wisconsin or Arizona? Hell – How do explain New Jersey :) If you’re self-serving, you’re rewarded with riches. How does that not fit in with what our traditional elders are trying to get across to our thick but miniscule brains?

2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Paul Harvey

The following conference announcement comes to us from Phil Goff, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture in Indianapolis. The first Biennial Conference was hosted in Indianapolis in the summer of 2009; click here for our contributor Linford Fisher's report from that conference, and click here for the full conference proceedings from 2009. Full schedule and registration/hotel information for this conference in the first weekend of June is below. I'm looking forward to it already.

Second Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Indianapolis, Indiana

June 2-5, 2011



We are pleased to announce the Second Biennial Conference on Religion and

American Culture, to be held at the new J.W. Marriott in downtown

Indianapolis, June 2 through June 5. The theme for this meeting is "change,"

focusing both on changes in religion in North America over time and changes

in how we understand the topic. Scholars from multiple perspectives will

serve on multidisciplinary panels. The conference schedule is given below.



Like the conference in 2009, the room will be set up in a circle with

audience members on risers around the central round table. This set-up

promotes more participation from the audience and deeper conversation among

the panelists and those surrounding them. The hotel is again conveniently

located in downtown Indianapolis among restaurants, museums, and public

parks - all very conducive to continuing conversations begun in sessions.



Thanks to a grant from Lilly Endowment, we have reserved a block of rooms at

the J.W. Marriott at the special rate of $74.50 per night. Once those rooms

have sold out, rooms will be $149, so please be sure to reserve your room

right away. Early registration rates are available until May 5. To reserve

your room, register for the conference, or print a copy of the schedule,

please go to www.iupui.edu/~raac/<http://www.iupui.edu/~raac/>. (Note: the

special hotel rate of $74.50 will not appear on the screen but will be

billed correctly.)



CONFERENCE SCHEDULE



Thursday, June 2



Arrival and Registration

Opening Reception



Friday, June 3



PART A: CHANGING WHAT "RELIGION" MEANS

"What are our academic assumptions about religion?"

Panelists: Penny Edgell (Sociology, University of Minnesota)

Robert Orsi (Religious Studies, Northwestern University)

Ann Taves (Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara)



"Revisiting the secularity/secularization question"

Panelists: Tracy Fessenden (Religious Studies, Arizona State University)

Paul Froese (Sociology, Baylor University)

Rhys Williams (Sociology, Loyola University Chicago)



PART B: CHANGING RELIGION IN A CHANGING CULTURE



"Religion's role in political identity"

Panelists: Edward Curtis (Religious Studies, Indiana University -

Purdue University Indianapolis)

Paul Djupe (Political Science, Denison University)

Clyde Wilcox (Government, Georgetown University)



"Religion's role in immigration and globalization"

Panelists: Gerardo Marti (Sociology, Davidson College)

Timothy Matovina (Theology, University of Notre Dame)

Fenggang Yang (Sociology, Purdue University)



Saturday, June 4



"Religion's role in personal identity"

Panelists: Sylvester Johnson (Religious Studies, Indiana

University-Bloomington)

Sally Gallagher (Sociology, Oregon State University)

Laurie Maffly-Kipp (Religious Studies, University of North

Carolina)



"Market models for understanding religion"

Panelists: Roger Finke (Sociology, Pennsylvania State University)

James Hudnut-Beumler (Vanderbilt Divinity School)

Kathryn Lofton (American Studies and Religious Studies,

Yale University)



PART C: CHANGES IN THE FUTURE, REAL AND IMAGINED

"Changes in the understanding and uses of scripture"

Panelists: Charles Cohen (History and Religious Studies, University of

Wisconsin)

Kathleen Flake (Vanderbilt Divinity School)

Charles Hambrick-Stowe (First Congregational Church, Ridgefield,

CT)



"The future of religion in America"

Panelists: David Daniels (Church History, McCormick Theological Seminary)

Mark Silk (Religion, Trinity College)

Julie Byrne (Religion, Hofstra University)



Concluding reception

An Exploration of Unconditional Love Pt. 2

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.


Leo Tolstoy



I am going to attempt to show what I believe is the causation of all types of violence that is occurring in the world. While there are many forms of violence and the effects have many causes and come from many different places the reasons are coming from one place, one source and can in simplicity be resolved with a very different result than what we are seeing. What we are seeing coming from our species is there because if the lack of true intimacy in our lives. I question my own use of the word intimacy because it only engenders a limited understanding of what it truly represents but in reality intimacy extends to all aspects of our lives and we have to learn to extend it in all areas of our existence.

What we as a species tend to aspire to is a mimicry of those in our society that seem to get an inordinate amount of attention. Unfortunately this attention by all definitions is usually negative, one that attracts the interest of the general public and sells itself to the public as a way to be noticed and also to make money in the form of media attention. When we see someone doing good in our society we generally give an honorable mention if that and go on our way to the next noise maker. These noise makers cast themselves as victims and scream and yell until they get their way much like two year olds who have not learned that there are other ways to gain what they want.

In most Native Cultures the responsibility to teach right from wrong – good from evil – give vs. take is delegated by Creator to be the woman’s responsibility. In many native societies the culture is a matriarchal one and the patriarchs are expected to follow the woman’s directions. The women are heads of council they can be chiefs but normally select a responsible male for that role with the knowledge that the male is a stronger source of power because of their physicality! However the Chief is expected to follow the woman’s direction without question.

When there is a marriage in a matriarchal setting the man if he be Seneca by birth marries an Oneida he then takes the surname of his wife and becomes and is expected to adopt the Oneida culture. Why does this work so well in Native society and why is it not adopted by other societies if it works so well? Good question, it works because men by and large are warrior/hunter/providers and are disassociated from their families for long periods of time. They know little of the inner workings of the people while the women are in that circle almost 100% of the day and so have the greater control of what happens from minute to minute. Men are ego filled – strength associated – defenders of their circle and are expected to do many acts of various violence in order to protect their people. The reason for the Ego being so large is they are expected to perform insane acts of bravery in order to successfully defeat any challenger. Whenever they defeat an enemy they go through an incredible array of emotional reactions knowing they just looked death in the face and came out of it alive. In short these emotional reactions are not a good place to then make decisions regarding the peaceful interaction of the tribe.

“Well”, you might exclaim “that was then and this is now, there is no comparison to how they lived then vs. how we live now”! I beg to disagree, when in fact I believe things are so far out of balance today vs. the balance of the tribe 200 years ago that the situation is close to insane! Take the woman for instance; she has been stripped of all her connection to the influence and satisfaction of decision making for her family to the point that if she doesn’t have a successful career she isn’t a man. You heard it – I said a woman these days is expected to be men. Women’s lib anybody? While the man is going to work day after day knowing full well in the back of his mind that his and the survival of his family is dependent upon the whims of another person. If they are fired today they are out on the street tomorrow without any support of their tribe because they don’t have one. Homeless – Helpless – Hungry! Human destruction anyone?

Next time – more of this insanity! - Redhawk

What Does This Map Tell Us?

Randall Stephens

The other day in my Religion and American Culture class we were covering mid-19th century America. I've found that asking questions about maps and looking at the demographics of the religious landscape can be a helpful in-class exercise. This map of Major Communal Experiments before 1860 comes from the old Mapcentral site, Bedford/St. Martin's. (Click to enlarge.)


(Students should not get the idea that every American sold his/her possessions, took up with the Shakers, and renounced sex. But still there certainly was quite a bit of communal/utopian action.) After we look at the above in class we ask: What accounts for the heavy presence in the North and the absence in the South? Why did utopian experiments thrive in this age? How did these influence society?

Some selected quotes might provide interesting context to the map and give the students something to ponder. (The two I cite here are not exactly representative, but could get the conversation rolling.) See, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously rhapsodized to his friend Thomas Carlyle in 1840:

We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new Community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book.1 One man renounces the use of animal food; and another of coin; and another of domestic hired service; and another of the State; and on the whole we have a commendable share of reason and hope.

From the southern end, have a look at James Henley Thornwell, or George Fitzhugh, who wrote this in Cannibals All! or Slaves without Masters (1857):

Mormonism had its birth in Western New York, that land fertile of isms--where also arose Spiritual Rappings and Oneida Perfectionism--where Shakers, and Millenarians, and Millerites abound, and all heresies do most flourish . . . . Abolition swallows up little isms, and Socialism swallows up Abolition.

Bedford/St. Martin's Make History site provides some of the best map and visual resources for free.

An Exploration of Unconditional Love

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
       - Leo Tolstoy

Oki
I am going to take drastic detour from my normal ranting's to a place much more personal and closer to the heart. Some of you I am sure are going to be angry at what I am about to disclose and will ask to be unsubscribed from my mailing.  That is fine if you cannot face truth now then so be it but I intend to post this on my blog as well.  http://natalk.blogspot.com/
So if you start to come down off your bruised ego to a point of thinking maybe you don't know everything you can go there and read these postings.
On my way home today from Queensbury and grocery shopping I got caught up in listening to the 50^th Anniversary of Amnesty International on NPR and what it was attempting to accomplish and found myself wondering how the hell did we get to a place where such an organization is necessary. I look at the incredible selfishness of public employees across this great nation as demonstrated in Wisconsin to the Jasmine Revolution in China and I hear loudly and clearly the screams of a very unhappy group of the Human Race that is yelling " We are mad as hell and We aren't going to take this anymore."
I hear this and I ask why are we in the year 2011 and still dealing with stuff that should have been resolved in the dark ages? This in my opinion comes from a very basic place in our humanity which talks to our perceived well being and what is being demonstrated by the public at large as the way to accomplish the ideal life.
I am going to talk about the Intimacy of Romance and all that it's accepted evil entails to the abuse of the mate in place of the love of the mate that should be the result of the truth of love and its success.  This is going to lead down a very personal road for me and I believe my life is a simple magnification of the individual experiences of others who are I am sure processing these same experiences to a lesser but no less damaging experience of life. I am 64 years old and this enables me to a place of honesty that in earlier years would not be so forthcoming. I have experienced the lack of love to the point of total discouragement of the human condition but I am not looking to extend my love/non-love experience so this enables me to a place of honesty that otherwise would discourage my hope of ever overcoming this failing. 
Why? Because I believe this is the reason and the source of our problems as a society. Our experiences of relationship are what determine how we react to life as we know it in all its many variations. Example my dog tore up the living room the other day. I could have responded in anger and disciplined him severely however that couldn't be my response to such a loving companion. What was he trying to say to me? I know what he is saying and I am at a loss to know what to do about it. But I know I cannot teach him more anger….
So with all that said I will begin where there seems to be no end. Note this is an exposition of my life so to speak. While it is shameful, I have nothing to be ashamed of, but because I am Native American many people have attempted to take advantage of who I am. To those I say – if anything is uncovered that makes you uncomfortable –I am sorry but the story is going to be told. If you feel you wish to pursue me legally be my guest and stand in line. We will see how much more exposure your willing to stand up to by going to a public court. Win or lose your still exposed.

Subject: Maxine Poses a Question

Let me get this straight . . . .. We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS  agents, Written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we’ll be taxed for four years  before any “benefits” take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke!!!!! What the hell could Possibly go wrong?

---

Creolization and Kreolization

Emily Clark

Academic talk of Native American-European cultural hybridity and cultural conflict immediately take my mind to the Caribbean world and major port cities like New Orleans or Santo Domingo. When authors write about “creolization,” I think of cultural intersections between French, Spanish, Native American, and African traditions in the American South. I don’t immediately think of Alaska. However, a new book I recently reviewed for Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction has widened the geographic spread I associate with creolization, or rather kreolization.

In the 1980s and 1990s, theorizing of the Atlantic World by historians such as Bernard Bailyn and later David Armitage placed the colonial Americas within a more nuanced, engaging, and dynamic framework. The Pacific World and its impact on the colonial Americas has yet to be as thoroughly explored as the Atlantic, but works such as historian Gwenn A. Miller’s Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America demonstrate the importance of expanding the view of colonial American encounters. With the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska in 1784, the Russian empire continued its eastward movement setting up its own business-oriented, colonial enterprise in the “new world.”

Together, the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church and the education imparted by the fur-trading Russian-American Company offered government and trade officials a method to “civilize” the Alutiiq population and thus extend Russia’s imperial border. Miller’s micro-history of interactions between indigenous Alaskans, Russian fur traders, and missionaries on Kodiak Island elucidates how “a distinct Kreol colonial society” developed that “was neither wholly Russian nor wholly Alutiiq.” In a world of mutual dependence, intimate encounters between Russian fur traders and Alutiiq women led to a new Kreol generation of colonial subjects to be defined, controlled, and integrated into the imperial Russian enterprise. In their attempts to convert, Christianize, and “civilize” the Alutiiq people, the Russian missionaries demonstrate how interactions between Native Americans and their colonizers were fraught with complications on Alaska’s Kodiak Island. The British praying towns, the French Canadian seaways, and the American southwest were not alone. Though the situation in Alaska was less physically violent, it wasn’t necessary less culturally complex.

For a long-time, the gaze of American historians was that of the covered-wagon pioneers - westward. Miller is certainly not the first or only scholar to change the frame of reference. In her contribution to Thomas Tweed’s 1997 Retelling US Religious History, Laurie Maffly-Kipp elucidates how a narrative based in the Pacific Rim further illuminates typical historical account. Daniel Richter’s often cited Facing East From Indian Country: A Native History of Early America encourages historians to think about their narratives from the shoes – or moccasins – of “the other.” Miller’s book offers a colonial narrative far from the cities of Boston, New York, or Charleston that is both similar and different from the stereotypical westward European expansion model. For those of us interested in syncretism, cultural mixing, hybridity, colonial intersections, creolization, or whatever you want to call it, Kodiak Kreol provides another vantage point from which to theorize.