Devotees of the Naoi Meadow Way and the Lucan Chapel have an interesting way of doing the holiday season. Notably, we stretch it out as long as we can! Sixty-six wonderful days! It actually begins on November 1st, All Saints Day, and runs all the way until January 6th, the Epiphany.
To understand why it starts so early, you have to realize the importance we place on the season of Advent, which begins this year (2015) on Sunday Nov. 29th and runs until Christmas Day--four Sundays hence. Since Advent is to be taken seriously as a time for prayer and contemplation--and not for chaos, excess or hubbub--we try as best we can to have our gift shopping already done prior to Advent Sunday. It is a tough challenge, but it is fun, and worth the effort.
In a perfect (nonprocrastination) world we would be making or buying Christmas gifts for our loved ones throughout the year. But, since that rarely happens, tradition calls for us to take care of it between All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and Advent Sunday (usually the last Sunday of November). Notice that this means we are typically finished with it prior to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and are able to relax while others are going nuts. Being a part of that crazed rush of lunacy would violate the reverence we attach to the Christmas season as well as our reluctance to promote or engage in crass consumerism.
November is also when we do our fall housecleaning--and, again, this is for a reason.
Each family's home is their most sacred space year-round; which is why we are not supposed to tolerate cursing, rudeness, or violent forms of entertainment within those rooms and halls. But, this season is especially significant as we prepare to open our doors and our hearts to the new savior child. Everything needs to be as spic 'n span as a church for the impending arrival of Jesus into our homes and our lives (and, of course, for the arrival of friends and loved ones for the holidays as well). So, a thorough fall cleaning of one's house is symbolic of the way we shine up our lives and sweep out the manger of our inner hearts to provide a new abode for Jesus.
Thus, the month of November is kept busy with shopping, artsy-craftsy stuff, and tidying up.
Then comes Thanksgiving. This is the last feast and hoop-la before the serious matter of Advent begins (sort of akin to Halloween before All Saints Day...and Fat Tuesday ahead of Lent). And it is a time for getting together with family and expressing gratitude to Jesus and the Father for having blessed us with good things and the wherewithall to come up with the gifts we have just spent the month gathering, making and stashing away in a safe place awaiting Christmas Eve.
Thanksgiving Day is for--what else!--eating...and watching football...and engaging in family fellowship and the usual merriment. Friday, for those who are so inclined, can be a fun party night. But then, come Advent Sunday, it is time to get serious about the meaning of the season. In the olden days, it was a time of fasting and prayer. We don't go quite that far; but we do make every effort to keep it blessed with the highest level of Christian values and make it a time of peace, beauty, contemplation, and celebration of (all) life.
Those next four weeks of Advent are when we relax and enjoy decorating our homes, trimming the tree, and baking the cookies. But it also when we turn our attention to the beautiful things that Jesus and his message of peace represent, the real meaning of the Christmas holiday. Services are attended. Family worship night is observed in the home each week. Hymns and caroles are sung and enjoyed. All indees are kept away. And, each morning, the children eagerly open the little glittery windows of the advent calendar, one by one, ticking off the days in anticipation of Christmas eve, the arrival of Old Saint Nick, and the most sacred birthday celebration ever.
And when Christmas finally gets here, it keeps right on going...for 12 more days! In some families, little token gifts are exchanged each day, just as in the song. Alas, however, all things must end. So, with hearts a bit heavy, we wrap it all up on January 6th, the Epiphany (which commemorates the arrival of the wise magi in Bethlehem), and poignantly go back out into the real world and return to our regular lives. Until next November 1st!
And that is pretty much how we do it. A splendidly long way to celebrate the real meaning of Christmas. And that, friends, is the Naoi Meadow Way. www.naoimeadow.org
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Thursday, October 15, 2015
It's time to update and rethink the Second Amendment
Back in the founding fathers' day, arms were basically muskets and dueling pistols. But in today's world, they might be everything from AK47's to pipe bombs to nuclear-armed drones. Certainly, an ordinary citizen should have the right to own a weapon for protection or sport. But in this age of technology-driven terrorism, foreign and domestic, we cannot afford to allow anyone and everyone to brandish weapons of mass killing.
Part of the problem, of course, is the archaic and confusing wording of the 2nd Amendment. I think it is high time that it be amended it in such a way that it accomplishes two things: (1) It would update the 'militia' section with more modern and relevant wording, such as: "Since a well-organized militia may become necessary in a time of crisis to the security of a state..."; and (2) Instead of the vague, ambiguous phrase 'right to keep and bear arms', it would distinguish between "ordinary" weapons and "exceptional" weapons--and define more specifically what kind of 'arms' might reasonably be needed by the everyday person for protection or sport...as opposed to those which are 'exceptional' in the sense that they serve no purpose other than mass killing and should therefore be reserved for trained and certified individuals who have registered as collectors, professional peace officers, persons threatened, etc.
Personally, I would limit the sale of weapons to people who are over eighteen and have proven themselves to have a stable personal history--continuous employment, for instance, and no police record. I would suggest wording in the amendment specifically stating that "Congress shall have the right to define what constitutes "ordinary" and "exceptional" weapons and shall from time to time update those definitions; and that the Congress shall defer to the individual states the responsibility of setting age-limits, mental and physical requirements, and other criteria for gun and weapon ownership"...or something to that effect.
Part of the problem, of course, is the archaic and confusing wording of the 2nd Amendment. I think it is high time that it be amended it in such a way that it accomplishes two things: (1) It would update the 'militia' section with more modern and relevant wording, such as: "Since a well-organized militia may become necessary in a time of crisis to the security of a state..."; and (2) Instead of the vague, ambiguous phrase 'right to keep and bear arms', it would distinguish between "ordinary" weapons and "exceptional" weapons--and define more specifically what kind of 'arms' might reasonably be needed by the everyday person for protection or sport...as opposed to those which are 'exceptional' in the sense that they serve no purpose other than mass killing and should therefore be reserved for trained and certified individuals who have registered as collectors, professional peace officers, persons threatened, etc.
Personally, I would limit the sale of weapons to people who are over eighteen and have proven themselves to have a stable personal history--continuous employment, for instance, and no police record. I would suggest wording in the amendment specifically stating that "Congress shall have the right to define what constitutes "ordinary" and "exceptional" weapons and shall from time to time update those definitions; and that the Congress shall defer to the individual states the responsibility of setting age-limits, mental and physical requirements, and other criteria for gun and weapon ownership"...or something to that effect.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Statistically, arming the public will cause more shooting deaths, not fewer
More shootings this week...and more talk about arming the public. The reason I doubt that that would ever work comes down to pure statistics--the numbers and odds of something happening. Keeping in mind how incredibly rare mass shootings are, let's see what would happen if we start inviting people to arm themselves--"just in case".
Scenario 1: Let's say one in five (20%) of all college students and professors carries a gun to class...along with some 20% of all high school and elementary school teachers and administrators. Of all the hundreds of thousands of schools across the country...and all the hundreds of millions of people who attend them, what do you think the chances are that a particular armed good guy would ever have the opportunity to use his or her weapon against a bad guy? Almost nil, I'd say--maybe one in 50 million? And, if there were, say, a 50% chance of him or her actually winning that confrontation, the chances go to perhaps one in 100 million of him or her successfully warding off an attacker. To me, given those odds, it would not be worth my time and effort to bother getting a gun, the training and the permits.
Now...Scenario 2: I would bet money that of the 20% who are eager for the chance to carry a gun to a classroom, many are people who either have some sort of bad-ass attitude or a dose of paranoia, or both. So, given the likelihood of those groups of armed good guys containing a few deranged morons, what do you suppose the odds would be of some student or teacher with an ax to grind or some personal or mental issues, going off the deep end and becoming the bad guy (the attacker)? Way higher, I'd say, than the Scenario 1 figures of 100 million to one.
So...bottom line: If I were in one of those classrooms, I would be much more worried about one of my fellow classmates packing heat and then going berserk than I would about some intruder storming in with guns blazing. Having classrooms full of armed people would make the chance of one of them CAUSING mass shooting deaths a lot greater than the chance of one of them ever PREVENTING mass shooting deaths.
(I know, it sounds like a convoluted argument. Sorry. But ponder it over and over, and see if it doesn't start to make sense).
Scenario 1: Let's say one in five (20%) of all college students and professors carries a gun to class...along with some 20% of all high school and elementary school teachers and administrators. Of all the hundreds of thousands of schools across the country...and all the hundreds of millions of people who attend them, what do you think the chances are that a particular armed good guy would ever have the opportunity to use his or her weapon against a bad guy? Almost nil, I'd say--maybe one in 50 million? And, if there were, say, a 50% chance of him or her actually winning that confrontation, the chances go to perhaps one in 100 million of him or her successfully warding off an attacker. To me, given those odds, it would not be worth my time and effort to bother getting a gun, the training and the permits.
Now...Scenario 2: I would bet money that of the 20% who are eager for the chance to carry a gun to a classroom, many are people who either have some sort of bad-ass attitude or a dose of paranoia, or both. So, given the likelihood of those groups of armed good guys containing a few deranged morons, what do you suppose the odds would be of some student or teacher with an ax to grind or some personal or mental issues, going off the deep end and becoming the bad guy (the attacker)? Way higher, I'd say, than the Scenario 1 figures of 100 million to one.
So...bottom line: If I were in one of those classrooms, I would be much more worried about one of my fellow classmates packing heat and then going berserk than I would about some intruder storming in with guns blazing. Having classrooms full of armed people would make the chance of one of them CAUSING mass shooting deaths a lot greater than the chance of one of them ever PREVENTING mass shooting deaths.
(I know, it sounds like a convoluted argument. Sorry. But ponder it over and over, and see if it doesn't start to make sense).
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Can we auto-correct humanity?
A favorite poem of mine. Gets right to the heart of our mixed up priorities, as I see it. I've been accused of being anti-technology...to which I reply, no....I am not anti-technology; just anti- obsessing-over-technology.
If you agree, look me up at The Naoi Meadow Way (my personal way of connecting with Jesus).
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Let's purge "gun" and "mental" from the dialog
We are wasting too much time bickering around the margins. Neither gun control nor mental health screening will ever solve anything as long as we live in a country where the mentality is to worship guns. The reasonable view should be that a gun is nothing more than a tool, like a hammer or a toothbrush; handy when you need it, but staying tucked away in the toolbox or drawer until then. No one I know builds their whole lifestyle around collecting bigger hammers and meaner toothbrushes, hangs them all over their walls, or carries them around in the pockets of their camos, cargo shorts and hoodies in order to make a social statement. If examining mental issues is what is warranted, then the the mental issue that we should start with might be the psychology of our society at-large..
We live in a nation that was founded by angry, anti-government rebels. We fought a civil war instigated by angry, anti-government rebels. So our fundamental culture in the United States has always been one of violence, not peace. We don't look to Gandis and Dalai Lamas as our leaders; we go with Cheneys and Trumps. And, as long as we continue to wave the banner of anger and teach our children to distrust and rebel, any effort to limit gun sales to the gentle and passive of spirit will always be an exercise in hopeless futility.
So I suggest that we stop using the politically poisonous words "gun", "mental" and "screening" altogether, and shift the discussion instead toward the prospect, however unlikely, of reforming our culture from the medieval mindset of anger and violence to one of peace and understanding. It should be possible. After all, that is exactly what Jesus did vis-à-vis his own culture. Not many went along, but those who did transformed the next two thousand years. And you and I and our civilization came out of that very reform movement.
We don't seem very Jesus-like today, however. So what happened to us?
We live in a nation that was founded by angry, anti-government rebels. We fought a civil war instigated by angry, anti-government rebels. So our fundamental culture in the United States has always been one of violence, not peace. We don't look to Gandis and Dalai Lamas as our leaders; we go with Cheneys and Trumps. And, as long as we continue to wave the banner of anger and teach our children to distrust and rebel, any effort to limit gun sales to the gentle and passive of spirit will always be an exercise in hopeless futility.
So I suggest that we stop using the politically poisonous words "gun", "mental" and "screening" altogether, and shift the discussion instead toward the prospect, however unlikely, of reforming our culture from the medieval mindset of anger and violence to one of peace and understanding. It should be possible. After all, that is exactly what Jesus did vis-à-vis his own culture. Not many went along, but those who did transformed the next two thousand years. And you and I and our civilization came out of that very reform movement.
We don't seem very Jesus-like today, however. So what happened to us?
Friday, October 2, 2015
Our dilemma called 'Virtual Overcrowding'
Why is there so much violence and corruption going on today? Why is everyone so obsessed with themselves? Why do people, especially younger people, have so little regard for life, for things that are natural or historical, or for the concerns of others? You may have heard me say before that I am afraid that the glory of our human civilization has peaked, today's technology revolution is simply the final chapter of the waning Renaissance, and we may well have begun the downward spiral toward another Dark Age. I don't know what we can really do about it, except try to understand it.
The dilemma is very, very complicated--a combination of problems, as I see it. So, let's look at problem number one and save the others for another day. This is the one I call 'Virtual Overcrowding'--a weird sort of population explosion brought on by the way technology puts us micrometers away from virtually everyone else on Earth. If you are a social media obsessive, you probably think this is a good thing, right? However, it's always been true that the more people we come in contact with each day, whether directly or indirectly, the more chances there are for conflict...and the more need there is for regulation, laws, and, yes, political correctness (i.e using discretion and practiced dishonesty).
Back in the old days, we might have come in contact with maybe a couple dozen people a day---family, friends, coworkers, etc. But today, thanks to technology, we come in contact with thousands (Think of every face, or image of a face, you see on TV, the internet, social media, in public places, driving down the street, etc.). You are not aware of it, but these are people you are in contact with and affected by. And when you are in constant contact with such a huge number of people virtually every minute of every day, and are expected to be politically correct to every one of them, it eventually warps the whole way you interact with people and the society around you. It can mess your mind up. You start to become antsy and irritable, and things resembling depression, ADHD and PTS begin to seep into your personality.
Scientists have known this for years. I remember learning it back in biology class; that when so many of a species---mice, monkeys, ants, or whatever--are crammed in a cage together causing severe overcrowding, they start doing wierd things: rape, deceit, violence, sexual perversion, stealing, substance abuse, etc. In other words, their society breaks down. Could that be what is happening to us?
My theory is that we are suffering the consequences of over-population--not actual numbers of people, but 'virtual overcrowding'. Hence the mass murders, terrorist activities, and disregard for institutions like religion and family. Our society is crumbling under its own weight. And it is especially bad for young kids whose developing minds are also having to cope with other powerful forces: peer pressure, for instance, and negative influences coming at them from all directions, including the dark worlds of entertainment and marketing.
So there you have it. One of several possible problems worth pondering. The others we can go into someday. But the question facing us now is this: Is there anything we can do about it? I don't know, but I have a sense that we basically have just two choices: either resolve to change our culture by adding more moral and ethical parameters...or opt to leave it altogether and go live in a small insular community (like my proposal, the Naoi Meadow Way) where we and people like us get to call the shots and do things our way. Personally, I am rapidly losing confidence in the first option.
The dilemma is very, very complicated--a combination of problems, as I see it. So, let's look at problem number one and save the others for another day. This is the one I call 'Virtual Overcrowding'--a weird sort of population explosion brought on by the way technology puts us micrometers away from virtually everyone else on Earth. If you are a social media obsessive, you probably think this is a good thing, right? However, it's always been true that the more people we come in contact with each day, whether directly or indirectly, the more chances there are for conflict...and the more need there is for regulation, laws, and, yes, political correctness (i.e using discretion and practiced dishonesty).
Back in the old days, we might have come in contact with maybe a couple dozen people a day---family, friends, coworkers, etc. But today, thanks to technology, we come in contact with thousands (Think of every face, or image of a face, you see on TV, the internet, social media, in public places, driving down the street, etc.). You are not aware of it, but these are people you are in contact with and affected by. And when you are in constant contact with such a huge number of people virtually every minute of every day, and are expected to be politically correct to every one of them, it eventually warps the whole way you interact with people and the society around you. It can mess your mind up. You start to become antsy and irritable, and things resembling depression, ADHD and PTS begin to seep into your personality.
Scientists have known this for years. I remember learning it back in biology class; that when so many of a species---mice, monkeys, ants, or whatever--are crammed in a cage together causing severe overcrowding, they start doing wierd things: rape, deceit, violence, sexual perversion, stealing, substance abuse, etc. In other words, their society breaks down. Could that be what is happening to us?
My theory is that we are suffering the consequences of over-population--not actual numbers of people, but 'virtual overcrowding'. Hence the mass murders, terrorist activities, and disregard for institutions like religion and family. Our society is crumbling under its own weight. And it is especially bad for young kids whose developing minds are also having to cope with other powerful forces: peer pressure, for instance, and negative influences coming at them from all directions, including the dark worlds of entertainment and marketing.
So there you have it. One of several possible problems worth pondering. The others we can go into someday. But the question facing us now is this: Is there anything we can do about it? I don't know, but I have a sense that we basically have just two choices: either resolve to change our culture by adding more moral and ethical parameters...or opt to leave it altogether and go live in a small insular community (like my proposal, the Naoi Meadow Way) where we and people like us get to call the shots and do things our way. Personally, I am rapidly losing confidence in the first option.
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