Update and Political/Religious Ponderances

-First off- you can make Bucky proctor a four-hour exam, but you can't stop him from using his water bottle as a musical instrument during important parts of the listening section.

-Frank Rich wrote this weekend about the utter dissolution of support for the Iraq war and its impending, long-overdue conclusion. Of the Petraeus-Crocker hearing, he writes: "...it accomplished little beyond certifying President Bush’s intention to kick the can to January 2009 so that the helicopters will vacate the Green Zone on the next president’s watch." But while the President is trying to ensure he doesn't have to be the one to withdraw the troops and end the occupation of Iraq, there is a lot that we can do to ensure he does. Defunding the occupation has been on the table for well over a year now, since the Democrats rolled into power, but so far with little success. But just because it didn't happen immediately doesn't mean it can't happen before Bush leaves office. He will have to ask for at least one more budget supplemental for the war this year, and if anti-occupation groups across the country keep the pressure on their senators and representatives in Washington, defunding the war and forcing Bush to withdraw the troops before he leaves office is possible. As the Petraeus-Crocker hearings showed, even Republican officials are getting fed up with the occupation and the circular logic of the administration's surge tactics. The anti-war movement has, through the sustained work of local groups like Waterville Area Bridges for Peace and Justice and national ones like Military Families Speak Out, convinced a majority of Americans that the war was and occupation is a bad idea. Now is the time to convert that public sentiment into effective action. There will be Tax-Day demonstrations and call-ins all over the country this week, raising awareness about the connection between people's federal tax dollars and the on-going atrocities that we are collectively responsible for. (If you do make a call about defunding the war, put in a plug for HR 1078, introduced by Minnesota's Keith Ellison, that would help implement the Global Marshall Plan). Very few officials are banging the defunding drum right now, but given the continuing shift in public opinion against the occupation, they should be, and are more likely to be successful at achieving redeployment with every passing month. If groups around the country maintain connections with their senators and representatives and keep them informed and pressured about the latest legislative possibilities for achieving that goal, it is much more likely to happen. The South-East New England Declaration of Peace group has done that with Senator Reed and Senator Whitehouse, men whose chief's of staff are now referred to by their first names in group emails on a regular basis. Rhode Island has it easier than most states when it comes to finding a sympathetic legislative ear for antioccupation sentiments, but groups nation-wide must be ready to jump on any opportunity for defunding by maintaining contact with and pressure on their elected officials.

-I accepted an offer of admission to Harvard Divinity School's Master of Divinity program this week. This, along with reading The Left Hand of God by Michael Lerner, has inspired me to think once again about envisioning ministry in more concrete terms. Harvard focuses on developing the "ministerial arts" in six areas: preaching, pastoral care, religious education, public leadership, denominational polity, and administration and program development. The three that I am most interested in right now are preaching, pastoral care and leadership, but really, it's like trying to choose between coarse and fine bulgar- they all look fulfilling and sustaining. I am most excited about public leadership as a category (full name "Public Leadership, Community Organizing, and Planning"), with courses like "Religion and American Public Life", "Public Narrative", "Religion, Development and Conflict", "Education for Liberation" AND "Ethical and Religious Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr." When I have difficulty envisioning how my broader work for social justice will manifest itself, it has been helpful to remind myself that MLKJ at age 22 hadn't heard of the Southern Christian Leadership Council yet. Granted, he was a minister at age 24 and co-counded the SCLC by age 26, but different life paths, different life paths. I CAN envision many of the methods of social justice work that will be part of my efforts with whatever congregation I have the privilege of leading, and those include teach-ins, political involvement, and civil disobedience to promote labor solidarity, civil rights, and local empowerment, among many other causes. Within the next month, I also plan to write about my broader goals for promoting a liberal spiritual awareness in America both socially and politically and my personal political goals in that context, as well as how my time in Turkey has shaped the above.

And finally...this week's moment that made me proud to be a Friends Camp counsellor: On Sunday morning, our Bilkent group visiting the orphanage tried to organize a series of relay races with the children in six groups. Even with a ratio of one Bilkenter for each child, it took them over five minutes to quiet the whole group, and even then the games never went quite right. I've seen counsellors outnumbered 12:1 make better stands in South China, and for that, I salute you fellow FC workers.