Lost tomb of Jesus controversy

Cameron may not have evidence, but neither do you

Jean or George: Who makes the better chief executive?

By Lee Lukoff

Chancellor MacCormack shares many common characteristics with President George W. Bush. They ushered themselves into office during the early parts of the 21st century and both have stayed in office past their welcome; both as leaders in the “free world,” George in Washington, Jean right here in Dartmouth. Their similarities are endless but I’ll start with how poorly both have managed their respective positions as Chancellor and as President.

George W. campaigned as a candidate in 2000 promising that he would not participate in nation building. He basically meant he wouldn’t ram democracy down the throats of other countries that were not democracies. He lied; we invaded Iraq. Jean did the same thing here at UMD; through her lack of execution we’ve been scammed into believing our college experience would empower us with new rights, safety and affordability. Turns out Jean’s idea of all the latter includes growing bureaucracy, providing less campus security and taking away our rights, as many believe George W. has done.

It’s clearly evident that on Ring Road we have porous borders. Anyone in the world who wants to can come to campus and use the university’s property as their own gang territory bringing every possible criminal action to our campus, just read the Crime Log in this very paper and all the previous issues and you’ll know what I mean.

This sounds a lot like the Mexican border where it took George six years to enact comprehensive border security reform. It took a Republican Congress to break the stalemate on illegal immigration and a Republican majority in the Senate to ram through the border fence, forcing Bush to adopt a policy he was stubbornly against. Jean should take a hint from the Republicans and do the same thing private schools like Boston College and Curry have done: erect a fence and protect our borders!

On civil liberties many Americans are disgusted with the Patriot Act and its infringements on our constitutional rights. Bush signed The Patriot Act and according to many scholars it violates basic rights by side tracking our judicial system. Many Americans strongly disagree with the strong-arm tactics of the federal government, yet on our campus Jean feels as if she can do the same thing. We have a “free speech zone” which is a clear violation of our first amendment rights to freedom of speech. But hey, Jean loves speeches- she gives them once a year and will not answer any questions. She has yet to respond directly to my challenge to participate in a “Chancellor’s Question Time”!

I wish we had leaders in our country that would protect our pocketbooks. But hey in the end it’s all about the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rule! By the end of fiscal year 2006 Jean had balanced the budget by forcing many students to spend more money to live in tighter living quarters then the likes of Charles Manson. Tuition and fees have gone up consistently and yet we still lack all the basics a state university should provide for its students: safety, comfortable housing and affordability.

Making students pay higher rates to live in prison style living quarters is a shame and is nothing to be proud of. At least when Bush was Governor of Texas he executed the criminals instead of rewarding them with patronage jobs, we have many workers on campus who are just political hacks and provide no real service that benefits the majority of the student body.

I guess when both of their records are complete; Jean and George will have quite a legacy. In Washington we have bigger government, less rights and less security. In Dartmouth we have higher tuition & fees, higher crime rates, and less living space. Maybe in the next two years the Democrats will unearth some Clinton-esque scandal so they can impeach Bush. What we should do as students is use our voices and our influence to impeach Jean!

The inconvenient truth regarding Al Gore

By Thomas Ellis

Al Gore has been riding the media rollercoaster over the last week and a half. On Sunday February 25, 2007, his film “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Oscar for the best documentary feature of 2006. He also got an opportunity to speak on stage (accompanied by Leonardo DiCaprio) about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences efforts to make this year’s award show more environmentally friendly-a green presentation. Gore spoke about having an impact on the overall environment, saying, “It is not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go, but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference.” Not shying away from another opportunity after the producers of the documentary received their award, Gore also classified global warming as “a moral issue” to the estimated 25 million people watching.

Only a day later, it was released that Gore’s own Nashville mansion was consuming 20 times more electricity than the national per household average. The eco-guru’s home is using more electricity in 1 month than most people use in a year, if you follow his standards; I guess it isn’t as hard as I thought to make a difference. I’m sure he has heard the phrase “practice what you preach,” and he is certainly not acting accordingly. Should we assume then that the rules aren’t for people “like him?” If this is such a moral issue, if everyone can make such a difference, why is he not starting with his own electric bill? Obviously with all of the oil money he and his family have, his house is larger than normal, but there must be some sort of happy medium.

Gore has an answer even though his own electricity consumption is absurd, he purchases “carbon offsets.” This is the idea that although Gore’s home isn’t environmentally friendly he can offset his negative with positives and still be “carbon neutral.” So will investing in renewable energy sources, or purchasing carbon credits, (which are stocks in “green” companies) make everything better, it’s worth a try right? This at least is how Gore is justifying his position. But where can these carbon credits be purchased? Through Gore, of course. Well not exactly, but he is the co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a firm which will invest money in an environmentally friendly way, to make their clients carbon-neutral, for a fee of course.

With this information the question must be posed: who will really benefit more from the global warming hype, our future generations who are being saved from a theory based on facts that are at best questionable or Gore and his family? Why hasn’t Gore dumped or donated in some eco-friendly way his stocks in Occidental Oil? Or given up the royalty he receives from Pasminco Zinc for letting them run zinc concession on his property? Both companies have been noted for their unethical environmental practices. Maybe Gore just realizes that he cannot save the world himself, so he continues to live his life comfortably, telling everyone else how to make it happen. There has been talk of the next movie, rumors are surrounding the title “Do as I say, Not as I do.” A movie with this title would be sure to excite less people, but perhaps this would be the actual truth.

Let’s all try to be a little more close-minded

By Ben Tansey

A phrase we hear too often in our society is that we should try to be “open-minded.” It is something that is unique to the late 20th, and early 21st century west. If we take a position that is not “open” we will often be charged with that great crime of “Close mindedness.” Of course, when someone calls you close-minded, usually what they mean is something like; “Why don’t you agree with me? Disagreeing with me is bad.” The idea of being open-minded is, of course, pure silliness. How can we be open-minded?

The only conditions under which we could achieve this feat are ones in which we have no opinion of any importance; certainly not one that we wouldn’t be willing to drop at a moment’s notice in the spirit of “openness.” We should, I agree, approach new problems with an open mind. But as William F. Buckley Jr. said, “The purpose of an open mind is to close it.”

Too often what people mean when they suggest that we should be open-minded is that we should keep an open mind, even after we have formulated our opinions. Such a concept is a deadly threat to any serious search for truth, and is endemic to the culturally and morally declining west that we see around us. If we never form any strong opinions, if we never can get to the point where we are able to passionately hold a proposition to be true, then we have given up the idea that we can even know what is true. I am sure that this concept is pleasing to some of the more leftist, relativistic minds in the debate.

However, I find it to be a horrifying idea. Everything that has driven the west throughout its history, from the ancient Greeks, through the medieval Christian philosophers, and up to the Enlightenment’s various champions of liberty, is an unbending belief that truth is a real concept and that it can be attained. Is there nothing worth preserving in that western tradition? I say that preserving it is the best thing we can do for ourselves and for the preservation of our civilization. And that is one thing I am happily close-minded about.

UMD losing focus on what made it so great

By Yale Magrass,
Chancellor Professor
Department of Sociology/Anthropology

Misplaced priorities

It was not too long ago that UMass Dartmouth came closer to fulfilling the traditional ideal of a university, a community of learners and scholars, than some more highly ranked institutions. At many major research universities, teaching is hardly considered when evaluating faculty. Until recently at UMass Dartmouth, it was the number one criterion. There are major research universities where writing textbooks for students is shunned. Books or articles written for the general public are derided as “popular” or “journalistic.” What receive the most credit are articles in recognized “peer reviewed” research journals or monographs written for specialists in the scholar’s field and unlikely to be seen, or cared about, by anyone else. Very often, other so-called experts would hardly read them and they would languish on library shelves (or now, in virtual space).

Faculty evaluation committees at UMass Dartmouth used to be different. They would honor a wide range of publications. Perhaps faculty should have been encouraged to write more, but they should be rewarded for acting as “public intellectuals,” people who raise new provocative ideas which stimulate debate among a wide community, including students. In a real society of scholars, faculty are supposed to be original thinkers and no two people would teach the same course the same way.

At other universities, people who focus too much on teaching or whose writings are too “popular” are often denied tenure or even expelled from graduate school. Harvard President Larry Summers attacked distinguished African-American scholar Cornell West precisely for being a public intellectual, for appearing in the national mass media and writing books which would be displayed on the shelves at the entrance to a Barnes and Nobles, rather than focusing on articles for philosophy journals.

As a graduate student, I was warned of dire consequences if my papers were too “literary.” My advisor commented on one of my Ph.D. qualifying exams: “This appears to be really sophisticated, but it reads so smoothly that you must have oversimplified someplace; however, I can’t tell where.” If I were not a tenured Chancellor Professor, I probably would not dare write this article. In social science graduate schools, students are encouraged to use esoteric technical jargon, use passive voice and avoid the world “I.” Convoluted sentence structure can be preferred to clear writing. They need to learn this style because it is what the research journals usually accept. This gives an air of authority, of “expertise,” special objective knowledge that ordinary people cannot question.

One of the reasons social scientists write this way is they want to establish themselves as precisely that, “scientists,” discoverers of objective truth which exists independently of the observer. If they write in passive voice, they give the appearance that the paper, indeed the facts, write themselves, that any two objective scholars would write the same paper. They will say “it has been discovered” rather than “I think.” Some people refer to this as “physics envy.” To appear scientific, some researchers quantify whatever they study, appropriate or not. For the most part, they are imitating a nineteenth century, not a twentieth century, to say nothing of twenty-first century, model of physics, before relativity and quantum mechanics became the dominant paradigms.

The strength of UMass Dartmouth used to be that faculty were not bound by rigid academic canons; “popular” writing was rewarded, teaching was encouraged, classes were relatively small and students could get to know the professors. At UMass Amherst, classes with several hundred students, where the professor lectures several times a week and the undergraduate students meet with a graduate teaching assistant once a week, are common. Rather than relishing its niche where it can excel, UMass Dartmouth is now trying to imitate the major research universities, against whom it probably cannot compete.

Class sizes are growing. Few faculty will receive tenure unless they publish in “peer reviewed” research journals. The problem is who are the “peers?” Who gets chosen to determine if an article is deemed worthy of publication? Are they “value-neutral” upholders of objective truth? Most likely, the journals themselves reflect biases built into the assumptions of the disciplines they represent, be it sociology, literary criticism or chemistry. Any article or book, which the author does not publish himself/herself, must be reviewed by somebody. As I write this article, I am not sure it will be accepted for publication. Receiving grants has been proposed as objective evidence of the merits of somebody’s work, but granting agencies, like journals, must reflect the values, ideologies and politics of their boards and sponsors. Even the hard sciences are not exempt. For example, the Bush administration denies funding to stem cell research, perhaps on the cutting edge of molecular biology.

Regaining respect for student input

One forum for public intellectuals can be the classroom with students as an audience, especially students who are encouraged to debate issues themselves, contribute their own ideas and grow with the instructor. In a community of public intellectuals, each teacher will have a unique perspective, but recently, administrators and academic departments at UMass Dartmouth have been moving toward the idea that instructors should be interchangeable. If faculty are interchangeable and large lecture halls are as effective as venues where students and faculty can interact, then there is no need for a university. People should just watch the most nationally distinguished scholars on television or on the web. Already, selling taped versions of whole courses is becoming a profitable business. Various Deans and Provosts have told the Sociology/Anthropology Department if we wanted a course taught which they did not want to fund, we should hand someone a textbook and tell him/her to teach it. Textbook publishers will gladly provide instructor’s handbooks full of multiple-choice questions with the “correct” answer underlined. What does an instructor using these handbooks really need to know?

The Sociology/Anthropology/Crime & Justice Department has begun dictating the content and the pedagogical approaches individual professors must adapt in their courses. Now, faculty are expected to submit course syllabi as part of their annual reviews. To have a very specific syllabus which is closely followed is being considered a measure of good teaching. I would suggest that one of our goals should be to have students involved in defining their own education. Faculty should respond to student input and interest and redirect the course accordingly. Thus, the best course may often be ones that do not follow the prescribed syllabus, but rather take advantage of the opportunity to “teach to the moment.”

There are many different models of good teaching. Some will fit one student better than another. Unfortunately, for many students the definition of a good teacher is “Someone who leaves me alone and certifies me so I can get my piece of paper.” I saw this attitude conveyed by student counselors during orientations. Students should not expect definitive answers, but instead seek deeper and subtler understandings, which can lead to a never-ending spiral of questions. Disagreement can be as profound as agreement. Classes should enhance a student’s skills in critical thinking, building logical coherent arguments, analyzing, interpreting, recognizing bias and perspective, and conducting research. Students should be encouraged to unveil possibilities that are not intuitively obvious and even contradict the common sense understanding they previously have been taught to accept at face value, often without much reflection. Yet many students assume they are educated only when they are given an array of facts to memorize. Here is my favorite hostile student evaluation (from some years ago):

“The purpose of this course was, I think, to get me to rethink everything I have ever been taught. I realized a lot, but I can’t say I learned very much.”

I do not want to deny the importance of facts. In order to think critically, you must have knowledge of something to think critically about. As a sociologist, I find it extremely difficult to bring students to appreciate social change when they lack a sense of history. Social theory or political sociology is difficult to teach when most students do not know of Gandhi or the Magna Carta. This problem is not just restricted to social science students. When I teach “Social Impact of Science and Technology,” I learn many science majors have never heard of quantum mechanics.

I propose these questions be included in student course evaluations forms:

1.How did the instructor respond when a student offered a comment or a question?

a) The instructor would not let anyone or anything interfere with covering the agenda defined in the syllabus.

b) The instructor would permit an occasional question or comment, but would not encourage them.

c) The instructor might acknowledge the issue was interesting, but give it little attention.

d) The instructor might spend a minute or two on the subject, but then go back to his or her planned agenda.

e) If the issue were relevant, the instructor would discuss it with the class for as long as it was fruitful.

2. How well did the instructor seem to know the course material?

a) The instructor seemed to know very little that was not in the assigned textbooks.

b) The instructor may have known more than was in assigned textbooks but lacked the confidence to explore outside material.

c) The instructor let us know that perspectives not presented in the textbooks existed but did not explore them.

d) The instructor confidently explored ideas the textbooks did not raise and would criticize the textbook, when appropriate.

e) The instructor was so confident in his/her knowledge that s/he looked for new ideas and learned from the students.

3. Which of these best describes the instructor’s main goal for the course?

a) The instructor wanted us to have a notebook full of facts that we could recite back on the exams or papers.

b) The instructor wanted us to recognize s/he was the authority. S/he was there to teach; we were there to learn.

c) The instructor’s main concern was that we master a body of knowledge clearly defined in the syllabus.

d) The instructor wanted to make sure the syllabus was covered, but would raise additional issues or at least permit students to do so.

e) The instructor wanted us to appreciate debates over the issues raised in the course and develop our own point of view.

Here is an open-ended question that might also be included:

Do you think student course evaluations are worthwhile? Why or why not?

Belichick to balance off field image with on field dominance

By Eric Rollins

Bill Belichick, after taking an overachieving bunch of no names (besides Tom Brady) to the AFC Championship against the streaking and home field advantaged Indianapowhocares Chumpsticks, is facing the pressure of rebuilding his off the field image as well as his on field tactics. Who cares about how Bill handles fans, the media, his family or even his players, as long as he wins, right? We all know that’s not enough, and Bill has acknowledged the fact that he thinks it’s ridiculous, but will nevertheless work on his attractiveness.

Bill is known for only looking at the bottom line when it comes to his football team. In the private business world, CEOs who only look at the bottom line are vilified, as are head coaches and sports organizations. In sports, players can go elsewhere easier than in, say, the investing market, and sports relies on winning the whole thing, while Fidelity can survive by just producing enough profits to make business relevant. His handling of fan favorites like Lawyer Milloy and Deion Branch have not won over outsiders, but he never would have done it if it weren’t necessary or if they weren’t players capable of being lost. Bill never pays more than the market price; with that strategy he’s assured long-term success that will counter the fans’ short-term revulsion.

The Pats are always in a state of becoming a modern football team; they are not tacked to traditional off-season activities. Each new off-season is a different challenge, and in the light of their recent signings, they don’t seem to have much confidence in the draft plugging their gaping holes. But the signings also show the reality of marginalized decisions NFL coaches have to make in order to win and survive in this league.

Adalius Thomas, a coveted free agent throughout the league, was quickly snatched up by the Pats. Belichick covets the linebacker position as the most important on defense and added Thomas to solidify the aging duo of Vrabel and Bruschi, and give Roosevelt Colvin more support as a flat dominating madman. But it also shows that the team does not covet Tully Banta-Cain’s return to the lineup. The motif so far seems to take aim at any player who has made it known he is “going to test the market first before re-signing.” Tully made this clear as his contact was ending, and played well as a replacement. Signing Thomas means Banta-Cain will be signing somewhere else and the Patriots front office is already over his loss.

The same goes for Daniel Graham. We already have Benjamin Watson and the second year David Thomas who showed some guts as a rookie. Graham made no aggressive moves to stick around and is now on the market. Graham made his bones as a run blocker and will be missed, but not sorely. The Pats have already signed Kyle Brady, a big target who will give everyone a little smirk when they hear “Brady to Brady” next year. I’m sure we’ll hear rumblings that Tom changing his uniform from “Brady” to “T. Brady” will cause him to lose focus. I wish this weren’t true, but think of all the publications out there that need stories. Again, this is a clear moniker to Graham that his willingness to play the market instead of stay with the team that drafted him is enough of a kick in the face to the Pats to lose his locker.

Brady is in, Graham is gone, and with no love lost on either side because we all know this is how the gears grind. But media coverage from national news will see this as a loose bond between player and team, loose enough to receive reprimand from a sensitive public. Corey Dillon made one little notion that he might retire and would like to be released in order to do so on his own terms. He’s gone and we’ve already signed Sammy Morris to fill his spot as veteran runner. I wouldn’t be surprised if we pick up another one in the middle or late in the draft.

This is how reality in football works. But the media thinks this is too cold for a coach to act. “Daniel Graham is a Super Bowl winning tight end, how can you let him go?” Only relationships that are reciprocated work well in this league, and Graham wasn’t interested in going out of his way to stay here. The image portrayed by analysts is one of dismissive avarice that dehumanizes the players; give me a break.

The worst is, of course, the media’s interest in his off the field life. In 2005, it was revealed that he had been separated from his wife, who was his high school sweetheart. “Uh oh, this is going to hurt the team!” Well, they separated in early 2004, before a Super Bowl winning season. Then there is the current hullabaloo about his involvement with a woman in New Jersey and her ongoing divorce case (by the way, Belichick has since finalized a divorce with his former wife, Debby). He allegedly gave her money in the 80’s.

There is no report of an affair, and the husband who is accusing him is making front-page news in New Jersey for being a noble whistleblower (Belichick is hated by the New York Press, they often run stories about how cold and robotic he is). The media loves stories about fallen heroes, and are bored to tears with one about a repeat offender, which this woman’s husband apparently is. After a 31-0 loss on opening day of the 2003 season, ESPN commentator Tom Jackson said that “they hate their coach” and hinted at a growing rift. The Pats won the Super Bowl that year. I’m getting at the point that no matter how many times the media reports that the Patriots dynasty is ending, it never does.

The three Super Bowls they won went by really fast, mainly because I heard little talk about how great of an achievement it was; it was always about who was going to eventually beat them and how bad it was going to be. And when they did lose in 2005, their bandwagon was abandoned so fast, I couldn’t think straight. Image: a wobbly giant permanently on the verge of collapse, reality: most well organized and planned out program in football. Reality doesn’t catch the eyes and ears of the audience the way image does.

Art Modell told Bob Kraft upon signing Bill Belichick that he “was getting no Prince Charming.” Big deal. Art Modell also said “the other stuff, the human and public relations, is as important as a 3-4 defense.” BOGUS!!! New England will keep winning because they don’t believe that bull for a second. After this season, the media focused on Bill’s treatment of opposing players after big games and his coldness towards the press. I heard very little about Jabar Gaffney coming from nowhere to almost being the 2006 playoff MVP.

On the other side, they should have been focusing on Belichick’s possibly poor balancing of the running and passing game, and being too predictable with the run offense. Nope, just how he is a cold SOB and how the off field distractions will bring down the dynasty. Bill will keep on doing it his way, and he’ll be known as one the best when it’s all said and done, if he isn’t already. Before games they show a Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick montage superimposed on the NFL logo for a reason. Not bad for a guy with an economics degree from Wesleyan and a penchant for ugly sweatshirts. Bill’s image didn’t win three Super Bowls did they?

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Together, not apart

In nearly four years at UMass Dartmouth I have seldom felt unsafe. Even in the wake of last weekend’s violence, I consider our campus a relatively safe place. Violent crimes are shocking and scary, and thankfully they are rare on our campus. The incident last Saturday was unfortunate and something like this should never happen again at UMD.

On several occasions over the last week I have heard grumblings about who is to blame for the cancellation of dances sponsored by campus organizations. To blame the gentlemen of Sigma Phi Rho for the violence last weekend is wrong. In the face of violence I have seen them take strong stands against it, and diffuse hostile situations.

What is right, however, is this community joining together in speaking out against violence on our campus. The focus here should be on making this community safer.

The nearly brand new policy on “dancing events” on campus may still be effective, though it should be reexamined publicly with the input of the student body along with the Campus Police force. Our police and public safety officers work tirelessly throughout the school year, and they know first hand what changes need to be made. Merely examining a policy for “dance events” does not serve the interests of students, nor does it help those officers to keep our campus safe.

As this campus is continually evolving, so must its safety standards and procedures. In this time of growth and evolution at UMass Dartmouth there will be many compromises to be made— the safety of our campus and community is not one of them.

G. Jeff Barnes

Poli Sci

W.I.L.T.

Evangelism will beat capitalism unless changes are made

By Eric Rollins

On the eve of another DaVinci Code-esque claim that the Bible was wrong about Jesus, I turn to what I believe is the reason behind a clear split in America’s spiritual ethos. Two weeks ago I explored a cancerous growth on society: that economic principles don’t mesh well with people who rely on their spirit rather than their wallets. Economic principles don’t apply to their ethics, while the American dream thrives on it. Watching the HBO documentary “Friends of God” and reflecting on the existence of the Academy Award-nominated “Jesus Camp,” which I will see soon enough, I see there’s a large cohort of people in OUR country that resent US, with just cause because of our prejudices.

Evangelism, which is the main religious observance of the two documentaries I mentioned, is gaining momentum, and is responsible for swaying elections and putting up a fight against Darwinist morals. In “Friends of God,” there are shots of billboards with a dead Darwin fish next to a smiling Jesus fish, which reflects not only their deep dogmatic beliefs, but also their socioeconomic principles. Of course, the eastern elite of rat race winners deplores these stadium-filling televangelists who supposedly brainwash tons of people into fighting any politician with a pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage belief system. The problem remains; Democratic liberal coastal fat cats won their merits on beating the competition, while the Republican conservative Midwestern fat cats won on joining with them. Now they are taking that attitude to the lower class and winning.

The mainstream media (CNN, NBC, MTV, Internet) and Hollywood are just as vilified by this evangelical movement, which is millions strong. These aren’t just “pray, pay, and obey” Christians, they mean it. Maybe we aren’t in a Civil War like Iraqi religious groups, but holding signs outside of abortion clinics that say “Welcome to the American Holocaust” and “God sent us the cures for cancer and AIDS, but you aborted them” sends a clear message. The lines in the sand are drawn.

Hollywood is seen as a liberal, anti-establishment, polemic interest group, and if you look at the non-entertainment movies they make, they’re right. When an institution holds the cultural reins like Hollywood does, the underdog is strongly unified in fighting the tyranny. They have the passion of a repressed underdog, of people belittled and forgotten. “When you ain’t got nothin’, you’ve got nothin’ to lose” as the song goes, and they want their country back, as they keep saying at their tens of thousand large get-togethers.

Ted Haggard, who unfortunately now is fighting for his reputation because of homosexual allegations, made many good points in his interview. He said the cohesiveness of the group comes from having certain major questions answered already, for instance eternal life. “We’ve got eternal life covered, so from there we just try to make life on this planet the best we can.” Some could take that attitude and indulge themselves in hedonism, which apparently he was doing under the fa?ade of righteousness, but that’s another story. Evangelists see liberal rationalists like Hollywood, the mainstream media, and capitalist businessmen as godless heathens who promote Darwinist ideology on the rest of the country.

If you’re indifferent to human suffering, please get over yourself. Lets face it- the professional world is one of heavy Social Darwinism; only the fit survive. The money comes to those who were born with the opportunity and then made something of it and succeeded. Most of our southern rural friends weren’t exposed to that first criterion, never mind able to conquer that first hiccup and achieve suburban bliss on guts alone. New England is not a place where we’re all destined to the upper middle class, but we have our advantages, and it is usually up to the man to be a success, not the state in which he was born.

While I was watching the Oscars the other night I dozed off and thought about what I would say if I won; what would I do with so many people listening to what I was saying for that brief one-minute interval in time? I wouldn’t thank anyone, because there’d be plenty of time for that later, I’d make a speech about how the room I’m in was the most powerful room in the world, about how Hollywood controls the culture of the world, and subsequently the economics, politics, and social ethics. Maybe I’d be over exaggerating, but I wonder if that would force them, or at least inspire them, to be more responsible for their art. I’d also ask Peter O’Toole to sign my Oscar.

Growing up in New England turns one off of religion rather fast. “We’re too smart for that shit up here”, seems to be the mantra we exude. Then what do you have, pure reason? Only what you see and touch is true, and no spirituality exists beyond your drive to succeed and exceed modesty? William Blake once said, “The reasoning power of man is an incrustation [scab] over my immortal spirit.” They may be ignorant down South, but we are too. Reason may yield success in business, but it does not promote unity, which is something we’ll need if we’re going to survive as a country. Evangelists value their immortal spirits, we think they don’t exist; there’s a rift there that needs mending.

Our economic principles as a group, which stem from our devotion to capitalism, drive us apart as a group. Evangelists are bonded by their principles, and stand a much better chance because they believe in it. Spiritual beliefs that drive that group apart will always lose to those whose beliefs bring them together.

SOUL SIGHTINGS

Create personal space, then let in others

“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I’ll go eat worms”

Part Two

Last time the reflections were on moving from self centered loneliness to healing solitude. This movement is in a sense the first task in “getting one’s act together.” Equally important is moving from hostility to hospitality. Henri Nouwen in “Reaching Out” explains this transition in great detail and in a way that is much too long for now. However, perhaps his most important point is the consideration of making space for the “other.”

In today’s world the “other” is frequently the enemy. Not because they are pointing a gun at us but because we feel threatened by them or fearful of them. Our every day world is filled with people we perceive to be a threat. One area is found in the competitiveness of our world. We feel threatened in sports, academic work, job searches, even in activities that are supposed to be recreation. An example is the TV program Survivor, a very unrealistic portrayal of how to survive without the amenities of civilization. Here the individual is the center of everything and winning money is the ultimate goal. Even the limited community that happens is built around winning. In such an atmosphere there is no room for the “other” since the “other” is the enemy. In politics, religion, and other areas the competition is “us” against “them.” We are seeking to dehumanize the “other” without understanding them so we may justify our treatment of them as objects. Such an attitude generates anger, hostility and fear as there is no place for the “other” to be.

Our creation of a space where the other can be without fear is a sign of our beginning to enter into mature relationships. This, however, cannot be done unless we recognize our own fears and hostilities. In many instances we have allowed our judgments, biases and discriminations to become the criteria for relationships with “others.” We don’t like the clothes they wear, the language they speak, their ethnic group, their politics or their religion. Because of this we do not have the ability to create a space where they can feel comfortable enough to tell their story. The story of their joys and hopes, fears and sorrows. Everyone wants, and in a sense needs, someone to listen to them. This is so strong that a whole profession of professional listeners has grown up in our society. We seem to have lost the ability to listen to the “other” without judgment. Without this kind of listening there is no way we can become the host of hospitable space.

To create a safe space we need to accept our own aloneness and let go of our need to control and dominate, whether this is in the area of politics, religion or personal relationships. The judgments, biases and discriminations that fill our mind and cloud our perception must also cease to be a part of our lives. Only when we are empty of our self-centeredness will we be able to truly create a safe and hospitable space for the “other.”