Giving thanks: classic American gluttony or sacred ritual?

On this beautiful Thanksgiving morn, amid family visitors, bustling food preparation, classic Tday television I can't help but reflect on the true meaning of this day. Many might say that the only legitimate prayer is one of thanks and gratitude; prayers of petition for example always confuse me - if we are to do the will of our supreme being where do we come off asking for another outcome....But even those in a state of misery can give thanks, there is always some thing to be thankful for, if only for the day...

At any rate I love the way "thank you" is said in other languages: merci, danke schön, gracias, and many more. My favorite is the Lakota "pilamaya". We humans have much to be thankful for and many errors to correct - here I am thinking of how we have screwed up our planet, but today I am thankful we still have a planet...

Yesterday when I was grabbing some last minute groceries at the Shop Wrong along with throngs of obese/overweight others filling cartloads of crappy processed food the word GLUTTONY came to mind. Abhorrent in light of pockets of famine worldwide. But my family will cook our organic free range turkey with all sides prepared from equally organic veggies and breads (not to mention gravy made with an imported beer first brewed in the 13th century at a European monastery), not our batch, though..) are only different by degree...snobbish foodies perhaps but all yearning for taste and that ense of fullness.

But breaking bread with family annd friends is a sacred act...in many religions, many social settings. As this excerpt from  a Catholic blog states:

"Sharing a meal: That’s how so many people of faith know and experience God. It has been that way for thousands of years. We come together as people of faith and we tell stories and recall history; we ritualize and make sacred our food and drink. We make a meal the fullest and most eloquent encounter with Divinity. We feast on, and are nourished by, God’s love. There doesn’t have to be a lot of theology around it. The philosophical constructs and intellectual categories used to explain how a meal can be holy are almost pointless. For most of us, it is crystal clear. All one needs to do is watch a young couple in love sharing a romantic dinner, or see an elderly couple gaze at each other across the table at their anniversary and you will know you are on holy ground. Observe a family enjoying a child’s birthday celebration at a local pizza parlor; hear the laughter and see the smiles and you sense something good, something spiritual about it all. More often than we realize, our meals are encounters with God. The act of eating and sustaining our bodies cannot be separated from our spirits. The biblical authors knew this well and constantly remind us that our meals are spiritual. Our food and drink have consequences."

All our meals are spiritual...indeed with the correct perspective all our life is sacred. This feeling of spiritual rightness is multiplied manifold when more of us gather together for a holiday meal.

Occupy your (higher) Self. 100 %.

Occupy your heart.
Occupy the place where everything is connected.
Occupy your own rhythm.
Occupy compassion.
Occupy your creativity.
Occupy whatever is in front of you RIGHT NOW.

Occupy your feelings.
Occupy stillness.
Occupy the truth that you are good enough.
Occupy your physical body.
Occupy uncertainty.
Occupy the space in which you are never alone.

Occupy grace.

Occupy your OWN energy.
Occupy all points of view.
Occupy your intentions.
Occupy what makes you feel most alive.
Occupy your inner knowing.
Occupy a raindrop.

Occupy your dreams.
Occupy acceptance.
Occupy what needs to be said
Occupy sound and light and color and space.
Occupy a sense of purpose.
Occupy kindness.

(breathe now)
Occupy your breath.
Occupy this inhale.
Occupy this exhale.
(breathe now)

Occupy the space you are most afraid to occupy.
Occupy gentleness.
Occupy your relationships.
Occupy the ether and the deep ground.
Occupy your truth.
Occupy change.

Occupy your deepest passion.
Occupy forgiveness.
Occupy the divinity of all living things.
Occupy your word.
Occupy the unknown.
Occupy your readiness to heal.

Occupy silence.

Occupy whatever is downstream.
Occupy tranquility.
Occupy the understanding that there is always enough.
Occupy timelessness.
Occupy your power.
Occupy your seat on your journey Home.

Occupy the mind that recognizes these words.
Occupy the eyes that sees this grand vision.
Occupy the ears that hear this possibility
Occupy the mouth that speaks only light.
Occupy the hands that long to share.

Occupy the You that lives to love.

Occupy the moment.
Occupy gratitude.
Occupy joy.
Occupy your fear and transform it into love.
Occupy. The beat. Of Your. Wild heart.
Occupy NOW.

Occupy your (higher) Self. 100 %.

---- Peggy Fitzsimmons

(transcribed from the video posted at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/30/occupy-your-higher-self-video_n_1176664.html)

Should good pacifists (Friends) be fans of pro football and hockey?

Fellow members of the peace churches, I am in  a quandary. I love to watch professional football (American) and ice hockey.  But both sports have their violent tendencies whereby it is considered good form to tackle a football player carrying or catching the ball as hard as one can (hoping to dislodge the ball, perchance to knock them out of the game?) or smash a hockey player with the puck up against the boards to try to wrest the puck away.  Multiple concussions seem to be happening more and more even though the leagues have instituted many new rules. In football players are watched more closely if they suffer a first concussion, but there is evidence that many players hide their concussions so they can keep playing.  Multiple concussions close together can be fatal and over time the syndrome of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which leads to a dementia state not that different from Alzheimers. Recently there have been lawsuits by formal NFL players against the league for allegedly hiding and/or ignoring evidence for CTE.

As for hockey, in addition to the inherent violence in the sport with speedy heavy players skating on ice and slapping hard rubber pucks at the goal and each other, there is fighting. Not allowed in collegiate or international/Olympic hockey, but very big in junior and minor league hockey as well as the NHL (major league).  A recent series in the NY Times highlighted the story of Derek Boogaard, a hockey enforcer, who sustained multiple concussions over six NHL seasons and many junior and minor league seasons as well. He died of an overdose but was showing clear signs of an encephalopathy along with his addiction. His brain at autopsy showed clear evidence of CTE.

To glorify violence and be a non-violent person who abhors all war is quite philosophically inconsistent. I love pro sports perhaps because I am still a boy at heart, I don't know....but I am having to seek clearness on this for myself.

But the fighting is too much. These sports are dangerous enough. I say maybe fans should boycott NHL until they outlaw fighting and continue to call for good referee calls of excessive force in the NFL.

Wall Street protestors have a great role model....

Mitakuye Oyasin

I just watched a recent 20-20 show on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where I spent two years in the late 70s. The show was about the children, their dreams, the poverty and alcoholism. Moving to say the least. The land is hauntingly beautiful as are the people and their views of the Earth, the Great Spirit (Wakan Tanka), and the sharing of wealth....not all of this was covered in the story...the story brought back my memories.

Here is the link to the ABC news, you may need to do some clicking around because it will no doubt move on the site...

I had some moving spiritual experiences during my times at Pine Ridge, and read several great novels that make me wish us white men (wasicuns) had tried to listen to our Native American brethern before we took their land, commited mass genocide and even worse abuse Mother Earth in our incessant industrial evolution. The books were The Wolf at Twilight by Kent Nerburn and Black Hills by Dan Simmons.

and this TV show brought it all back ..

Mitakuye oyasin is Lakota. It means "All My Relations." It is a prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life. Hard to disagree with that

Health care reform per Robin Cook

I practiced pediatrics in several settings including government, HMO and private practice for over 20 years. In my semi-retirement forced on me primarily by my personal medical situation, and as an extreme liberal, I found this short (relatively) diatribe on the current state of the US health care nonsystem to be, quite frankly, RIGHT ON!

In his most recent novel, Cure, the prolific medical thriller writer, Robin Cook, had this to say about a doctor who got into legal trouble because of his greed:

"The fatal flaw of greed evidencing itself in an individual who most likely started out with an altruistic desire to help people, just like ninety-nine percent of other medical students."

"It's the unfortunate marriage of medicine and business. In the mid-twentieth century you could do well in medicine, but you really couldn't become truly wealthy. All that changed when medicine in this country did not emerge as a responsibility of government, like education or defense, as it did in most every other industrialized country. Add to that the US government inadvertantly contributing to medical inflation by passing Medicare without effective cost controls, by generously subsidizing biomedical research without maintaining ownership of the resulting discoveries for the American public. and by its patent office awarding medical process patents life for human gene sequences, which it is not supposed to do by law. I tell you, the medical patent situation in this country is a total mess, which is already starting to haunt the biomedical industry, but that is another issue."

"Unfortunately today if a doctor wants to become truly wealthy, and a lot of them do, it is reasonably within their grasp by choosing the right specialty, getting involved in the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance industry, the specialty-hospital industry, or the biotech industry. All these industries say they exist to help people, which they can, but it is more of a byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to make money, and do they ever."

".....most if not all medical students are altruistic to begin with , but they are also competitive. They have to be, to get into the best college, to get into medical school, and to do the best to get the most coveted residencies to get into the best medical specialty, meaning, most likely, the one that pays the most so they can pay down their student loans the fastest. What they don't realize is that the profession in this country has drastically changed over the years, mostly because of economics."

Note: when the discussant was asked if health care reform legislation could fix this problem, the good doctor replied:

"In a generous moment, I might say it is a start At its core there is the goal of some sense of social equality in regard to medical care as a resource and a responsibility of government. But in this country medical care is a competitive stakeholder industry, and the new legislation does not change that; it just resorts the relative power of the stakeholders. I'm afraid the ultimate effect is going to be more pressure for costs to rise, since, like Medicare, there are not enough spcific cost controls."

None of this is new, much of it reflects the views of many medical economists (Ewe Reinhardt and Paul Krugman) and curmudgeonly docs like Arnold Relman, Marcia Angell, and John Abramson (to name but a few). But it is an interesting way for a fiction writer like 'Robin Cook (himself a trained MD) to work in some economic/political analysis into a story.

Why are some Friend so unable to forgive?

So unable to listen to people who care about them?

I am upset because I got in a war of posts with a Friend who I thought was a friend, about 10 months ago. It was over a decision by he and his wife not to have their children immunized against swine flu. I took exception to his claim that he was invoking a religious exemption.

Here is one email I sent:

Dear M*****

I am sorry for my nasty words yesterday. I let my anger get the better of me, and must admit a bit of ego got in the way as in how dare you question my expertise, as well as that of the medical establishment in general . I don't want to lose our friendship over this.

But I am still quite worried about your children and would beg you to reconsider your stance on these vaccines. Have you refused other vaccines. I pray not, some are truly lifesaving. And then there is the issue of unvaccinated children passing their infections on to other children. Remember we vaccinate all children to protect one another. This is public health basics, so please know it is not just your children a shot protects. What it the proper Christian approach to this opportunity to help one another? And would you feel bad if your child say got chicken pox and gave them to a child who for some reason was more susceptible (no vaccines are perfectly effective) and got a fatal superinfection? What about whooping cough, babies die, do you want one of your friend's young children to get it from yours?

And from a larger perspective, Glanz says the findings also show "that the decision to refuse immunizations could have important ramifications for the health of the entire community. Based on our analysis, we found that 1 in 10 additional whooping cough infections could have been prevented by immunization"

But finally I want to point out the lack of truth in claiming a religious objection to having your child vaccinated. I know there is no doctrine on this in either the Catholic or Quaker faiths. (not much doctrine at all for us Quakers, LOL). Saying your dialog with God led you to this decision should undergo discernment with a priest and in a Quaker clearness gathering. Have you done that. If you say your faith in God is so strong you do not need vaccines, I have to ask you why go to a doctor at all?I cannot see picking and choosing to which aspects of medical care to let your children have is based on true spiritual guidance. Bottom line, this claiming of religious objection has the loud ring of untruth about it

Again, all my passion on this is a true concern for your children's health....

never heard back from him. Sent this when I was not given access to a blog this person runs:

M*****

I tried to join a few months ago and did not receive notification. I can only hope I am not being excluded because of our disagreement over your decision to not immunize your children. That would not be in keeping with open dialog in Quaker tradition. Nor I might add in the spirit of eldering....I hope if you have control over who gets in this web site you will forgive me my anger....and allow me to join the conversation. Let's bury the verbal hatchets so to speak

Peace, Wayne

and then I tried once again to join and was SUSPENDED, allowed no access to even view posts. Unbelievable, no attempt to even dialog with me. I tried to apologize but no forgiveness. See my rejection:



Then I got sneaky. Tried to sign up under a fake name, using a different email account and a different browser. Here is the response I got: