More "Christian" work

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806227.htm?section=world

Their "Saviour" is no doubt, as they say, "spinning in his grave" or just angry up there sitting on the right hand of his Father

How violence begets violence

I have just read a disturbing article in this Sunday NY Times magazin The Jihadist Next Door, about the son of a Syrian immigrant, Omar Hammami, who went from normal American life (such as it is, he was raised as a Southern Baptist and Muslim at the same time!) in Alabama, to being a violent jihadist in Somali.

As a young idealist high school and college student he began a process of finding his spiritual niche, at first somewhat of a militant some time after 9/11 when he is quoted as saying:

Soon after, the hijackers struck on 9/11, and local reporters began calling Hammami for comment. Publicly, he struck a measured tone, telling the school paper, “It’s difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this.”But he was caught off guard by the attacks and felt insufficiently knowledgeable about Islam, friends recalled.

but then he got involved with the American Salafi movement and became more involved with Islam meeting a convert named Sylvester. This branch of the Salafi were not violent:

Several of Sylvester’s students said in interviews that he subscribed to a nonviolent school, one that represented the majority of American Salafis. They tend to believe that Muslims should remain politically disengaged and take up arms only when called to duty in a Muslim-governed country; anything else represents rebellion against the government, which violates Islamic law.

But he struggled with finding his identity and at one time embraced some militant thinking, and then with further study of Islam,

Hammami soon began denouncing the militant Islamists he once defended. He came to believe that Muslims were suffering because they had lost their religion, Culveyhouse and Stewart recall. The solution, Hammami now argued, was not to take up arms but to engage in a spiritual jihad, practicing the faith with greater devotion.

He ended up leaving home and moving to Toronto and marrying a Somali immigrant. It was in the Muslim community in Canada that his radicalization began:

Over the next few months, Hammami became consumed with events in Iraq and Afghanistan. He began subscribing to conspiracy theories about 9/11, Dena and Culveyhouse recall. He soon found himself rethinking his nonmilitant Salafi stance.

“I was finding it difficult to reconcile between having Americans attacking my brothers, at home and abroad, while I was supposed to remain completely neutral, without getting involved,” he wrote in the December e-mail message responding to questions posed to him through an intermediary.

There is the crux of my post: think of how these young men all over the world including those raised in our own country would not have embraced the violent Jihad if we had not attacked Iraq or Afghanistan. This fellow, the doctor at Fort Hood, the underwear bomber, and many many more men, may have found the peaceful path of Islam and stayed there were it not for our "Christian" just wars.....

Alive at 60 years of age!

Well today is my 60th birthday, decided to take the day off and enjoy myself, but as usual I am unable to sleep much later than when I usually get up for work.

I never expected to get here, to be frank, because of my chronic leukemia, but thanks to some great pharmaceutical products, albeit very expensive, here I am.

Am reading a book about health care technology and high costs, Taming the Beloved Beast, by Dan Callahan (http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9016.pdf) , and am wondering, given the need to curb Medicare costs, whether I will be able to afford those same meds should I make it to retirement age........it's not up to me, but my Higher Power...I am going to continue to live life one day at a time...and enjoy each day the Sun shines somewhere.

Hey I always wanted to grow old gracefully, but I didn't grow up gracefully nor did I handle middle age too well, so the odds are I may not be the peaceful Quaker curmudgeon I want to be, but I will certainly try. Need to learn to let my arrogance and anger go and continue to spend some time each day in prayer and meditation.

I am trying to deal with my anger re: the inability of the Obama administration to get meaningful health care reform passed, not health insurance reform, and then the escalation of Vietnamistan...

Peace to you all, Wayne

PS Bah humbug, I detest the commercialization of the pagan solstice holiday, stolen by "Christians" to perpetuate their divine birth myth....

Religious objection to childhood vaccines

Some Quaker friends recently posted on Facebook that they have refused some (maybe all?) vaccines recommended for their children on the basis of religious exemption. This got my righteous anger up. Disclaimer here, I am a retired pediatrician, and a member of the medical establishment.

When I was in practice I had a few parents who refused vaccines despite my careful explanation of the benefits and risks. One that I distinctly remember was an Hassidic Jewish mother who claimed, although there was no basis for vaccine refusal in their doctrine, that a rabbi had advised her to follow her conscience on this. I thought this odd, but at least she claimed to have pursued some discernment for what she claimed had felt was God's will for her children.

There is certainly nothing in the rudimentary doctrine of Friends that supports not vaccinating our children. Medical care is a gift from our Creator, improving and saving lives. Picking and choosing which medical care to help their children seems not to be based on true spiritual discernment. I think rather my friends have gotten caught up in the Internet-enabled anti-vaccine movement. I asked them to seek true discernment and accused them of being less than truthful.

Another issue with vaccine refusal is the jeopardizing of others health. Vaccines are a public health concept. We get vaccinated to protect ourselves and others. When particularly susceptible children who do not have protection against a particular illness either because of age, underlying illness (AIDS, cancer) or lack of efficacy of their own vaccine (none are perfect) catch something from the unvaccinated, well that is just wrong. When we protect our own children we help others as well.

Although claiming a religious exemption might have legal grounds, I am not clear that it has moral grounds.

Who would Jesus vaccinate?

My first post since started this blog again

I had deleted the prior blog, titled Friendly Curmudgeon because I thought I had drifted from a focus on spiritual aspects of my life, with way too many political rants, and ravings about health care issues (I am a former pediatrician who now works in online medical education).

I missed putting my spiritual thoughts and insights online though, so on the way home from Meeting this First Day I decided to start it up again.

Today's thought: at Meeting a F(f)riend shared about the movie Oh God! starrign George Burns. When asked why there was so much suffering and pain in the world, "God" answered something like well I made you in my image with the intelligence to stop the suffering. I had been thinking about the sufferng imposed on humans by natural disasters, and praying for people in the Gulf, with hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans. OK I thought suffering imposed by humans not being close to God, like war, domination by one country over another, but natural disasters why does God let us suffer? And after my friend shared, I realized that human intellegence can lessen the suffering from natural disasters. With advances in technology and science, God-given, we can predict the path of a hurricane and move people out of harm's way, at least this time. And we made levees instead of war (play on 60s Make love not war) we could even lessen the effect even more. Thank God for our evolved intelligence! Let us pray we continue to use it, and evoke nuclear disarmament, etc etc etc