A matter of time: autumn 2014

 Hi Katalusis friends,

This little tree is always the first in our back yard to flaunt red leaves (9/23/14).

The autumnal equinox a couple of days ago reminded me of this piece that I first posted in September 2007:


Up here in the northern hemisphere, we’ll mark the autumnal equinox this Sunday when the sun heads south across the celestial equator, and the hours of daylight and darkness become nearly equal.


My son Steve is coming for dinner this evening (his wife Nancy is out of town), and the already shorter days and cooler nights demand a pot of spicy chili, salad greens, and fresh-baked apple pie.


Good smells from the kitchen distract me from my work as I sit here at my computer. And I’m thinking if I get time, I’ll run out and get a chunk of cheese and some wine to add to our feast. Wait a minute, I remind myself, I’m in charge here, and my computer can nap until I get back.


I pull out of the parking garage into an early fall afternoon with temps in the low 70s, blue skies, and blinding sunlight. A few trees flaunt newly dyed yellow leaves from among the still mostly green groves along my route.


The supermarket is busy but in no time at all I’ve paid for my cheese and dashed to the neighborhood liquor store for a bottle of red wine. I then stop by the library to return a couple of books I borrowed before the season shifted on Labor Day from the more relaxed pace of summer to the early signs of autumn when kids return to school, Unitarian-Universalists return to church, and Congress returns to Washington.


“The ticking of the clock is the normal measure of experience,” James Carroll reminded us at the beginning of this too rapidly waning year. He said, “You usually move through this sequencing, the way a fish moves through water, unaware of the realm in which you have your being.”


But there’s a difference between the fish and us, Carroll continued: “You can notice the water. Your water is time, but noticing the water is how you swim. The future and the past exist only in your minds, but that does not mean they are not real…we are bodies moving through the world, but our real movement is through the temporal stream of consciousness.”


Mindfulness meditation has taught me how to slow time down as I move though my own temporal stream of consciousness. From the writings of Jon Kabbat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh, I’ve learned to navigate through memories of the past and make imaginative forays into the future while relying on my breathing to anchor me in this present moment.


Slowing time down is no small achievement for one conditioned by the demands of journalism to continually hustle to meet the next deadline. But on this day, I’ve mindfully arranged the bouquet of flowers I picked up at the supermarket, set out the wine glasses, and stirred the chili simmering on the stove.



When all is ready, I turn on the news to catch glimpses of the war-ravaged citizens of Iraq, and I wonder how they experience their movement through time lacking even the most basic necessities of safe drinking water and electricity, while their daily life is disrupted by exploding I.E.D.s and random bursts of gunfire from American troops and/or Blackwater Security Guards.


Not surprisingly, the most recent polls show a majority of Iraqis want Americans out of there like yesterday.


I turn off the TV when the phone rings from the lobby announcing Steve’s arrival. We enjoy our dinner together in the warm atmosphere of home, reminiscing a bit here and there and in contrast to our civilian Iraqi counterparts, speaking confidently of tomorrow.


Loading the dishwasher after Steve leaves, I realize I’ve been unable to completely dispel the ugly shadow of war cast by the evening news.


You could say it’s just a matter of time, but precisely how and when this administration will find the wisdom and courage to admit its mistakes and end our occupation of Iraq is anyone’s guess. 

The “Clinton Parameters” Essential to Resolving the Latest Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In today’s op-ed on the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Boston Globe’s James Carroll carefully buries a constrained, though favorable mention of Bill Clinton and without giving Hillary the courtesy of mentioning her name, our esteemed pundit includes a brief reference to the recently named secretary of state.

Based on his prior vilification of the Clintons, one has to be surprised that Carroll is actually giving the former president credit for a positive contribution during his administration: invention of the “wheel of peace” required to resolve the latest tragic middle-east flare-up.

Carroll writes (emphasis mine):

"His {President-elect Obama’s} enlightenment can be assumed. The question is one of will. Majorities of Israelis and Palestinians understand what the solution requires; the wheel of peace is already invented. Indeed, as the writer Bernard Avishai observes, Obama's secretary of state bears the name of its most succinct summary - "the Clinton parameters." Majorities understand also that the door is fast closing on the two-state finale, which alone offers hope of long-term reconciliation. What is needed now are firm messages from Washington: Israel must cease fire, respect Palestinian rights, and keep agreements; Palestinians must halt rockets, repudiate terror, and empower moderates toward a new unity. Obama must draw the line with both.”

Throughout his op-ed, Carroll pointedly avoids giving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton any role in helping to resolve this impending crisis for the new administration. True to his infatuation with the One, Carroll gives Obama sole responsibility for bringing the matter to a successful close.

A little background here on my feelings about Carroll:

Carroll was tops on my list of preferred pundits prior to the Democratic primary and its subsequent rigged convention. I knew from his biography, for example, that he lectures on Jewish-Christian reconciliation, on Catholic reform, and on the question of war and peace, and that he participates in Jewish-Christian-Muslim encounters at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. I had long enjoyed reading his columns, a few of which I thought were exquisitely written.

Carroll was among several columnists I considered to be trustworthy liberals prior to the campaign coverage of 2008. Consequently, I felt personally betrayed when Carroll joined the growing list of pundits best described as liberal except for their common streak of misogyny that revealed itself in the ongoing vilification of Hillary Clinton, America’s first viable female presidential candidate.

Carroll’s most vicious attack on both Hillary and Bill Clinton appeared in his column on Aug. 25, 2008, day one of the Democratic Convention in Denver. It’s hard to choose from his egregious comments to illustrate my point, but here’s a sample:

“It was inevitable that each Clinton be spotlighted at the convention, but the prime-time focus on Hillary on Tuesday and Bill on Wednesday, with the Hillary Clinton roll call assuring an unpredictable outburst, threatens to derail the Obama campaign before it leaves the station. The Clinton-driven political extortion that made the vice-presidential selection so tortuous is just the beginning. The November election hangs on the Clinton hangover, the die-hard alienation of so many Clinton supporters, half of whom still decline to back Obama.”

Carroll then proceeds to disparage Bill Clinton’s Administration, noted for its eight years of peace and prosperity. Among other things, Carroll blames the former president for today’s problems with Iran and Russia and a potential Cold War II. Accusing Clinton of being utterly lacking in character, Carroll also blames him for any lingering problems on the domestic front.

I didn’t bother to read Carroll’s take on how the Democratic convention actually unfolded; that is, if he bothered to write one in which even a modicum of personal honesty would have required him to note how both Clintons went overboard in their support of Obama and brought the house down during their separate appearances.

Today’s op-ed proves that although he found it necessary to mention the “Clinton parameters” above, Carroll feels no remorse for his earlier smears of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and he will continue his attempts to diminish them at every opportunity.

I have a message for James Carroll: If you want to know who is “utterly lacking in character,” go take a long look in the mirror.

Sacrificial Violence in Today’s Wars

Boston Globe columnist James Carroll writes from a depth of understanding and insight unusual among practitioners of his craft. That could be due to his MA from St. Paul’s Seminary and vocational experience that includes serving as a priest and chaplain before leaving the priesthood to become a writer.

We are told in Carroll’s biography that he lectures widely on Jewish-Christian reconciliation, on Catholic reform, and on the question of war and peace. He is a regular participant in on-going Jewish-Christian-Muslim encounters at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

Carroll’s columns are not superficial, throw-away commentary on the issues of the day. Instead he probes the earliest history of the human soul to shed light on such present day phenomena as the sacrificial violence evident in all wars.

In today’s column, The Primitive Impulses of War, Carroll writes:

This form of violence, that is, amounts to a control on violence. "Redemption" is the social calm that follows on the elimination of violent urges when they are "appeased" through ritualized killing. A social need is satisfied.

Sacrificial violence (whether directed at an Aztec virgin, or the goat of Leviticus or Jesus) serves the cause of peace. This process becomes "religious" when the social need is attributed to a deity, to whom the victim is "offered."

Despite the secular assumption that such impulses belong to a primitive past, they are universally at work whenever humans go to war. This comes clear with a closer look at the event commemorated in Europe and America this week - World War I.

Yesterday, was Veterans Day in America, Nov. 11, 2007. Our ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as threatening situations in Iran and Pakistan, summon us to more than the typical moment’s reflection given on a holiday weekend.

Carroll reminds us that primitive impulses continue to influence our nation’s foreign policy:

Sacrifice for its own sake takes on mystical significance that, in a secular age, can no longer be described or defended. But it can be discerned, for example, in the anguished hope that troops will not have died in vain if others follow them. Once these subliminal currents are openly acknowledged, they can finally be left behind. In America lately, God is banished as an open sponsor of the war, but if God does not will this slaughter of innocents, who does?

Good question. Perhaps someone in the Bush Administration will step forward with the answer.

Turkey: An Endangered Bridge Between East and West

Note to Readers: The following post was written by David Brunet, a good friend and a former Fulbright Scholar in Turkey.

I lived in Turkey in 1992-93 as a Fulbright scholar, teaching at Ege University in Izmir. I’m pretty good at learning languages, so I made it a goal to learn as much Turkish as possible before and during my stay there. I was glad I tried to learn the language and although I never got to be as fluent as I had hoped, I was able to have simple conversations with grocery store clerks, shopkeepers, policemen, and others, and they were so pleased that an American wanted to have a conversation in their language.

I found the Turks to be warm and friendly, and even though they mirrored the U.S. in having a strong military, they were intensely interested in sustaining peace and strengthening cultures across the world. They valued diversity, the arts, and dialogue with other cultures.

My experience in Turkey was very positive. Despite our religious differences, I found that we shared basic values, and that in fact we worshipped the same God.

Overlooking the similarities between Islam and Christianity, President Bush labels the terrorists Islamic extremists. He forgets our Christian culture has also spawned terror: the gangs in our cities qualify as terrorists, and our use of force abroad to solve every dispute is viewed in other countries as terrorism.

James Carroll’s essay on Turkey in yesterday’s Boston Globe is right on target. The Turks have always seen us as their best allies. Long a part of European culture, they have also seen themselves as a bridge between the West and the Middle East. But as Carroll said, Bush is now creating chaos in Turkey’s immediate neighborhood.

Are the Turks our enemies? No! In my experience, Turkey responds with enthusiasm and gratitude when the U.S. and Europe show that we value their culture and their people. But Bush’s wars demonstrate to the world that we don’t value other people’s cultures. His response to a terrorist strike in the U.S. has destroyed the culture of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now he threatens to do the same in Iran.

Keep in mind that Iran has an ancient role as the cultural center of the Middle East. If we destroy that culture, we’ll alienate even more of the world’s population.

Wrapping the Earth in an Explosive Vest

In his column in Monday’s Boston Globe, James Carroll develops an ominous metaphor tied to Bush’s recent statement to world leaders that if they were interested in avoiding World War III, they ought to be interested in preventing the Iranians from obtaining the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.

Carroll calls attention to the deaths of two young suicide bombers whose plans went awry. The first changed his mind on the way to his target, but died when he accidentally detonated himself while reporting at a police station.

The second young man revealed his plans to family members. When his mother tried to remove the explosive vest from his body, the bomb went off and killed him, his mother, and three siblings.

The suicide bomber has been America’s nemesis in both Afghanistan and Iraq; Carroll says, “A seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers is what makes the American war the horror that it is.”

Carroll focuses on the extreme difficulty of removing the suicide bomber’s explosive vest without detonating it. And he compares the situation America has created in Iraq to wrapping that nation’s body in wires and plastic explosives, suggesting grim implications for a precipitous withdrawal.

Carroll concludes that Bush’s reference to World War III globalizes the explosive vest:

Iraqi civil war, conflict with Iran, Turkish-Kurdish violence, chaos throughout the Middle East - and now President Bush tells us that, if we don't defuse the regional body vest carefully, World War III will start. There it is. Bush himself acknowledging at last what, under his leadership, the United States has done. We have put an explosive vest on Earth itself.

And now our job is to get it off. The revelation here is that, in the new age, every bomber is a suicide bomber.

In my opinion, Carroll’s column is profoundly disturbing: a wake up call to the world.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

A Matter of Time

Up here in the northern hemisphere, we’ll mark the autumnal equinox this Sunday when the sun heads south across the celestial equator, and the hours of daylight and darkness become nearly equal.

My son Steve is coming for dinner this evening (his wife Nancy is out of town), and the already shorter days and cooler nights demand a pot of spicy chili, salad greens, and fresh-baked apple pie.

Good smells from the kitchen distract me from my work as I sit here at my computer. And I’m thinking if I get time, I’ll run out and get a chunk of cheese and some wine to add to our feast. Wait a minute, I remind myself, I’m in charge here, and my computer can nap until I get back.

I pull out of the parking garage into an early fall afternoon with temps in the low 70s, blue skies, and blinding sunlight. A few trees flaunt newly dyed yellow leaves from among the still mostly green groves along my route.

The supermarket is busy but in no time at all I’ve paid for my cheese and dashed to the neighborhood liquor store for a bottle of red wine. I then stop by the library to return a couple of books I borrowed before the season shifted on Labor Day from the more relaxed pace of summer to the early signs of autumn when kids return to school, Unitarian-Universalists return to church, and Congress returns to Washington.

“The ticking of the clock is the normal measure of experience,” James Carroll reminded us at the beginning of this too rapidly waning year. He said, “You usually move through this sequencing, the way a fish moves through water, unaware of the realm in which you have your being.”

But there’s a difference between the fish and us, Carroll continued: “You can notice the water. Your water is time, but noticing the water is how you swim. The future and the past exist only in your minds, but that does not mean they are not real…we are bodies moving through the world, but our real movement is through the temporal stream of consciousness.”

Mindfulness meditation has taught me how to slow time down as I move though my own temporal stream of consciousness. From the writings of Jon Kabbat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh, I’ve learned to navigate through memories of the past and make imaginative forays into the future while relying on my breathing to anchor me in this present moment.

Slowing time down is no small achievement for one conditioned by the demands of journalism to continually hustle to meet the next deadline. But on this day, I’ve mindfully arranged the bouquet of flowers I picked up at the supermarket, set out the wine glasses, and stirred the chili simmering on the stove.

When all is ready, I turn on the news to catch glimpses of the war-ravaged citizens of Iraq, and I wonder how they experience their movement through time lacking even the most basic necessities of safe drinking water and electricity, while their daily life is disrupted by exploding I.E.D.s and random bursts of gunfire from American troops and/or Blackwater Security Guards.

Not surprisingly, the most recent polls show a majority of Iraqis want Americans out of there like yesterday.

I turn off the TV when the phone rings from the lobby announcing Steve’s arrival. We enjoy our dinner together in the warm atmosphere of home, reminiscing a bit here and there and in contrast to our civilian Iraqi counterparts, speaking confidently of tomorrow.

Loading the dishwasher after Steve leaves, I realize I’ve been unable to completely dispel the ugly shadow of war cast by the evening news.

You could say it’s just a matter of time, but precisely how and when this administration will find the wisdom and courage to admit its mistakes and end our occupation of Iraq is anyone’s guess.