My first day back home

So yesterday i got some unpacking & laundry done. I deleted the 7,273 spam messages (keeping 297 which I will try to read and answer real-soon-now). ocean_song and I went out to lunch to our favorite local diner.

Then I headed off to a Vanir party thrown by the Umbanda House and Hrafnar. It was supposed to start at 4pm. Unfortunately, it started more like 5pm so I didn't have much time before I would need to leave to get to my interfaith meeting. *sigh* I *really* don't get Pagan Standard Time... I have way too many planets in Capricorn to be anything but timely myself. Nonetheless, I had a lovely visit with pearlshadow and collected hugs from various friends. I went out briefly for Freya but after She left me I had trouble breathing. I had forgotten how many cats Greyhaven is home to. I hadn't even thought about it. I was whisked away by a couple of solicitous guardians who made sure I used my inhaler and got properly grounded.

By then I had to head off to the Bridge Meeting. We're working on our pre-Parliament events (to give people an idea of why one might want to attend the Parliament of the World's Religions in Barcelona next year). We made good progress on our workshop design for the July 20 event in Berkeley. (If you are local and interested, more info is one our web page at http://www.uribridgecc.org/ - we plan at least two other events around the Bay between now and next year.) We are trying to model "a day at the Parliament" for folks to give them a taste of interfaith encounter. We decided our theme for this first event will be water since water and sustainability will probably be one of the Parliament themes. Unfortunately, my jet lag started catching up with me and I left at about 8pm to be sure I could handle the hour drive home. *sigh* I've been home one day and already made one ritual event and one meeting. I'm not sure this is a good sign!

thoughts on Jubilee (and debt relief)

Bill, one of my Bridge colleagues, is very involved in the Jubilee Debt Relief effort (http://www.jubileeusa.org/). This elderly Lutheran minister (retired, I think) goes and protests at WTO events and otherwise works and lectures *very* hard on behalf of debt relief. I have always been aware of the crushing burden of debt and the problems it entails worldwide and have written letters and such for various secular activist groups, but I have always steered away from the Jubilee 2000 and its successor groups because I never knew the origin of "Jubilee". To me the word is associated with tent revival meetings and fundy Christian groups.

Bill was talking about bringing Jubilee into an interfaith context and I just had to ask what "Jubilee" meant to him and how he thought they could enlist other religions on that banner. He told me about the passage in Leviticus where the Jubilee year is set forth. (A discussion of same can be found at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08534a.htm) Every 50 years the land is allowed to lie fallow, the reversion of land to original owners and the freeing of debt slaves is enjoined. Now they are looking for analogous forgiveness of debt scriptures from other religions to try and broaden their appeal. And in the meantime many Christian and Jewish congregations have become "Jubilee Congregations" and are doing lots of activism. Wow. I'm very impressed. But to be such a congregation you have to agree to four pledges and the first is "Pray for Jubilee justice for the world’s poorest communities". I don't know. That word still has *such* negative connotations for me! I had trouble with the Jewish "Jubillennium" peace movement for the same reason. I didn't sign the Jubillennium Manifesto. I just couldn't.

But I didn't know what the word meant then. I obviously need to readjust my definitions. These folks are doing incredibly important work and one of the things I appreciate about the interfaith movement is that is really is about people working together to make the world a better place. Changing the structures that keep people down is an incredibly important part of ameliorating suffering and bringing about a world based on justice, respect and peace.

I remember learning (last year when I was on the Isle of Jersey researching my Hamptonne and Poindexter ancestors) that in the 1600's one had to be a Viscount in order to own a dovecote. This gave control an important bit of food production... a dovecote provided meat all year round. The laws were written, then as now, to give control of resources to the rich and powerful. The way the burden of paying interest on debt and the strictures of the World Bank and IMF that commoditize Third World economies are just the same blatant seizing of control for the benefit of the few rather than the many. I am happy to be living in a time when a large number of people are trying to change the way we think about economics, about the worth of people and about how to change things for the better. I just wish I didn't fear the time is too short and the inequities too great. But I have always been a Meliorist and I am too set in my ways to change now. *wry grin*

Double speak is alive and well

I admit that I'm incredibly far behind on the news of the world... just reading the Guardian or the Telegraph just doesn't match the usual news overload I usually have. *wry grin* I am just now finding out that Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent in Norway's parliament nominated President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, praising them for winning the war in Iraq. I doubt Nobel Committee will concur with Mr. Simsonsen's viewpoint, but I did go sign the petition.

Reject Nomination of Bush and Blair for Nobel Prize
http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/302184339

The Chap

Last Friday as sbisson and marypcb and I were strolling along Fulham Road or some such place, awaiting the opening of Underworld, we came across a row of shops which seemed to be upscale second hand stores (at any rate their windows featured shining black top hats interspersed with leather hat cases, smoking jackets and other satorial items associated with a certain civility. And in amongst these displays were issues of a magazine called, "The Chap" which kept us in gales reading the headlines and quotes on the covers. I had to whip out my PDA and write down this particular phrase to bring home to a friend, "The sword of civility and the shield of exquisite tailoring". *chortle*

When conveying this scene to him this morning I was moved to find out if The Chap has a website... http://www.thechapmagazine.com. The pipe isn't the only thing here that makes me think of the Church of the SubGenius. I really hope this is a hilarious send-up and not a sincere reflection on British gentlemen. I'm a little sorry I didn't pop in and see about procuring a copy. Who could resist "Arthur Masonik's philosophical musings in the areas of grooming and wooing" or reading about "splendid fellows of history" and the rest of this "vast treasure trove of information to help you survive in a hostile age of consumate vulgarity".