For my Religion and Foreign Policy Class I'm reading some sermons (in addition to a few hundred pages of other things each week for this class alone*) from the late 18th Century. So far:

Street, Nicholas: "The American States Acting Over the Part of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness"
Stiles, Ezra: "The United States Elevated to Glory and Honour"
Langdon, Samuel: "The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States"

These sermons show how deeply many early Americans (I know) looked to the formation of this country as the continuing fulfillment of biblical prophecy for Israel. I get that and appreciate the education. What I really want to know is how much people believe this today, and who these people are. How much do people believe in God's guiding hand on the United States toward a saved Israel and world? How many believe that this country, its history, and future are prophetic?

I'll find some gems later and share them.

For now, lots of water and sleep should come. Sunday morning is the run up East Rock. Forecast is for 29 degrees, no precipitation, which should make for lovely race weather.

*ack

Updates

Posts with anything substantial or substantive to say will have to come later. Sorry, dear six loyal readers. I'm overtaken by reading right now and have little time to write more than my assignments for classes. (I also have two copies of The Sun, one copy of Poetry, and most of the recent Sunday NY Times waiting, waiting for me to get to them. I should give up and just read comics on the side.)

Class schedule, as it stands:

American Pragmatism and Religion - Andre Willis
Religion and Foreign Policy in the United States* - Walter Mead
Religion in Politics in Black Communities - Emilie Townes
Introduction to Pastoral Care - Kristen Leslie

*I have to get final approval to take this downtown class.

Talk to you soon.

Religion in politics?!

Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer for the nation and for Barack Obama is available in text form at Episcopal Cafe.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

Classes are rolling, schedule is almost set, more later.

Excellent

Ack again!

Remember to exhale on the side that cramps.

I've signed up for the Run for Refugees, a 5k on Feb. 1. I'd like to race this one, and will do all that I can to get faster again in three weeks. I upped my mileage by 1.5 miles while in Florida, pretty spontaneously. It was harder there because of the heat. As much as I dislike thinking of staying in cold climates, it's easier to run in the cold than in the heat (for me).

Run for Refugees benefits Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, a Connecticut-focused organization working to help immigrants and other displaced folks.

In related news, I got new shoes. New Balance 903s in size 8.5. Yes, they are a half-size smaller than the Brooks Defyances, which I had been using since the 20k (yes, that's probably bad, too). The new Defyances did not feel right, like they were squeezing my heels more. These are very light shoes (probably around 8.5 ounces).

Every time I get light, low (no) - stability shoes I love them. They might not last as long, but if I get better runs out of them, then I think they're worth it. I got them from Naples On the Run, where I also bought my running shoes for track when I was in high school.

Remember to exhale on the side that cramps.

"Hell is other people."

I don't have the play in front of me, but I believe it's Garcin who says that line ("l'enfer, c'est les autres") in Sartre's No Exit.

Cute or not, it's a quotation often thrown around, easily thought to be simple misanthropy.

But, Sartre adds:

But [the phrase] 'l'enfer, c'est les autres', has always been misunderstood. It has been believe that I wanted to say thereby that our relations with others were always poisoned, and that they were always hellish relations. But I wanted to say something else. I want to say that if our relations with the Other are twisted, tortuous, then the other can only be hell. Why? Because others are what in the final analysis is the most important in ourselves for our understanding of ourselves. When we think of ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, at the bottom we use this knowledge that others already have of us. We judge ourselves with the means that others have, and which they have given us to judge ourselves. Whatever I say about myself, the judgment of the Other is already included therein. Which means that if my relations are bad, I become totally dependent on the other. And then effectively I am in hell. And there are vast numbers of people in the world who are in hell because they depend too much on others' judgment. But this does not mean at all that one cannot have different relations with others. It is only a measure of the capital importance of all others for each one of us. (Sartre: Un theatre de situations)

That's nice and twisty. I'm deciding how much I agree.

Clayton Morgareidge writes a bit about this:

Recognition is not just an individual need, it’s a mutual need. It’s impossible to receive it without giving it...

[read that so I don't have to messily quote too much of his commentary]

Unfortunately, as we grow up in this world we encounter shriveled and unsatisfying forms of recognition that leave us always hungry for more... [in these forms] Individuals are recognized according to their power, and communication is reduced to negotiation: I recognize you only enough to get out of you what I want. You are nothing but an instrument of my wishes. But if that’s what you are, then your recognition of me is nothing to me. In a world where most of our encounters with each other are instrumental, we are rarely recognized as individuals... The result is a deep insecurity, a sense of not existing, and of not really being present in the world. If I exist, as Sartre says, in the gaze of the other, then if others fail to see me, I fail to exist. R.D. Laing called this state of mind “ontological insecurity”.

How much does this work? I've missed a few of Prof. Morgareidge's foundational assumptions to make this true to me. It's easy to feel that you exist or matter regardless of your relationship with others. Sometimes we count on our ability to do this. Even more, community may be anathema to some.