The Rule of Law, No More As the American public reels in the face of the many trials of Donald Trump, delayed again and again by rules only a lawyer could ever know, we are consoled again and again by the analysts who assure us that this only proves that we are a nation wherein the rule of law is supreme and applied equally to all. Baffled though we may be, we Americans want to believe that in drafting the Constitution, the “Founding Fathers” exhibited unparalled wisdom in creating the bedrock of our society, our law and our democracy. The problem they could not anticipate, and therefore could ..read more

Protest Update Last week, across the CT River in Vermont, Middlebury College the institution and Middlebury College the student body came together to dismantle an encampment and agree to a common statement denouncing the Gaza violence. Dialogue works. Back here at Dartmouth, the negative consequences of the use of force have been compounded. Those arrested are out on bail, a condition of which prohibits them from being on the Green, the center of campus. Nine of the arrested are Native Americans, and today, a Native Powwow, second largest in the country, that was scheduled to be held on the Gr ..read more

Protest In the academic comfort of a library study alcove, I look out over the central green at Dartmouth College, where one week ago storm troopers in full riot gear  armed with batons moved across this space in the eerie hours of post dusk darkness, forcefully breaking up a small, peaceful gathering of students and faculty supporters and tearing down a 6 tent encampment prohibited by college rules. An armored vehicle was standing by, if needed by the troops.Today, as students study in library halls, they sit by signs they have made, calling for peace in Palestine and changes in both Col ..read more

A Visit to a Mega Church For the first time in my life I decided it was time to find out firsthand what the mega church experience was all about. That’s mega, not maga. I half expected that the two might have merged into one, but was pleasantly surprised that politics was not mentioned at all. The closest was a banner that included the phrase “Thank God we live in America”, and one man out of 1000 who had on a T-shirt that told us about how he “stood for the anthem and knelt for the cross”. Yes, there were perhaps 1000 people in attendance. The auditorium was divided into seats on the ground f ..read more

Patriarchy probably started about 12,000 years ago. If you google the word, there’s a good chance that you will be more confused than before you started. More knowledgable, but less certain. There’s the psychological dimension. And the sociological, the historical, the evolutionary, the political, and the list goes on. So when we say it started 12,000 years ago, that’s something of a choice, a decision, an admission of prejudice, but it seems to make sense.  Agriculture, the planting of seed in a cultivated field, apparently began about 10,000 BCE. Prior to then, homo sapiens hunted and g ..read more

Dei providentia et hominum confusione [In the providence of God and the confusion of humankind], this year Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fall on the same day. There is no obvious connection for the simultaneity, except perhaps the dichotomy that we are mortal, but love is eternal.  If one searches the origin and history of Valentine’s Day, one finds clouds and legends mixed with a bit of history. According to one account, the day [Feb 15] has its origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, what we today would call a fertilty rite. In the fifth century, Pope Gelasius I and his church ..read more

In about three weeks, spring will have arrived in areas of the US, the Super Bowl will be a game of the past, folks will be recovering from Mardi Gras, and some people will have ashes on their forehead to mark the first day of a season called Lent. We can pretty much guess that the ashes symbolize mortality- ashes to ashes-, but Lent, what’s that about?  According to the gospels, when Jesus was baptized by John, he heard a voice come out of heaven affirming his mission from God, and he left John the Baptist and went into the wilderness for forty days and nights, where “the angels minister ..read more

The events of Jan 6 can be seen from both a micro and a macro perspective. At the micro level various elements combined to create mob rule with murderous intent. These include an obvious lack of adequate security, individual police who played dubious if not also conspiratorial roles, senators and congressmen who were echoing Trump’s lie about a stolen election and coordinating with the mob, and mob leaders with intent and planning to capture, try, and perhaps execute members of Congress, including Pelosi and Pence. These elements are frightening enough, but there is more. The macro perspective ..read more

Last week was about as intense as it gets. Caught between a merciless virus and the cessation of social activity, beneath the surface calm lies a persistent tension ready to erupt. The anxiety was underscored by the two main religious mythologies that drive segments of our culture, the Passover and the Crucifixion/Resurrection of Jesus. The Passover evokes images of an angel of death splattering blood on the lintels of Israelites’ homes so that they might escape the wrath of the murdering Pharaoh. The crucifixion of Jesus sets before us a horrifying image of death at the hand of political and ..read more

Andrew Cuomo today is a phenomenon. He speaks every day about the coronavirus and his press conferences have become must-see tv. Why? Many reasons, but at heart he speaks to spiritual yearning in all people, a yearning that focuses not on religion and/or God, but on the truth and depth of our common humanity. The Governor of New York State has become the voice of leadership and compassion during the coronavirus pandemic. His daily talks have become a time to hear the facts, face the reality, and listen to a calm voice of reason, hope and challenge. Beyond the arena of New York politics, about ..read more