The Plurality of Voices in American Society and the Autonomy of "Self"

Many have been seeking a resolution to the political conflicts we experience in today's world. When the world is smaller due to Internet connections and trade is free, nuclear arms and ideologies still plague the landscape and inhibit world peace.

America's Founders understood the need for the balance of power. Although their views were dominated by Newton's paradigm and Christian/Jewish understandings of "Providence", today, the world isn't as simply explained. "Providence" is not accepted, when "the world's" story isn't one that is explained by "ideal dreams or hopes" of "the human/humane". And Newton's paradigm isn't universally accepted as THE paradigm to explain human reality.  History was understood in America as "God's story" as revealed in the Christian "Christ". The Jewish Scriptures were the context of "storying" the Christian message. But, such "messages" appeal to the "ideals" of our Founder's vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were never meant to describe the "real or political" one. The story of Jesus was never intended to be historicized as a political goal, upon individuals, but as a moral ideal of a universal value, a value of "the human/humane". The Jew was the useful "tool" of forming the value of valuing the oppressed, or de-valued.

Politics seeks to address problems, and strategic planning about furthering goals of the politically empowered. The Founders, though empowered, never sought to subvert the individual's claim about his own life. The Founder's understood that society needed to function in an orderly way, but did not attempt to order it in a way that oppressed the individual's right of choice and value.

Though science has discovered much more to "life" than Newton's cause and effect, the political realm is still most effective when it is ordered after our Founder's vision of balancing and separating power. That way, the individual, no matter where they are on the spectrum of human development (intellectual, moral, or faith) or values of priority and understanding (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) can find/make their place in society, without oppressive domination by poltical or religious zealotry. Our society was meant to be a "civil one".

Political power that allowed autonomy and religious liberty, within the bounds of law, were the "ideals" of our free society. Americans should always value and take part in their country's "ideals" furthering the goals that are important to them, personally, because America will only survive when individuals take their personal values/ideals seriously and get involved in the political process. At the same time, free persons should also understand that others are free to disagree, under the "canopy of plural voices" that "speak" in our "political environment" without threatening with poltical domination, whether through nucelar arms, or legal manipulation.

Children Say The Darnest Things About "Beasts" and Bring Wisdom to Light

Today, while swinging my grand-daughter on the swing, I asked her questions about why she was afraid to go higher. What was she afraid of, etc. And, then, I asked her about this afternoon's movie that we watched while she "rested". The movie was Disney's "Beauty and the Beast".

She kept saying after it was intially over that the beast changed into a boy, as if that surprised her. While swinging I asked her about whether she thought she could over-come her fear of the "beast". She said, "No". When I asked her "why?": she answered because I would be afraid of the beast. When I suggested to her that Belle was also afraid but that she also was couregeous, she still emphatically said she would still be afraid. I told her that Belle overcame her fear and her love for the beast changed the beast into a man. (It reminded me of "Phantom of the Opera".) I continued to ask her if she thought if love could make a beast a man, but she did not think so.

Then I asked her about "Cinderella", which we watched last night. I asked her about the wicked step-mother and if Cinderella's service to her step-mother made her step-mother change. "Of course not" Hannah said matter of factly. It was obvious to Hanah, that the step-mother proceeded to try to exclude, but lost in the end.

There is a commercial about "hood-winking" children that suggests that even children understand when they have been lied to. And it suggests that this is not the "character" of this advertised insurance company (I think it was an insurance company).

Happy endings happened in both the fairy tales, but real life is not as happily ended. So I told Hannah that not always do people change, no matter what we do. It is really up to us to discern when we are dealing with "evil" or those that will not be changed.

I think this is what fundamentalism is about. Fundamentalists claim absolutes about the larger issues of life, without stopping to think that possibly their worldview is a limited one. Fundamentalism is simplistic theologizing and it leaves real answers for the real world a little less than desired.

We cannot battle evil in one way, only in the way that seems appropriate to us, at a particular time. Evil is personal because it is controlling, manipulative and all consuming. Evil is not satisfied with bits and pieces, but wants to consume the whole of a person.

Evil does not value liberty. This is what some believe discipleship or holiness is about. But, then these would defend their claims based on views of scripture, which are ancient passages about transcendence that was attempting to explain reality the only way they knew how at a particular historical time. God was representative of history within the believing community. It was a interpretive frame that created the community's understanding and "world".

Evil also exists in governmental authority that doesn't limit power, by disrepect of privacy and the right of autonomy. Therefore, do not let your good be evil spoken of and have the heart of a child, to fear that which is to be feared. Stay away from things that are beyond one's ability to understand. That is wisdom in the heart of the child.