OBSESSION with a Border Wall

REGARDING the current OBSESSION with building a BORDER WALL and evicting law-abiding undocumented workers, and shouting "America First!" (How self-centered:-(:
What is needed ISN'T a border wall. 3 months ago, I drove a long the border of the Southern U.S. for hundreds of miles.
Already in many areas, a wall already a exists and where there are roads, border posts control entry.
And there are lots of Border Patrol vehicles patrolling areas up to 100 miles inland from the border!!

Because of criminals, terrorists, etc., I do agree that the borders of a country
such as the U.S. ought to be protected, in a similar sense that the borders of our homes
are protected. In urban areas, most people lock their doors.

BUT we don't lock our doors and build high walls to keep out most others such as foreign students, neighbors, diligent workers, courteous strangers, etc.

On the contrary, we--if we are caring individuals--welcome others, of all shades, colors, and nationalities.

What is needed is openness, compassion, the realization that all humans are equal, that every person is of inherent worth.

If foreigners who come to America, reject Islamic Sharia and accept freedom of speech and religion, our Bill of Rights, then
I think we ought to admit at least as many such refugees as Germany, 1 million.

As for the millions of Americans who are pushing for exclusion, for more border walls, and putting themselves "first":

My response is that we obviously have very different life experiences. And very different ethical values.
One of the best students in my years of teaching was an undocumented alien.

(Many of the very worst non-working students were native-born whites. Ought we to send them over our borders;-) Just a satirical comment. Probably, they had received poor nurture as children.)

Most of the years of teaching, I spent helping minorities in learning to study. We even had a joke in the classroom, since I was often the only non-minority, that I was the "token honky";-)

Plus, my area of expertise is American literature-history. Read of other tragic periods in American history when these anti- movements against the Chinese, the Filipino, the Mexican, the Irish, etc. flourished.

No thanks.

Nationalism is almost as bad as racism. In actual historical situations it is usually worse.
American nationalism caused far more slaughter, harm, and abuse than even slavery, as inherently evil as that unjust, immoral institution is.
Say NO to self-centered "America First!"

--
Photo: "Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, on June 18, 2014, in Brownsville,Texas. Brownsville and Nogales, Ariz. have been central to processing thousands of unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally. Photo by Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #3: REALITY--CREATIVITY and the OPENNESS of the FUTURE

SUBPOINT C: CREATIVITY AND THE OPENNESS OF THE FUTURE

Previously:
Part #1: Monads, Quarks..."I," and God
Part #2: Ultimate Becoming, Divine Process
Point #1: Bottom Up
Subpoint A: Choices
Subpoint B: Ethics and Human Rights


Remember, we left off last time delving into the extremely complex controversies of determinism versus ethics.

A large number of religionists (in history some Jews, the vast majority of Muslims, many Christians, nearly all Hindus) and lots of atheists think that everything is fated, that humans have no choice.

If everything that will ever happen in the future, down to the slightest movement of the smallest quark and atom was totally fated--completely determined at the moment of the Big Bang about 13.4 billion years ago—then we conscious primates exist
in a gigantic many trillion-zillion-kilometered
petrified swirl of amber.

All conscious entities in the whole cosmos including us homo sapiens (in the multiverse, if it exists) are but momentary infinitesimal aware specks in solid ‘granite’
—lock, stock, and barrel.

As so many determinists give the analogy--We humans are but only "shot bullets" headed toward whatever target. locked in, without any choice.

Everything is freeze-framed forever.

If so, then there are no ethics, no choices (the ability to choose between good and bad, rights or not), no creativity, no future as commonly meant, as defined by dictionaries.

Then, life is, indeed, absurd.

HOWEVER, don’t lose hope, don’t despair.

There are plenty of other scientists, philosophers, and deep thinkers who reflect,
that while, it is true, that we do exist within a physical matter
and energy system, within that very complex existence, there is openness,
uncertainty, some chance, and even creativity at play.



Form and freedom both exist!

It is true that our lives are situated within certain parameters of our physical nature,
our temperament, our background, culture and society, family, etc.,
BUT
within that complex system, we as finite conscious entities can make creative choices,
can make a difference in the real world.

Within existence, to a certain limited degree, there is openness to the future, at every moment.



Form and creativity interplay.

First, let’s take care of the “within a limited degree,” before we launch into the wonder of creative openness.

Many cosmologists speculate based on very real world facts that Existence--all of the cosmos--will expand forever, creating space as it spirals out and out.

Our infant universe, from 13.7 billion years ago
By NASA / WMAP Science Team - http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/121238/ilc_9yr_moll4096.png, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23285693

The astronomy professor Chris Impey, of the University of Arizona, Tucson has written a number of science books on cosmology and astronomy including How It Began,
How It Ends,
and The Living Cosmos.

Impey makes a number of excellent points:

How It Ends: From You to the Universe by Chris Impey (W.W. Norton)
"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms," said poet and political activist Muriel Rukeyser. I agree. One of the greatest myths of science is that is consists of nothing more than dull, obdurate facts. The myth dissolves in the face of the powerful narrative that science has created to help us organize and understand the world.

We have a story of how the universe grew from a jot of space-time to the splendor of 50 billion galaxies. We have a story of how a broth of molecules on the primeval Earth turned into flesh and blood. And we have a story of how one of the millions of species evolved to hold those 50 billion galaxies inside its head.

This is a book about endings. Science mostly answers the question of how things got to be the way they are. Yet if we stop at the present day, the job is only half done, as every good story needs an ending....As a result, the material in this book is rooted in fact but it extends into conjecture. Scientists steer toward the boundary between what they know and what they don't know because that's where the excitement is."

"The material moves outward in scale from the human to the cosmic, and outward in time span from the familiar to the nearly eternal...As feisty apes with more piss and vinegar than wisdom we may not survive troubled adolescence, but visionaries are imagining ways we could transcend the limits of biology."

"Time is the ruler for these stories. We follow it on scales from a heartbeat to the 1080 years it takes for the galaxy to dissipate. Physicist John Wheeler reminded us that we take it for granted when he said, 'Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.'"

"Everyone likes a good ending...[but]this book is factual and it talks about the actual death of our planet, our star, our galaxy, us. It's not a cue to be glum, however, because the universe is filled with such magnificent possibility."
How It Ends by Chris Impey, pages 11-13, Norton & Company
--

AH, there it is--a word I as a freethinker and free-willer, love--"possibility."

That is the key point of this 3rd subpoint, that we conscious entities DO have possibilities in our very brief finite lives.

We can make a difference in our own life, in the lives of other people, even in the future of our planet!

Qualifier:
All of this does show my own intellectual bias, I admit. I earned my university degree in Creative Writing, taught creative writing to high school students, have spent my life in creative pursuits, am an avid poet and novelist, and an active science enthusiast. Therefore, from the get start, I take a dim view of closed systems, rote determinism.

Form without freedom is slavery, and philosophical determinism is the worst form of enslavement.

Form without creativity isn't even death, because that presupposes life.

Becoming is the opposite of determinism. It is openness to this next moment.

https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/30-ideas-to-promote-creativity-in-learning

Go to that website for some excellent methods to enhance your creativity.


Reach for the gold--what could be.

To be continued--




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Ruth: A Love Story?

When I first heard sermons on Ruth as a teenager, the book was called a love story. But I didn't get it. I would re-read the few pages looking for romance, passion, even a little affection--and find little to speak of (speaking of Cupid). Where were the passionate verses like in the Song of Songs?

And what was this? Ruth obeys her mother-in-law to go see an old man named Boaz rather than meet a young guy? Lastly, near the end of the story instead of a marriage celebration, the verses focus on Boaz being involved in a complicated legal land deal related to Ruth. Where's the details of their relationship after the meeting night and their wedding?

So why am I, then, writing this blog on Valentine's Day weekend?

Because, later when I studied the story academically, I discovered the nuances and euphemisms, and the transcendent themes in the book. Consider the pivotal scene of the story: Ruth 3:3-7 Ruth washes herself, anoints her body, puts on her best clothes and then goes down to a dusty farm workplace in the middle of the night to secretly sleep next to Boaz, a rich man. Sounds rather suggestive does it not?

But the literal Hebrew is even stranger, more provocative. After Ruth sneaks into the workplace, she is to "uncover his feet and lie down" next to where Boaz is sleeping. In Hebrew, "the feet" often refer to human private parts. For instance, angels are said to cover their feet with their wings; the text isn't talking about their toes.

Furthermore, the words "lie down" are often a euphemism in Hebrew for sexual intercourse. Notice in verse 4, that "lies down" is referred to three times and then again in verses 7, 8,13, 14. Also, Boaz who was eating and drinking until merry is sleeping near a heap of grain. And he later gives Ruth much grain. These images "eating and drinking" and "grain" are images used for sexual lovemaking in the Song of Songs--probably so here too. And there are more such implications in the verses, but this probably suffices for the plot line.

By now, you probably, also, are beginning to notice some intriguing comparisons and contrasts between the books of Esther and Ruth. In both a foreign young woman marries an old leader; in both people are eating and drinking. But in the former the leader is lazy, superficial, and selfish while in the latter, he is hard working, deep, and generous. In the former, Jewish separate identity is the focus, in the latter individual choice is emphasized, not ethnic background, nationality, or bloodline. In the former, it ends with a slaughter of one's enemies (probably including women and children); in the latter the story ends with love of opposites, the marital joining of two opposing human groups in the conceiving of a baby. Sound familiar? Hold on.

One of the central themes of this love story is openness to others, even enemies and an ethical polemic against ethnocentrism and religious exclusivism seen elsewhere in the Jewish Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 23:3-6 says "No...Moabite shall enter the assembly of Yahweh; none of their descendents...you shall never seek their peace or their prosperity..." and Ezra 9: 1-2, 10:2 ..."The people of Israel...have not separated themselves from the...Moabites,,,for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves...And Shecaniah..said to Ezra, We have been unfaithful to our God, and have married foreign women...so now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children..."

Instead, at the end of Ruth, the text says "Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And Yahweh gave her conception, and she gave birth to a son...Blessed is Yahweh who has not left you without a redeemer."

Without necessarily arguing that the story of Ruth was originally intended as a messianic promise, one can see how followers of Jesus the Redeemer saw in all of this an allegory. Jesus was a descendent of Ruth, a Moabitess, a hated enemy of the Jews, and allegedly the Moabites were a despised result of incest. Yet from this union of Moabitess and Jewish leader came a child. And so in the case of Jesus, Ruth's descendent, another child born of a foreign woman under questionable circumstances which would reconcile enemies, and bring love to all humankind.

What if instead of emphasizing ethnic identity, nationality, religious differences, and bloodline, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would fall in love at the "threshing floor"? What if they would join together, not separate or battle one another? What if they would marry, become one in love?

There is truly good news--the true meaning of Valentine's Day, not heart-shaped cards, but open hearts of love for others.

Don't be ruthless;-) like most humans, playing to divisive religious texts or nature's lowest denominator. Instead, become like Ruth and Boaz--be passionate and generous and loyal, live for others, and love your enemy.

To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox