good ice
January
26
2025
A cold January has given us good ice on the lake, probably about 10 inches. A light snow cover makes it good for walking.
My hero of the week is the Episcopal bishop of Washington D.C., Mariann Budde, who spoke truth to power and showed that it's never wrong to preach mercy for the vulnerable. And Nadia Bolz-Weber nails christian nationalism as heresy:
19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, "that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence"Here are three reasons we might survive as a democracy (in contrast to Nazi Germany):
Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.
-- The U.S. has been a democracy for 250+ years; hopefully our democratic institutions withstand the assault.
-- Communication networks are hugely better than 1933. It was very difficult for people like Bonhoeffer to get word out of Germany about the atrocities happening there. The internet has tons of protocols beyond social media for getting the word out and organizing.
-- Our government is distributed in layers: national, state, county, local. He can't mess with all the layers with orders from the top.
Still, that is a might.
Heather Cox Richardson quotes an 1838 speech by Lincoln titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.”
A public practice of ignoring the law eventually broke down all the guardrails designed to protect individuals, while lawbreakers, going unpunished, became convinced they were entitled to act without restraint. “Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane,” Lincoln said, “they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”And finally from Angela Davis: "You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And You have to do it all the time."
"Let reverence for the laws…become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”
I hear that the action in D.C. today has been moved from outdoors to an indoor arena to a cybertruck. I'm balancing that ignominy with a couple of small books.
New year, new ideas, new projects. The first is this lunchtime learning speaker series at Mammie's. Mammie's is a warm space where many non-library people feel comfortable; and people get to order their own food. Space and refreshments in one shot. I have three presenters lined up already, just need to find a screen, either big TV or high lumen projector & screen. The second I hope will be a community solar project, using the system we just built as a model for showing how people can partner on solar. The third is a permanent story walk along the bikeway trail, changed seasonally, with quotes from environmental writers and poets.
