Thursday, October 6, 2022
Via Daily Dharma: Becoming a Vehicle for Helping Others
Meditation
on lovingkindness accentuates the altruistic dimension of practice,
showing us that we practice not merely for our own benefit but to make
ourselves a fit vehicle for truly benefiting others.
Bhikkhu Bodhi, “The Four Protective Meditations”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
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Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Via Facebook // Chestor Hitchcock
I retired in July of 2019 with a plan to launch a ministry teaching my Gospel Memory Course in churches, first locally and eventually taking it nationwide.
My wife and I mailed out flyers and were beginning to plan our schedule for evening and weekend seminars; then the pandemic hit in January 2020 and churches canceled their plans.
Through 2020 I shifted my ministry focus to launching a YouTube channel where I recorded various Bible lessons for people to enjoy at home while church attendance was canceled in some places and greatly limited in others.
One of my YouTube Bible series is titled “God Loves the LGBTQ+ Community”.
For most of my tenure in pastoral ministry I accepted the general view held by most Christians regarding the LGBTQ+ Community. While I showed love and compassion, I also believed that all same-sex relationships were sin. I have to admit that it isn’t always easy to change one’s life-long beliefs when we consider evidence.
Nevertheless, when the need presented itself to consider the evidence, due to questions that were asked by some in my congregation, I fully expected to show how the texts demonstrated what Christians generally believe about being gay. While my professional training didn’t address the LGBTQ topic, it did provide the biblical research tools and skills to reexamine generally accepted beliefs and to my surprise, I wasn't finding the answers I expected to find there.
The research tools and skills are pretty simple, not requiring a college degree as much as a courageous heart to respond to what the Bible says regardless of what one expects it to say. My YouTube series on LGBTQ uses these simple principles to examine every passage used to address the LGBTQ topic in the generally accepted understanding.
While the view that I present in each passage may greatly alter the accepted view of the passage, it causes no harm to the Christian doctrines of love, grace and righteousness by faith which is the heart and soul of the Christian faith.
Unfortunately, many loving, grace-oriented Christians struggle with the idea of fully accepting and affirming the gay community even after seeing the evidence. To do so not only challenges their own life-long view, but also puts them at odds with most traditional and conservative churches where they attend. Furthermore the topic has become so politically charged that to acknowledge that the Bible isn’t as anti-gay as they once believed, puts many people at odds with their political views.
Suddenly, evidence or no evidence, changing one’s mind regarding what the Bible really says or doesn’t say about the gay community requires more than a simple change in thinking. It requires more than altering one’s understanding of a Bible passage here and a Bible story there. It requires an entire altering of our spiritual, political and social relationships.
Sometimes these alterations in life are not possible unless we witness someone close in our family dealing with the pain and suffering associated with being born different from the majority and being accused of choosing a sinful lifestyle. When that happens, many people are willing to open their eyes to the evidence for the sake of the one they love.
As a straight, cis-gender, heterosexual, white male pastor with all of the privileges afforded to me; I have chosen the road less traveled. I don’t have “a dog in the fight” as they say. I don’t know anyone in my family who is LGBTQ. I am not trying to defend myself or anyone close to me. I am however, committed to defending God’s Word at all cost.
While defending God's Word from the misinterpretations and speaking out against traditional views, I have suffered rejection, criticism, silence and avoidance for my stand for truth. When Paul says “rejoice in suffering” I have discovered how difficult that is when it could be totally avoided by simply following the religious crowd, but so it is! Here I stand! And I cannot do anything else but be true to my calling. All professionals must be willing to take a hard stand when necessary regardless of whether it affects themselves or others. In this case, I rejoice in whatever criticism comes my way if it brings hope and happiness to those suffering from misinterpreted Bible passages.
Watch for my upcoming video that addresses the phrase, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” used by some against the LGBTQ Community.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Chester
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech
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Via Daily Dharma: There Is Just Now
Invite the mind to pay attention to the body’s time so that the mind can learn a simple truth: There is just now.
Willa Blythe Baker, “Being in Body Time”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - October 5, 2022 💌
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Via White Crane Institute // LOUISE FITZHUGH
1928 -
LOUISE FITZHUGH was an American writer and illustrator of children's books, born on this date (d: 1974), known best for the novel Harriet the Spy. Her other novels were two Harriet sequels, The Long Secret and Sport, and Nobody's Family is Going to Change.
Fitzhugh was the illustrator of the 1961 children's book Suzuki Beane, a parody of Eloise; while Eloise lived in the Plaza, Suzuki was the daughter of beatnik parents and slept on a mattress on the floor of a Bleeker Street pad in Greenwich Village. Fitzhugh worked closely with author Sandra Scopperttone to produce Suzuki Beane, which incorporated typewriter font and line drawings in an original way. Although a parody of both Eloise and beatnik conceit, the book sprang to life as a genuine work of literature. Today, it is much sought after on used-book websites.
Fitzhugh's best-known book was Harriet the Spy, published in 1964 to some controversy since so many characters were far from admirable. It has since become a classic. According to her New York Times obituary, published November 19, 1974: "The book helped introduce a new realism to children's fiction and has been widely imitated". Like Fitzhugh, Harriet is the daughter of affluent New Yorkers who leave her in the care of her nanny, Ole Golly, in their Manhattan townhouse.
Louise’s father, Millsaps Fitzhugh, was a prominent lawyer who told Louise that her mother, Mary Louise Perkins, a ballet teacher from Clarksdale, Miss., died when Louise was a baby. That was a lie. Mary Louise was alive and well, teaching dance in Clarksdale (about an hour and a half away from Memphis) and trying to see her baby. Mary Louise — who had met Millsaps while vacationing in Europe — had chafed under her husband’s controlling, boorish behavior (he wouldn’t let her teach, gave her a paltry allowance and disparaged her family, calling them “trash”) and demanded a divorce. Despite the emotional abuse he inflicted on his wife, Millsaps won full custody of Louise — he had bragged that he had the courts “all sewn up” due to his family name.
The Fitzhughs refused to let Mary Louise see the child; Josephine particularly thought Mary Louise, who came from a poor family, was a bad influence.
Hardly the feminine girl heroine typical of the early 1960s, Harriet is a writer who notes everything about everybody in her world in a notebook which ultimately falls into the wrong hands. Ole Golly gives Harriet the unlikely but practical advice that: "Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth". By and large, Harriet the Spy was well-received—it was named to the New York Times Outstanding Book Award list in 1964—and it has sold 4 million copies since publication. It was very popular among young girls, particularly unfeminine or non-conforming girls who lacked representation in fiction; Fitzhugh, like many of Harriet's fans, was a lesbian.
Two characters from the book, Beth Ellen and Sport, were featured in two of Fitzhugh's later books, The Long Secret and Sport. The Long Secret deals fairly honestly with female puberty; the main characters are pre-teen girls who discuss how their changing bodies feel. Another young adult manuscript, Amelia, concerned two girls falling in love. This manuscript was not published and was later lost.
Fitzhugh illustrated many of her books and had works exhibited in Banfer Gallery, New York, in 1963, among many other galleries.
According to a recent biography, Sometimes You Have to Lie, written by Leslie Brodie, Fitzhugh led a secret life that would have thrilled her nosy heroine. She was a pint-sized heiress with a wealthy, dysfunctional Southern family. She was a lesbian who dressed in tailored suits and capes and had multiple affairs with women and a few men. She wrote her books before her death in 1974, at the young age of 46, and her last romantic partner took pains to keep as much of Louise’s salacious past — including her sexuality — under wraps.
Those attempts notwithstanding, Fitzhugh was artistic, rebellious, impulsive and captivating. Standing at a pint-sized 4 feet, 11 inches, she looked like a fairy or sprite — with her delicate frame and sly smile. As a teen she wore overalls and cropped hair and dated both boys and girls. The summer before college, she eloped with one of her high school sweethearts, Ed Thompson, one wild evening in Mississippi, though she was sleeping with a woman, artist Amelia Brent, at the time. (The marriage was quickly annulled, but she and Ed remained friendly.)
Later, after transferring to Bard to study writing, she seduced her gay male poetry adviser, James Merrill, who recounted in his memoir that Louise “began undressing me” and “what we found ourselves doing proved to be a thrilling discovery.”
Louise, however, preferred sleeping with women, and in 1951 she moved to Greenwich Village with her old flame Amelia. There, Louise would fall in with an artistic lesbian crowd, including pulp novelist Marijane (MJ) Meaker, playwright Lorraine Hansberry and the photographer Gina Jackson. She frequented gay coffee shops and nightclubs and swore off women’s clothes, preferring button-down shirts, trousers and sometimes a velvet cape.
An inheritance from her grandmother — despite being estranged from her father’s family — allowed Louise to live the life of a starving artist without the starving part, and she studied painting not only at the Art Students League, but also in Paris, where she would meet her second serious girlfriend, France Burke, and Bologna, Italy, where she painted frescoes alongside her friend and lover Fabio Rieti. Rieti and Louise had a tempestuous two-month affair, and she told him that he was the only man she ever loved, though she ultimately decided “I can’t abide a male human being in my bed,” and dumped him.
“Harriet the Spy” was controversial when it was published in 1964. It was shockingly subversive. Harriet’s parents are rich, well-meaning but clueless yuppies who attend cocktail parties and leave their 11-year-old in the care of her nanny, Ole Golly. Her best friend, Sport, has to cook and make cocktails for his degenerate writer father. Her other best friend, Janie, wants to be a scientist so she can “blow up the world.” Harriet sees a child psychologist, drinks egg creams and uses curse words. One reviewer called the book “depressing”; another called Harriet “pathetic.” But the novel flew off the shelves and ushered in a wave of realism in children's literature, from S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” to Judy Blume’s “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.”
After a string of live-in girlfriends, she met a nurse named Lois Morehead and the two moved to Connecticut with Lois’ 13-year-old daughter in 1969. Lois helped keep Louise in line — and away from her wild New York friends, to their annoyance. But Louise was productive. In 1974, she finished another book, “Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change,” about a middle-class black family. But a few weeks before it was published, Louise suffered a brain aneurysm and was rushed to the hospital. She died at just 46.
Lois, as executor of Louise’s estate, would — as Brody writes in the biography — “preserve the mystique surrounding the author of Harriet the Spy." While a few picture books and one other novel have been published since Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change, many of Louise’s manuscripts have remained under lock and key.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Via Washing to Post
Why Bolsonaro and the global right-wing love to hate on election polls
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| Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for reelection, speaks at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia on Sunday. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) |
Brazil’s right-wing incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, failed to win the first round of the country’s general election on Sunday. But he did do something important for many on the global right: He beat the polls.
For weeks, many of Brazil’s major polling companies showed Bolsonaro trailing far behind his left-wing challenger, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. One widely reported poll gave Lula a 14-point lead and even suggested he could win in the first round of voting — something that has not happened in more than three decades of Brazilian democracy.
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Lula did win a plurality of votes, 48.4 percent, but he did not win a majority needed to secure a first-round victory. Bolsonaro, who in some polls was predicted to win a dismal 34 percent of the vote, ended up with 43.2 percent.
To many inside and outside Brazil, Bolsonaro’s surprise showing is about more than just one election: It’s evidence that the far right is undervalued by polls globally, echoing claims in other parts of the world.
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“Polls are broken. They are undercounting right-wing support. And it’s vital this be fixed to maintain credibility,” the Brazil-based journalist Glenn Greenwald, a firm critic of Bolsonaro, tweeted on Monday.
“THE SILENT MAJORITY IS BACK!!!” former president Donald Trump wrote on the right-wing social network Truth Social on Sunday evening. He later wrote that Bolsonaro had beaten “inaccurate early Fake News Media polls.”
Besting the work of professional pollsters has long been a badge of honor for the former U.S. president. In 2016, before he was elected, Trump dubbed himself “Mr. Brexit” — an apparent reference to not only the incendiary politics surrounding the British referendum to leave the European Union but also the widespread idea that polls had missed the outcome of that vote.
Trump did indeed beat the pollsters in 2016 — and again in 2020. He lost the latter election but it still prompted something of a reckoning in the polling industry. One industry panel later said the surveys ahead of the 2020 presidential election were the most inaccurate in 40 years.
But with his post on Sunday about a “silent majority,” Trump was referring to a common theory among U.S. conservatives that right-wing ideas are actually more popular than they appear to be in polls.
In Britain, pollsters have also spoken of the “shy Tory” factor that suggests right-wing voters are less likely to admit their preferences to pollsters. Other theories have suggested that right-wing voters may be harder to pick up in mainstream polls, as they are more likely to be rural and less likely to use the internet, among other factors.
The full picture, however, is more complicated. Brexit may have been a political earthquake, but for some, it was a widely expected one. For weeks ahead of the vote, polls showed that support for leaving the E.U. was gaining among British voters.
More recently, electoral wins for the far right in Sweden and Italy have largely tracked with pre-election polls. And in France, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen underperformed her polls.
Even in Brazil, Lula, the left-wing candidate, actually overperformed his polling average by 2 percent. (Although Bolsanaro outperformed his by 8 percent).
For practical reasons, polls are conducted with small sample sizes that represent only a slice of the entire population — with complicated equations on how to use this survey data to represent the national mood accurately. If those equations are off, so are the final results.
In 2018, a study published by the social and natural sciences journal, Nature Human Behaviour, looked at more than 30,000 national polls from 351 elections in 45 countries between 1942 and 2017. The study found that there did not appear to be any systematic decline in accuracy over that time period — and that there was “no evidence to support the claims of a crisis in the accuracy of polling.”
But Christopher Wlezien, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the study, said in an interview that he had not analyzed more recent data to see if the conclusion still stood up.
In 2015, Israeli polling firms failed to see that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a path to reelection (notably, the polling errors were so significant that even exit polls, conducted after the vote, were off).
Brian Winter, editor in chief of Americas Quarterly, noted on Twitter on Monday that there had been a noteworthy number of polling missteps recently, with major polls off in the United States, Argentina and Chile.
For Brazilians, polling has now become a political issue in itself. CNN Brasil reported Monday that Bolsonaro’s allies were now seeking a “broad investigation” into the work of polling companies ahead of the election to see if there is criminal liability.
If so, it would be just the latest round of attacks by Bolsonaro on Brazil’s election process. He has already claimed without evidence that the country’s electronic voting system is compromised. In the event of an electoral loss, Bolsonaro is widely expected to refuse to accept the results. It would be similar to what Trump did after his own 2020 electoral defeat — but this time it might work.
But concern about the polls won’t be limited to Bolsonaro and his supporters.
Winter tweeted that he no longer planned to share or discuss Brazilian polls ahead of the next election. “It’s clear the models are broken, respondents not being truthful, or some other problem,” Winter wrote. Other political analysts say that the polling companies need to take action before the controversy consumes them.
“It is very serious because the institutes are under attack and they are unfounded attacks. Because there are a lot of serious people in the institutes trying to do their best, but they were wrong,” Pablo Ortellado, a professor of public policy at the University of São Paulo, said in an interview with BBC News Brasil.
Brazilian polling firms will soon have another chance to prove themselves. Ahead of the second and final round of the election in four weeks, there will be more polls and more scrutiny. But companies will try to learn from their mistakes and tweak their methods to ensure higher accuracy.
It could be something easy to fix. But some polling inaccuracies have stumped top experts. Many, including Wlezien, heavily scrutinized the polling misses during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In response, firms updated their methodologies and weighting — only for the polls to be off again in 2020.
“I don’t understand how it could hurt them,” Wlezien said of the idea that far-right parties overperformed their polls. “And the sense is that the people running these polls don’t have a strong interest in getting it wrong — in any direction.”
By Adam Taylor
Via Daily Dharma: Hold It First in Your Heart
We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.
Joanna Macy and Sam Mowe, “The Work That Reconnects”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness
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