Why the movement needs mystics

On 27 Dec, 2011 By mpm With 2 Comments

I've been thinking a lot lately about where I fit into the Occupy movement - what kind of role I should play. Unlike some of my housemates, who have gotten arrested, and have been presences at Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza, I've been pretty much on the sidelines. I helped start Occupy Technology (which is sort of moribund at the moment.) I've been to a few of the marches and actions, but otherwise not really involved.

For a long time now (since 2003) protest in its traditional form hasn't felt like the right thing for me, even though I had spent all of my adult life as an activist in a number of causes, including anti-nuclear, environmental, pro-choice, health issues, anti-death penalty, and others. In 2003, when the Iraq war started, I joined a group of folks who promised to fast for one day a week until the war ended. Of course even then, we didn't think the war would go on for 8 years! My personal fast ended late in 2004, when it seemed then that the war would go on for a very long time.

In general, I feel great resonance with the Occupy movement, particularly the strains of the movement (which are not especially mainstream, but they are definitely present and known) that talk about the need for the creation of a new society based on love, compassion, equality, and meaning. And getting from point A (where we are now) to point B (that new society) seems completely unrealistic, perhaps even impossible.

I was reminded in a conversation I had this afternoon with a friend (who I must give the credit for the title of this blog post) about the importance of what I'm calling now "holding the door open to hope." Many people would use different language for it. The basic idea is that although we can't necessarily see how to get from point A to point B, we need to remember that there is available to us a vast source of possibility - the possibility to live into the best of what it means to be human. Some people might language this vast source of possibility as God. Others might language it quite differently. But in the end, it's the same.

We can see evidence everywhere of how messed up things have gotten. And it is so easy to get weighted down by the despair and hopelessness of the world. I fall into that all the time (just ask my housemates.) We can see how many people are suffering, and how the planet is suffering, and how the systems in place are failing us at every turn. We can see how divided this country is, and the world is, and not see how it would ever be possible for it to be different.

But there is, along side it, evidence of how things could look, and be different. We miss these, because the media doesn't cover this, and for many of us, our brains are more wired to dwell on the negative than on the positive. People are already creating the alternatives, right now.

So maybe that's my role. Holding the door open to hope. Reminding myself (especially) and others, of Divine possibilities.

Oh, and food. I'll cook for the revolution.

You are running out of time

On 16 Dec, 2011 By mpm

The whole thing started a very long time ago, when you realized that you were going to lose one of the most important assets you had in building this country so that you could benefit from it. It actually even started before then, when you ran out of indentured servants from England and Ireland, but luckily, the African slave trade came at just the right time.

But once you realized you were going to lose the slaves to that nefarious thing called freedom, you had a lot to accomplish. The guiding force, of course, has always been that someone else should do the work, and you would benefit. There were all sorts of hurdles to jump, of course. Unionization was one of the biggest hurdles. And you almost grabbed the gold ring in the 20s, but then you got a little too ebullient, and you caused the stock market crash. Then that radical Franklin Roosevelt came into power, and almost ruined it for you. It set you back years. The 60s and 70s with its civil rights, feminist and gay rights movements were tough to get through, for sure.

You had to do a lot of careful planning. The standard ways of keeping people in line, such as, well, letting them starve, or sending them to debtor's prison, weren't going to work in the post-Roosevelt era. So you had to came up with other ideas - among them pretending that people could actually get the things you had if they worked hard enough and played by the rules. Then there was the genius called marketing. Yes, it was genius. Use human psychology to steal people's self-respect, and sell it back to them for the price of a product that they don't need. And then, you came up with the brilliant plan to entertain people - getting people to spend half of the time they weren't working for you watching things that made them want to buy more stuff - a twofer! Another genius thing was insurance. Remind people of their fears - primarily their fear of death, and tell them that they need not be afraid if they buy this or that policy. And then, there was the home mortgage. You hit a home run with that one.

You also managed quite well to co-opt the movements of the 60s - that was well done! You managed to convince African Americans that they wanted the "American Dream" too, and women just wanted the right to work just as hard as men, and you convinced queer people if they just had the rights to the institutions of the US - marriage and the freedom to serve in the military, that would be enough.

While you were keeping most people busy working and commuting so that they could buy stuff they didn't need, insuring themselves against their fears, being held hostage to their shelter, and being "entertained" so they didn't notice, there were some people you couldn't control that way. People who, for one reason or another, started out already so far down, that none of those things worked. The only thing they wanted to do was find a way out of their pain. Then, the next genius. Provide them with the means to self-medicate, and then make it illegal. That way, you could just put them in jail, which you did by the millions, making quite the tidy profits off of it in the process.

You managed to even co-opt people's desire to help their fellow human beings. All you need do was spend a few crumbs of your profits and you'd have people literally eating out of your hand, and they would be happy to listen to what you told them to do.

And you used the fact that the radical changes brought on by Roosevelt made life in this country pretty good for a while, to attract a new group of people who would come here and be happily exploited by you for often lower than minimum wage, and would put up with horrible working conditions because they were afraid of being sent away.

Of course, you got too ebullient again, and started to take stupid risks with other people's money. You almost sent the whole thing crashing down. But people started to see cracks in the facade. People started to talk about "corporate greed" and "the 99%." People did things like march in the streets, and shut down ports. You are starting to get worried. So worried that you are beginning to bring that one tool to bear that you have been resisting because of its obvious nature: force.

But you are running out of time. Why? Two reasons. First, you've taken just about all you can take from the Earth. There's not a whole lot more to take, without the effects actually damaging your way of life. Second, you've taken about all you can take from people, too. Once people start really waking up to this whole scam, there isn't much you'll be able to do to stop them. Even force won't be enough. You can't close down the urban farms, or the cooperatives, or the community exchanges, or the myriad ways people are beginning to find to come together as communities to take care of each other and make sure that every person gets the full benefit of their own efforts.

The New Economy

On 29 Nov, 2011 By mpm

A while ago now, I wrote about reimagining the "American Dream." I've been reading a fair amount about economics lately, and I've found two interesting threads.

The more dominant thread is the one you know well. The story of the 99%, whose earnings and wealth have stayed pretty much the same over the past 30 years, while the earnings and wealth of the top 1% have grown tremendously. The solution to this story seems simple. First, decrease earnings and wealth inequities by going back to the tax policies of the 50s, 60s and 70s, where those who were wealthy paid much more in taxes than they do today. Second, spur economic growth by investing in infrastructure and creating jobs.

Occupy has made this argument mainstream. Further, Occupy has put pressure on the government to better regulate corporations and banks. All good stuff, and I'm not at all against any of this, of course, and I think as a short-term way out of the worst of our current problems, it makes a boat load of sense.

But for the long term, this is not going to even begin to solve our problems. This set of arguments makes the assumption that we will continue along as a capitalist country - with better income distribution, and better corporate regulation. The problem is that capitalism is no longer a viable option, and I'll explain in detail why. (A note, there are other, spiritual reasons why capitalism shouldn't be allowed to continue, having to do with how we see people, and people's work and lives, but this post is meant to be based simply on science and economics.)

The simple truth is this: we have reached the carrying capacity of our planet, and further economic growth will not be possible.

I'm going to detail why this is true. Most of this comes from reading the book: The End of Growth, which I would recommend to everyone. He lays it out really clearly, and I'll do a quick recap.

He starts with the origin and present state of the "science" of economics, which he says is really moral philosophy, and not really a science. I have to agree with his assessment:

"The classical theorists gradually adopted the math and some of the terminology of science. Unfortunately, however, they were unable to incorporate into economics the basic self-correcting methodology that is science's defining characteristic. Economic theory required no falsifi-able hypotheses and demanded no repeatable controlled experiments (these would in most instances have been hard to organize in any case). Economists began to think of themselves as scientists, while in fact their discipline remained a branch of moral philosophy --- as it largely does to this day."

He then talks about the underlying assumptions of capitalism regarding infinite growth. He says:

"Which brings us to the global crisis that began in 2007--2008. By this time the two remaining mainstream economics camps --- the Keynesians and the neoliberals --- had come to assume that perpetual growth is the rational and achievable goal of national economies. The discussion was only about how to maintain it: through government intervention or a laissez-faire approach that assumes the Market always knows best."

He discusses much of the underlying problems of the economic crisis, and then talks about why it is that perpetual growth is not a rational or achievable goal, because we are running out of all sorts of resources - fossil fuels, metals, minerals, rare earth elements, etc., and we are not going to be able to innovate ourselves out of these limitations in resources.

We do need a new economy, and it can't be capitalism. It's really clear, and, I'm sure for many, that prospect is pretty scary - so scary that no one in the mainstream media (even lefties like my favorite Rachel Maddow) is really talking about the end of capitalism.

Some sites you might be interested in to learn more:

There are lots more - if you come across them, put them in comments.

Maps!!

On 26 Nov, 2011 By mpm

This is a follow up to my previous post about Fantasy vs. Science Fiction. One of the cool things about Fantasy is the maps, and I have one for the new novel I'm starting. I thought it would be fun to share it. It's definitely a very early draft - there is a lot missing, and I know that there will be many changes in the final version. I created it using a great program from Pro Fantasy called Campaign Cartographer. As someone who is not much of an artist or designer, it makes it relatively easy for me to create maps that work for me. I've got a lot to learn about how to use this program better, but I really like it.

Anyway, here's the beginnings of map.

Fantasy vs. Science Fiction

On 23 Nov, 2011 By mpm

I've been reading both fantasy and science fiction for years. Many, many years. I love them both, although I do tend to read much more science fiction than fantasy. And I've always considered myself strictly a science fiction writer... until now.\ I have a fantasy story that has been running around in my head for years, and my muse tells me it is time to start writing it down. As I've begun to outline it, and spin the plot out before beginning to write scenes, I'm struck by the differences and similarities in my process.\ I am, and probably always will be, a hard sf writer (that is, when I write scifi.) I think it's that I've been a scientist, and I like to have my stories have scientific credibility. An upcoming novel I have in draft form, tentatively titled The Right Asteroid is very definitely a hard SF novel. You could argue that the Casitian series is soft, because of it's focus on social commentary, but I tried pretty hard to make the science mostly believable. So in the process of outlining a new novel, I spend a fair bit of time figuring out the science. How fast can ships go? Is the star I'd like to pick for the location of a planet truly a good candidate to have a habitable planet? What would living on Mars be like 100 years from now?\ In starting to write this new fantasy (ish - I don't want to spoil it, but it does have science fiction elements) I'm starting with what the families look like, and what does royalty look like, and what faith do people adhere to, and what is the social structure like? I'm delving into landscape and weather, and level of technology (like, uh, swords and stuff.) I'm looking at what kinds of gifts people have, etc.\ Some similar elements are things like language and names - I've spent time on that a lot in writing scifi as well.\ It's fun. It's different, and I'm enjoying the different muscles I'm stretching. And I think it's going to be a fun story.

Occupy Transformation

On 21 Nov, 2011 By mpm

As you might have noticed, I haven't blogged much. Partially, it's because I've gotten out of the habit, and I'm going to work on changing that. Partially, though, it's because I have been trying to figure out what to say about Occupy. I've been only peripherally involved in OccupyOakland, and other Occupy efforts. I helped start OccupyTechnology, and I've been to OccupyOakland a couple of times.

I have been at times elated at what is happening all over the country (and world) with the Occupy movement. And, at times, I have been sorely dissapointed when people in the movement have done things that are violent or counter-productive, and when the discussion has gotten mired in what feels at somepoints to be arguments about non-violent tactics, who has claim to be most radical,  or speak most for "the people."

The Occupy movement has brought out the absolute best in all of us, and has also brought out the worst - and I'm not just talking about police brutality, but that is certainly a big piece of it. Eve Ensler reminds us that even in the midst of a movement like Occupy, women still get raped. And people still get shot.

Above all, I am very clear that we're not going to get where we need to go without some kind of spiritual transformation. A video I saw recently (a great one, worth watching), is called "The Revolution is Love" and there is a comment in it about how we don't just want to knock down the 1% and put a different 1% in it's place. It's about changing the whole paradigm.

The good thing is that the language about transformation is in the air in the Occupy movement. My housemate and friend Nichola Torbett's organization, Seminary of the Street, is deep in the Occupy trenches, talking a lot about spiritual transformation, particularly with Jesus as the model. 

And this spiritual transformation, from my perspective, isn't necessarily religious. It's not about religious conversion, or adoption of particular spiritual traditions or ideas. It is fully embracing our dependence on a healthy Mother Earth, the primacy of love and compassion, and realizing that each human being has great value, and that all of our lives can, and should have meaning beyond what money we can make, or what kind of house we can live in.

So as we Occupy cities and towns, abandoned buildings and vacant lots for the good of all, let's also Occupy Transformation.

Great Quote

On 28 Oct, 2011 By mpm

I came across this quote today, and it seems worth posting here. It's a quote by John Lennon:

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." 

Spreading Lovingkindness

On 08 Oct, 2011 By mpm

As I imagine you know, right now, thousands of people all over the country (and the world, too) are taking to the streets to "Occupy" places like Wall Street and San Francisco. I myself will be showing up on Monday for OccupyOakland for a while. This blog post has been inspired and informed by this movement - this historic movement. But it's not just about this movement.

One of the things that I have been convinced of for some time (more than 20 years, I think) is that the means and the ends are the same. We cannot expect peace if we don't act peacefully. Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King all knew this. Monks fighting for freedom in Burma know this. We need to know it, and internalize it.

This is why I do Metta for the 1%. It's so easy to think of the 1% as people who are evil capitalists, or exploitative, or what have you. But the truth is, we all have some of that in us. We all are complicit in a system that is exploitative. We all need Metta (lovingkindness). 

So this post is just to remind myself, and all of us, that the means are the ends, and that one of the best things we can do is remember that no one is either completely guilty, or completely innocent.

Introduction

On 07 Aug, 2011 By mpm

This project/blog is where I will, in great detail, explore science, faith, religion, reason, and their role in modern life. Unlike other blogs I've done, this blog has a very specific end goal. It will become a book when some kind of critical mass of writing on my part has been complete, and the feedback I receive during its writing will be used to shape the book.

Why am I writing this?

Why I am writing this book is a long story, and will, I imagine come through as I write. It is as simple as these facts: I have been deeply immersed in both faith and science for my whole life. I have a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University, and a Certificate of Theological Studies from Pacific School of Religion. I have never found conflict within myself between my own faith and science, even though I have seen, heard and experienced that conflict in others, and in this country in particular. I am, in a way, uniquely placed to write this particular book. I adhere to no faith tradition completely, and as much as I love science, I agree with many critiques of it. I have thought about these issues ever since I was seventeen, when even as I was preparing for a life in science, I joined a church where many people were "young Earth creationists," and I couldn't understand why having a young earth mattered to them so much.

We live in a time when the plurality of people in the United States think that God created humans in our present form, and as many people think that Darwin's theory of evolution is supported by evidence as those who think that it is not. [1] Most people like science [2], but yet we live in a time when there are large differences in perception about human-caused global climate change based on political persuasion, and many people don't listen to the scientific consensus about it. [3]

I was prompted to write this book by reading a recent editorial in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof [4], who was trying hard to help people not paint all Evangelical Christians with the same brush. It wasn't his article, per se, but it was in the comments that I could see the polarization - both the fundamentalists and the atheists were talking about how self-evident their positions were, while those in the middle seemed silenced by those two sides. 

The extreme voices are the problem - those on one hand of the fundamentalist Christians  (who, unlike either Catholics, or fundamentalists of other faiths seem to have the most problem with science,) who insist that their scripture is inerrant, and their faith is the correct one,  and on the other the atheists who insist that all faiths are make-believe and it is time to give up our "imaginary friends." Those voices drown out all others. They drown out people of faith who have no problem with evolution, and an Earth that is billions of years old, and they drown out agnostics, who, truly following the principles of science, and set the God stuff aside.

There are many who have staked out the middle ground, and I'm just another one coming along. What I hope to add to the middle ground is more than just "there need be no conflict." I want to delve deep into why the conflict exists, and also what science has to learn from faith and vice-versa. In a sense, I guess, I want to forge a "middle way."

I am sure that there are many on all sides of this debate who will not like what I have to say. I at least hope that some of them can give some thought to what I have put down here. I look forward to feedback as I write from people on any side of the debate.

There are two basic principals that I will endeavor to uphold as I write this book. First, is that I will do my best to respect the theories and beliefs of any tradition that I discuss, no matter what it is. Second, I will endeavor to back up everything that is not clearly stated as my own opinion with literature, whether it be scientific, historical, philosophical, or theological. 

I will be traversing the territories of history, neuroscience, cosmology, philosophy, evolution, theology and politics. I'll touch on theologians, both past and present, atheists and agnostic thinkers old and new, neuroscientists learning about differences in brains of "olympic meditators," and many, many others. You'll hear about creationism, intelligent design, as well as feminist, anti-racist and post-modernist critiques of science.

The real goal of all this work is to do my own level best to begin my own little tiny path to a new synthesis. What that synthesis could be will emerge as I write, and as you read, but the idea is a synthesis that can strengthen both types of human knowing - science and faith.

[]{#1}[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx 

[]{#2}[2] http://people-press.org/2009/07/09/public-praises-science-scientists-fault-public-media/

[]{#3}[3] http://www.gallup.com/poll/107569/ClimateChange-Views-RepublicanDemocratic-Gaps-Expand.aspx

[]{#4}[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/kristof-evangelicals-without-blowhards.html

Is it time to let go of the idea of a "United" States?

On 04 Aug, 2011 By mpm With 2 Comments

I've been in the midst of a ton of research on the American Civil War, because my fourth novel is set there. Although I didn't spend most of my time looking deeply into the causes of the Civil War, I have by now read my fair share about it. I read one of the seminal books on the Civil War, called "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson. I'd recommend it to anyone. It has a really nice set of chapters that lays the foundations for the war.

Anyway, "living", as it were, in the time of the Civil war to write, and really living now makes things a bit more clearer to me than they might have been otherwise. I don't want to go into a long historical analysis, but basically, this country was never designed to be this big, or this diverse. And we've never really recovered or dealt with the 18th and 19th-century issues of Manifest Destiny (leading to the obliteration of the Native American way of life,) slavery, or the Civil War. 

I think we all understand that this country is broken. I acutally think this is getting to be a universal refrain, no matter what one's political stripe. This country is just not working for so many people, and not working for the world, and there are far too many philosophies about why it is broken, and what needs fixing. In most cases, those philosophies are regionally concentrated. Northeastern progressives actually have somewhat different ideas than Midwestern or Northwestern progressives do. Southern conservatives think differently than Mountain West conservatives do. And this is on top of the fact that in general, progressives and conservatives have become so polarized that any sort of compromise on most issues in ways that will really fix things for this country is impossible. 

Face it: there is no getting there from here. Between the concentration of power by wealth in this country, the corruption of the political system by corporate powers, and the polarization of the people, this country is going nowhere, fast, without much hope of recovery.

What are the benefits of splitting up?

1) Smaller, more homogeneous (by social and political persuasion, mostly) entities would be more governable, and people would be more likely to be able to live in the kind of society that works for them.

2) Smaller entities have a better chance of controlling corporate influence (or if they want, letting them run amok.)

3) Smaller entities have a better chance of controlling import/export issues, allowing them to, if they wish, privilege locally-produced goods over those produced elsewhere

4) There would be no United States to defend. Smaller entities could choose what kind of defense spending made sense to them.

I've been thinking, and thinking, and I frankly can't really think of any advantages to staying together except entropy. And the entropy we've got is sending us downhill faster than a rushing river.

I know this sounds far-fetched, but honestly think about it - it sounds easier to me to figure out how to split this country up into governable regions than it does to figure out how we are going to fix it all together. I almost feel like we need a new movement along side the localization movement - a movement for fully localized government.

Time to Reimagine the American Dream

On 29 Jul, 2011 By mpm With 1 Comments

Van Jones, who I have always admired, has an organization that I think is unfortunately named "Rebuild the Dream." And the language of this movement as it were, is around "saving," "rebuilding," and "protecting" the American Dream. 

So what is this "Dream" that should be saved, rebuilt, protected? I think for different people it means different things. For some it means the ability to reinvent oneself, and find a way to success or wealth. For others, and I imagine Van is in this category, it means that people get jobs with living wages, everyone can afford a nice house, and a nice car, and some sort of financial security. That is admirable, but it's not enough.

The truth of the American Dream, I think, has always been much darker than it's proponents admit, or perhaps even imagined. 

The American Dream started, of course with Manifest Destiny. The idea that this continent was the American continent. That we were destined to stretch from the East to the Pacific Ocean. And we all know who suffered in that. Between the Native Americans whose land was stolen, and the African slaves, indentured servants and exploited workers from around the world, without whose labor would have made this impossible, many people suffered in service to this first part of the American Dream.

After World War II, long after the Destiny had been fulfilled, the next phase of this American Dream was built on the decomposed remains of plants that lived millions of years ago. There were fossil fuels, and plenty of them, and we built our ideal of the future based upon the assumptions that not only would this resource be with us always, but it also would have no deleterious effect on our environment. We now know that neither of these assumptions is true. 

And there never really was a moment when the  American Dream actually was possible for most Americans. From 1945 through around 1968, this American Dream was available primarily to white men. Women were expected to stay home and take care of the house and kids. It was much more difficult for people of color, because of law or custom, to access this dream:  from owning homes in many areas, getting well-paying jobs, or getting a good education. 

Then, just as both women and people of color started to get fuller access, the American Dream started to fade, starting with Ronald Reagon, in 1980. Union membership, and the collective bargaining power that went with that, began to drop. Real wages stagnated, and it took two earners to retain the same standard of living that had been possible for one, previously. 

And now, the American Dream is being a rat on a treadmill. Most people work more than full time, most in jobs they don't find especially meaningful, spending hours of time every day in a steel box on the road just so they can live somewhere that's quieter, and "safer." When we are depressed (as if this kind of life wouldn't make anyone depressed) or anxious (as if the state of the world wouldn't make anyone anxious) we are given some pills to make us feel better. People are trapped in jobs becuase they can't get health insurance otherwise. They can't follow their dreams because their house payment is too large.

And this, too, is falling apart. Are any of these this American Dream are we supposed to really be trying to rebuild? 

It's time to reimagine the American Dream, not rebuild it. Reimagine our country as a place that truly accepts, celebrates and gives equal access to all of its residents, no matter the race, orgin, ability, faith tradition, sexuality, gender, family type or relationship status. Reimagine sustainable communities, and sustainable food production and distribution. Reimagine transportation that doesn't depend on fossil fuels. Reimagine work, where people can do what is truly meaningful to them instead of creating wealth for others, and work less because we really don't need half of the stuff we produce. Reminagine education, where people have a truly broad education, and aren't just being eductated so they can be a cog in some wheel. Reimagine how we live - living more collectively, more interdependently.  

Saving, protecting or rebuilding the old American Dream in a world without cheap fossil fuels, and without continuing to wreak havoc on our environment is impossible. Sadly, our choice is between reimagining, or giving it all up entirely.

The Blogger Prophets

On 25 Jul, 2011 By mpm

I wrote this sermon in 2006 for the Progressive Faith Bloggers Conference. I was thinking of it recently, and it just seemed so appropos for where I am, and where things are, so I thought I'd repost it.

Finding and claiming our prophetic voice

The readings this morning from Amos have, I think, something to teach us. Amos was a reluctant prophet. He didn't start out being a prophet. He was, in his own words, "a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees." He was just your ordinary guy, your average joe herdsman and farmer. He was a reluctant prophet. He lived in one of the most prosperous times in the kingdom of Israel's history, during the reign of Jeraboam II, nearly more than 2700 years ago. Amos' primary message was to the wealthy, to remember their responsibility to the poor, and to those who were in religious leadership, to return the people to true faith, instead of empty ritual. These are, I think, things we could imagine saying today. He felt that God called him out of that ordinary life, into the extraordinary life of calling Israel's people to measure themselves against God's "plumb line" of justice. In many ways, probably, Amos was a lot like you and me.

Unlike a lot of other prophets of his time, Amos didn't rely much on apocalyptic language, or esoteric symbols. He was frank and straightforward in relaying what he perceived to be God's message to Israel's people. He saw the injustices of his time, and felt called to speak out against them, to remind Israel of God's demand for justice for all of its people.

I was telling a friend that I wanted to preach about the prophetic voice of bloggers, and she looked at me kind of puzzled. As we talked more, it came to be clear that when she thought of prophets, she thought of that more traditional view of prophecy, more like "fortune telling," or forecasting the future. I explained that mostly, people used the words of prophets in retrospect to prove a particular point that the original prophets probably didn't have in mind. Not there is no such thing as the kind of prophecy that might indicate aspects of the future. But to my mind, it's not the most important kind of prophecy.

What I want to talk about today, is Amos' kind of prophecy, the prophecy that most of you in this room are quite familiar with, and perhaps even do on a daily basis, like on the aptly named community blog "Street Prophets." This kind of prophecy sees the injustices of our time, and speaks plainly and forthrightly about them. Sometimes, this kind of prophecy does include "what if?" And the "what if's" are important too. What if we don't pay attention to the injustices in front of our face? What if we don't pay attention to the dangers that are facing us as a nation, and as a world? What might happen to us? Amos asked these questions, too.

We live in interesting times, times that need plain, ordinary jane and joe prophets like Amos. We live in dangerous times, and we need prophets like those of you in this room. But we also live in complicated times. Unlike Amos, who was, for the most part, speaking to one people, with the same faith tradition, we need to speak to many peoples, with multiple faith traditions, or, in some cases, no faith tradition. How do we find, and use, our prophetic voice in the cacophany of many voices, many agendas, many points of view and perspectives? How do we stretch our voices outside our own small pockets of progressive people of faith? How do we preach to more than just the choir? And, for those of us who are Christians, how do we express the caring, open and accepting gospel we know?

There are four guidelines that I try to live by, in exercising my own prophetic voice. I sometimes fail, but these are the standards that I try to meet. These are ways that I think may help us to get our message heard further out than our crowd, and engage others in dialogue. These guidelines have been deeply informed by both my Buddhist practice and my Christian faith. And, to some extent, by experience. The first guideline is to be in touch with, and speak from, your heart.  Second, the means are the ends. Third, be willing to be wrong.  And fourth, always assume good will on the part of others.

So, first, be in touch with, and speak from, your heart. Speak from your knowledge and understanding of God, however you  define God. Or speak from some other perspective that comes from your heart. What does that mean, really? For one thing, for many of us, our faith and experience of the divine is a central part of our lives. If we can't speak from that place, if we feel the need to suppress, or to modify what we say, we compromise ourselves, and what we have to say. Also, it's usually not our rational minds that get us into trouble. We react and speak out of fear so often, sometimes we aren't even aware that we do it. Being in touch means being aware, and awake, to our attitudes, attachments and aversions, and learning to speak from that place of awareness. Being in touch with what's really important to us, being in touch with our hearts, with our experiences and knowledge of God, is important. And I think Amos would agree.

Second, the means are the ends. All three of you that read my blog know that's kind of a common topic for me. In fact, I think that if there was a broken record for me, it would play "means are the ends," over and over again. I doubt that many people in this room, or in the progressive movement in general, would disagree with the quote by Ghandi "Be the change you want to see in the world." But what does that really mean? It means that if we want to live in a world that is open, accepting, and peaceful, we have to be open, accepting and peaceful. Like that bumper sticker, there is no way to peace, peace is the way. Peaceful dialogue, peaceful language, that Buddhist concept of right speech, is the way. The energy I spend working for change using methods that are enemies to change ends up getting me nowhere. It's two steps forward, two steps backward. I'm still in the same exact place I was when I started.

One of the things I've learned from my years of Buddhist practice is that it is, really, all about me. That is, each of us has control over the decisions we make, and the ways we act, and react, the words we speak and write. If we really want to live in a different world, we have to live and act differently, be aware of what we do, and what we think about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it.

The third guideline I follow is: be willing to be wrong. Of course, I'm never wrong about anything. Actually, I'm probably wrong about almost everything, including a good bit of this sermon. One of the things that gets us into so much in trouble is our attachment to our own point of view. Do you know that there are two ways to hold a penny? You can hold it like this (show the downward fist) or like this (the upward palm). Sometimes, we hold so strongly onto our points of view because we are afraid we'll lose something. Holding our opinions like we hold the penny, in the open palm of our hand gives us opportunities to let other things influence us, it leaves us open to new ideas, and new ways of looking at things. And we still get to keep the penny.

We have come to our opinions through our experiences, and not everyone has the same experiences in life, so, it makes sense that people have different opinions. And what appears one way from our perspective, is quite different from another perspective. Unlike in Amos' time, when everyone had the same paradigm in which they lived in the world, and Amos could draw on that paradigm to explain to Israel where they are going wrong, we live in a time of many, many paradigms. Things that are clearly wrong in one paradigm are just fine in a different one. So as prophets, we need to both speak from the heart, from our own knowledge, and also accept that there are many other ways to understand the world. And what we need more than anything is dialogue between people with different perspectives. Thich Naht Hanh once said of dialogue, you don't really have dialogue unless both parties are willing to change. In order to be willing to change, we have to be willing to be wrong.

The last guideline is to always assume good will on the part of others. This one is sort of a sub guideline to the "means are the ends" one. It can be a tough one. Because, in fact, not everyone is of good will, so it seems, well, absurd, polyannish, naïve, fill in the blank, to assume everyone is of good will. We are, as Christians, encouraged to "see the God" in everyone we meet. Jesus would have us love them as we would love ourselves. Most of us don't assume that we ourselves are of bad will, so, why would we assume that of others? And, it is surprising what assuming the good will of others can do. If you assume someone you disagree with is of good will, you actually find yourself willing to listen to what they have to say. Listen to their point of view, listen to their perspectives.

Everyone has something to teach us. Every person we meet can teach us something about ourselves, about them, about the way the world works. And assuming good will is a way to help us be open to learning from people, and share goodwill, to spread it around. There are times when the favor will not be returned. Either someone will assume we are of ill will, or the other person will, in fact, wish us ill. That is unfortunate. It's happened to me. But the times that happens are far outweighed by the positive effects of being open. And, I think, like non-violence, it is a way of being that, frankly, can embarrass those who don't act in the same way.

These four guidelines have been really helpful to me in both my on-line electronic life, as well as my real, in person life. And I've yet to regret adopting these guidelines. They aren't necessarily for everyone, but they work well for me, and I think can be a good set of guidelines that might help our prophetic voice go beyond our little pocket. After all, if we want things to really change in this country, our voices have to be heard far and wide.

I've had a blog for three and a half years. I started my blog when it was becoming clear that Bush was going to invade Iraq. I felt completely powerless to have any effect on what was happening. Since then, blogs have changed the landscape of public discourse in this country. Yearly Kos is a nationally covered event, bloggers are talked about on TV and in the newspaper, politicians feel the need to talk with bloggers. Further, right now, people have begun to notice that there is, in fact, a religious left. That, contrary to the rhetoric of the right, there are progressive people of faith, whose politics are deeply informed by their faith. This is the time for us, as ordinary jane and joe reluctant prophet-bloggers (or not so reluctant) to speak from our hearts, to speak of injustice when we see it, to be like Amos.

Free Enterprise vs. Capitalism

On 20 Jul, 2011 By mpm

I think often free enterprise is confused or conflated with capitalism. I thought it was worth a follow-up post to my "Inherent Violence of Wealth" post to talk a bit about it, since I don't think I was especially clear in my discussion that I was talking only about wealth gained from capitalism.

Free enterprise is the idea that you, or, me, or any group of people have the right to create an independent process whereby we make money from our own creative labor. I am absolutely a product of free enterprise (my father) and I have made a living via free enterprise for most of my working life. Free enterprises are small enterprises. Maybe it's one person running a web design shop, a collective grocery store, someone hiring some workers to print t-shirts, or an artist. Hallmarks of free enterprises are that they are business models that are local, small, and sustainable, and everyone employed gets a living wage.  Many (most?) small businesses in the US fit this category. 

Capitalism is a different animal entirely. Capitalism is the process whereby people with large amounts of money invest that money in business for the sole purpose of making more money. And capitalism, unlike free enterprise, requires one thing, and one thing only: increasing profits.

How do you increase profits continually? There are a few ways to do it. Every business has revenues and costs. On the revenue side, you increase revenues by convincing more and more people to buy what it is you have to sell. In some cases, that's easy because the product is good, and it's what people want. But that's not always the case. Often, it's done through the use of advertising (my definition of most advertising now is "stealing your self-respect and selling it back to you for the price of a product.") Some products, such as fast food, tobacco and alcohol, have their own ways of convincing people to buy more. Other products need some help from the government in the form of overly broad patents. Other products (like services) require ongoing, increasing fees. Some increase revenues by making products that are "designed for the dump," which means they need to be replaced more often.

Then there is the cost side. Ever increasing profits requires ever decreasing costs. There are two kinds of cost: labor and resources. Capitalist enterprises decrease labor costs by decreasing wages, decreasing benefits, shipping jobs to cheaper venues, and convincing the government to maintain a minimum wage that is far from a living wage. They externalize labor costs (such as health care benefits) onto the government.

Capitalist enterprises decrease resource costs by sourcing resources from countries with few regulations and by externalizing environmental costs (dumping waste, leaving open strip mines, dumping carbon into the atmosphere, the costs of landfilling all that shit we buy, etc.) They get tax breaks from governments, and the money is made up by individuals. They decrease resource costs by using the cheapest materials available. 

This quote is attributed to Ghandi, and I can't agree with it more: "The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles"

nfluences](/content/my-influences)

On 19 Jul, 2011 By mpm

People often ask what writers do I read, and what are my influences. I figured that was a great subject for a blog post. First, the big picture.

I've been reading science fiction pretty much since I started reading. The earliest science fiction I remember reading was A Wrinkle in Time, which I think is probably formative for a lot of science fiction writers. I read a lot of hard SF as a kid, teenager and young adult (and, actually, I still read a fair bit of it.) I'd say that in a big picture sense, science fiction writing by women has been by far the biggest influence on my writing.

More specifically, I think if I had to name the eight most influential science fiction authors for me, it would be, in roughly this order: Sherri Tepper, Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, Larry Niven, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth A. Lynn, Mary Doria Russel (who isn't strictly a SF author), and Robert Heinlein.

I've been influnced by the literary fiction of Margaret Atwood and Marge Piercy (they both also write SF on occasion). 

I'm also influenced by Movies and TV. Biggest influencers there are Star Trek (particularly Deep Space Nine) and Babylon 5. 

What also influences my work is just life on this planet - more on that in future posts.

The inherent violence of wealth

On 10 Jul, 2011 By mpm With 3 Comments

This is a belated, and long-percolated response to a blog post by my friend Ryan Dowell Baum. I am going to focus my discussion on one particular point that Ryan makes in his post:

"The problem with liberal politics is that it incorrectly assumes that by voting to raise taxes and expand social programs, the American people are legitimately and voluntarily offering up their government's money to provide for the needs of others. The flaw in this thinking is that it forgets that government has no money of its own, because government does not produce wealth. It only takes, by force, from those who do (or borrows from other governments, who take, by force, from those who do). And in the US, the government disproportionately takes from the rich. So when middle-class Americans vote to raise taxes to serve the poor, it is not primarily their money, or their government's, that they are voluntarily offering up. They are manipulating the state into taking other (wealthier) people's money against their will, under threat of imprisonment, and giving it to less wealthy people. This, it seems to me, is violence."

What I'm about to say is probably too radical for most people, Ryan included. And that's fine - I don't mind occupying the "lunatic fringe" for this. I can't begin to express how deeply core this philosophy is to me. For all of my life, I have had a deep sense that the way things were arranged in our capitalist society were very wrong. As a child of relative privilege, this sense did not come from a feeling of having been deprived in comparison to others as I grew up. I'm not sure where my sense of equality comes from, exactly - it is so inherent in my being. Perhaps it comes a bit from my parents - but definitely not completely. Perhaps it comes from my reading of the Bible, both as a child and as an adult - but it's not that either, since I do not take the Bible literally in any way, and I wouldn't even say at this point that it is the major source of my moral compass. But I could indeed argue that this is a philosophy that Jesus would likely agree with. Anyway, maybe it is just that this is core to the being whose soul inhabits this body. Who knows. 

My philosophy is that all of creation, and in particular for us on Earth, all of the energy of our star, and all of the resources that come from that energy, is no ones to own or control. No one on this planet - not even any one species - has the right to own or control any part of creation. That is my starting point, and as you can imagine, that has pretty big implications for how far off we are from that ideal.

This planet does not have infinite resources. Only a tiny fraction of the energy of our star makes it to our planet. There are reserves of that energy stored underneath the ground in the form of the decomposed remains of plant life millions of years in our past. There are minerals of varied sorts under the Earth that we use. All of these are finite. 

Wealth is basically the accumulation of those resources by individuals or groups of individuals. And that accumulation is always at the expense of others, because the fact of these finite resources means that economics - the use and distribution of those resources - is a zero-sum game. The idea of constant and infinite economic growth is false.

Sometimes, that wealth is at the expense of future beings - like our profligate use of fossil fuels (for which I am guilty). But often, that wealth is at the expense of current humans or other beings. I would argue anyone who has spent their life accumulating massive wealth has done it in a way that created and/or accentuated the present or future suffering of others - whether it be exploiting resources such as Coltan, or employing people at non-living wages, or allowing products to be made with slave or child labor. And many people (including many individuals in industrialized countries) have lived their lives in ways that create or accentuate the suffering of others in other parts of the world, or in the future. This is the inherent violence of wealth. 

In order for capitalism to work, labor costs must remain relativey low. The two ways that happens is that 1) jobs get moved to regions with lower wages, and 2) there must be some level of unemployment, so that there are people who are willing to work for lower wages just so that they can survive. Capitalism requires growth, and that growth has largely come from the use of fossil fuels, as well as other finite resources of the Earth. This is the inherent violence of capitalism.

In our country, we have tried to mitigate this to some extent by asking those who are more wealthy to pay for programs for those who are either unable to work because of age, health (physical or mental), unemployment, or who, for reasons rarely of their own making, are caught in cycles of poverty. To call this policy violence completely ignores the violence of wealth creation. 

We are in deep shit. The United States and the industrialized world is in economic deep shit that it won't get out of because we have hit our resource limits. The planet is in environmental deep shit. And we haven't woken up to the fact that economic systems that revolve around the accumulation of wealth are the culprits. (By the way, most forms of communism that have existed so far, which are simply systems of state-sponsored wealth accumulation, are just as problematic, and are just as inherently violent.)

My Tools: Writing

On 11 May, 2011 By mpm

I'm mostly doing this last post on my tools to pimp Scrivener. I was a loyal Scrivener user on my Mac for years, and then when I moved to Windows last year, I mourned my loss terribly. But then! Then someone started to work on Scrivener for Windows and Linux. Almost enough to make a grown woman cry.\ I do just about all of my novel writing on Scrivener. It's great for outlining, for research, for writing scenes, etc. And it has a great compile function, to spit it all out into a manuscript when it's ready to edit. I have probably only used 30% of it's features, but I love it, and look forward to using it. (Am I really looking forward to using it, or just looking forward to writing...?)\ I use LibreOffice for most other writing and editing tasks, although sometimes I must sadly use MS Word for some stuff (like some ebook converters have a harder time with LO files, even formatted as .doc.)\ I've been experimenting using Scribus for page layout. I use GIMP for any graphics manipulation I need for cover art and such.\ And, of course, I do a lot of writing on WordPress and Drupal.

On being a Contemplative

On 08 May, 2011 By mpm

I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to fit myself into varied spiritual boxes. I was a Presbyterian, then I was a Nazarne, then I was a humanist, then I was a Pagan, then a Buddhist, then a UU, and lastly a progressive Christian. Lately, I have come to realize that there are aspects of all of these identities in my spiritual and religious life at the moment,  but none of them can singularly hold me. I've known for a long time that being a Progressive Christian wasn't really enough to describe me, and at many times I've called myself a "Buddheo-Christian" (this term did not originate with me.) But even that isn't really enough - it doesn't reflect the influence of other traditions in my spiritual life.

I was talking with Ruth yesterday, and she has a way of seeing things about me that I sometimes have a hard time seeing. She said that I was simply a contemplative.Somehow, that seemed so straightforward and true. That seems like a container that can fit me.

I was looking at the etymology of "contemplative". It's lingusitically connected to contemplation. Contemplation is from Latin, and includes such meaning as "act of looking at" and "to gaze attentively, observe" and to "to mark out a space for observation". I like that latter meaning - "to mark out a space" - I think of that in terms of both time and intention: to set aside time and effort to observe. 

What is the observation? Rather often, it's my mind. But sometimes it's about observing creation - the natural world, and all beings in it. 

This also feels like it allows for a more intimate connection between my scientist self, my writer self, and my spiritual self. And it feels like it can explain a lot of what I feel called to do in ways that being a Christian or a Buddhist didn't quite explain to me. 

Dispatch from Intentional Community

On 06 May, 2011 By mpm

In my adult life, I've lived with others in community longer than I've lived alone. It suits me, and I hope to be able to live in intentional community for the rest of my life.

I've lived in WORSHP house for almost a year now. WORSHP house (WORSHP stands for West Oakland Reconciliation and Social Healing Project) is an intentional commnity of six people, of varied ages, ethnicities, sexualities and backgrounds, living in a big old Victorian house (the one on the corner) in West Oakland. We are interfaith, although we all have some connection to Christianity, and several of our members consider that to be their faith tradition. Some of us also have deep connections to Buddhism.

Living life in this time in history, in this particular country, is a complicated journey. Having companions along this journey is a true blessing. We are all trying hard to live this life where we spread love - we try our hardest to love everyone, even when our society, and our inner voices say that we can't, or shouldn't. A post that went up once on our status whiteboard (our physical version of Facebook) said "This thing of loving everyone ... is a pain in the a**". We also have a gratitude board, which fills up with all of the things in life we are grateful for.

We have faced tough issues as a community. What does it mean to be who we are (mostly priviledged by background - we've all been to graduate school) living in West Oakland? What does real racial reconciliation mean? We've grappled with tough issues like money, ego, how we want and need to be taken care of, and fairness. We're complete, and fine, and incomplete at the same time. We are a work in progress, moving along a path we seem to be called to, and stumbling, but we pick each other up when we fall. 

This year has been one of the most difficult years of my life. It has also been a year full of change. At the same time, it has been one of the best years of my life, living here. I have felt called to live a life of simplicity, awareness, generosity and love, and I don't know if I could have found a better place for it. 

And then there's the fun stuff. The fun conversations around the dining room table on theology, economics, food security, political action, what it really means to follow that Jesus guy, and sex (yes, we talk about sex.) We love to play games, and it's no surprise to find people engaging in a game of bananagrams or Spades. We all are good cooks, so we eat well, not just on Fridays where we have our group dinners, but many days someone has cooked up a pot of soup, or a dish of curried this or that for people to share. We have lots of visitors, both for dinners and events, and also for lengthier stays. It's fun to meet such a wider range of people than I'd generally meet on my own.

As a community, we certainly could fit within the movement called "New Monasticism," and we all find resonance with those ideals, we also have deep critiques of that largely white, straight movement. We think they gone far in critiquing our economic system, and the ways in which Chrisitianity has become complicit in the dominany culture, but they haven't gone nearly far enough in looking at gender and sexuality. 

I know we also have a lot more distance to travel, and I look forward to the road ahead.

Why I decided to Self-Publish

On 27 Apr, 2011 By mpm With 1 Comments

Self-publishing books used to have a bad reputation. That has changed a little bit over the past couple of years, but there definitely is the sense that people who get published "for real" must be better writers, and certainly have more cred. I decided to self-publish my novels for a number of reasons, after long consideration and contemplation. These reasons are both philosophical as well as deeply personal.

First for the philosophical. There are two different threads that I'll follow in this post about the philosophical underpinnings of my decision not only to self-publish, but also to publish using a Creative Commons License. I have been an open source advocate for many years. Although not as much of a purist as some, I still believe that the way to create and share these digital things we're awash in now, whether it be software, content, data, music, writing, art, what have you, is to make them open and freely available to everyone, and allow anyone to "riff off" of that creativity. And, I want to help encourage economic models which help creators make a living from creating.

Open source software is a great example of a gift economy at work, and although it is never, and can never be purely so until and unless our society operates as a gift economy (my personal economic philosophy) it does present a success of sorts for that ideal. 

When I wrote my first novel 5 years ago, I knew I wanted to release that work using an open content model. I worried as an emerging writer about how I could possibly do that and get published at the same time. I even wrote Cory Doctorow an email about it once. He is without a doubt the most well known published author who's work has an open content license. There are very, very few other success stories like his. He was quite nice in reply, and basically said "don't worry about it until later." Well, three books and five years later came, and getting published "for real" didn't look especially likely, especially not with an open content license. I'll talk more about those issues a little later in the personal section.

The second thread has to do the concentration of ownership of media companies in a very, very few hands. Six companies in the United States own the vast majority of media, including TV, radio, music, movies, and print. Most publishers of science fiction and fantasy novels are now owned by one of these big six. And in the pursuit of being published "for real", one might be hard pressed to pick and choose. I found the idea of being a part of that machine kind of distasteful. I don't blame other authors who are - not at all. But I realized it wasn't for me.

These two threads come together in talking about copyright, and the ways in which these large media companies work very hard to not only extend copyright protection for works far beyond what makes sense in order to protect the creators of that work, but also to do their best to limit the availability of work, and prevent unauthorized copying of works with technology such as DRM. Things which, in my humble opinion stifles creativity and innovation instead of fostering it. There is a great (albeit long and complex) discussion of this in Yochai Benkler's amazing book The Wealth of Networks.

So now to the personal. Frankly, I didn't spend many years trying to get an agent, or trying to get published. I did spend some months, however. And I got feedback from editors and such on my work. The most common kind of feedback I got was "it needs more conflict." I even had someone suggest that the Casitians should be involved in a space battle with the US military at the beginning of my first book! 

I was fighting with this - I wanted people to read the books. I wanted to get published. But I realized that that wasn't why I was writing. It's a subtle thing. I write to tell stories that flow through me. That's the only way I can describe it. I realized that I wanted to write without compromise. I think I'm a good writer. I hope some day I can become a very good writer. I want people to read what I write - but that's not why I write. I write because I can't not write. I can't not tell these stories that come to me.

I didn't want to have to change how I write, or what I wite just so I can get published. I write on subjects that some science fiction fans (and therefore publishers) won't like. I write about gender, race, sexuality and spirituality. I write about peacemaking, and alternative economic systems. I write about the effects of oppression. I want these stories to be read - I don't want them to simply pile up on my hard drive, with no one to see them but myself. 

I don't know what will happen now that I've embarked on this road. It's been fun talking with people who are reading, or have read my first book. I'm looking forward to the process of putting the rest of them out, as I'm also already working on more (yes, there will be more - I said I can't not write.)

Oh Jesus I love you, and I love Buddha too... {#oh-jesus-i-love-you-and-i-love-buddha-too... .blogTitle}

On 22 Apr, 2011 By mpm With 2 Comments

This is a great song (and catchy, too.)

My spiritual journey through this life has been interesting, at least. I started out life as a mainline Christian (Presbyterian), was a Nazarene for a while, then wandered a bit, explored Paganism, picked up a Buddhist meditation practice, then returned to Christianity more recently, but a type that is neither the faith of my childhood, nor the faith of my fundamentalist early adulthood. These days, I find myself holding less tightly to the label Christian that I relatively recently re-adopted. I'm finding myself willing to live with the complexity of what it means to follow two different faith traditions (Christianity and Buddhism) at the same time.

I've always thought that every faith is simply an approximation of what's really true. We humans are limited beings, and we're not capable of fully understanding the truths of the universe - the best we can do is approximate.

My novel is out!

On 08 Apr, 2011 By mpm

It's been almost 5 years since I wrote my first novel in the summer of 2006, a science fiction story about aliens who are human. It has finally made it to the light of day! After a lot of consideration about the current massive changes in the publishing world, and my own penchant for all things technical, I decided to self-publish the novel, in eBook form first. If enough people request it, there will be a print run. There may even be an audio book! 

I'm excited that this has happened - I've written a lot in the last 5 years, and I'm happy that I've finally allowed myself to get this out the door! :-) 

The novel is called: "The Casitians Return." The sequels in the trilogy, called "The Story of New Earth" and "Humans Untied" will be published in June and August, respectively.

You can watch the video trailer for the book on You Tube.

More information (like where you can get a copy) is on the website. It's not yet available on Amazon for Kindle, but should be in the next couple of weeks or so.

If you want to keep informed, feel free to check out the website, sign up for my email list, and/or check out the Facebook page.

News Blackout

On 05 Apr, 2011 By mpm

In 2003 at the start of the war in Iraq, I did a news blackout for about a year. I'd gotten so addicted to reading and watching news, and addicted to the need to see what was happening, and I got so disheartened and frustrated that I needed detox.

Well, it happened again. Over the course of the last few years since Obama was elected, I've felt compelled to keep track of what's happening in the country and the world. I see that same addiction and need coming back, so it's time again for a national and international news blackout. Goodbye NPR, Al Jazeera English, NYT, Rachel Maddow, and even John Stewart. I don't know how long this will last (forever, maybe?) but I figure if anything really momentous happens, I'll hear about it anyway.

Constantly hearing about horrible things happening far away that I have no way to affect is disheartening, difficult and frustrating, and takes away energy for positive action. Time to focus on the local, and what I can affect.

What am I going to do with my novels? Decisions made.

On 25 Mar, 2011 By mpm

I have hemmed and hawed about this for years, now. I started writing my novels in the "Casitian Universe" series back in 2006, and I have now completed the trilogy. I spent a few months looking for agents and publishers, and decided, given my penchant for all things open, as well as the massive, amazing changes happening in the publishing business, that I would strike out on my own. I decided, at first at least, to self-publish all three novels in electronic form only.

The first novel, called "The Casitians Return" will be published on April 8, 2011. You can find an excerpt online. It will be distributed on Amazon, Google, Apple iBook, for the Barnes and Noble Nook, and on casitian.com.

The novels will be Creative Commons licensed.

Changes ...

On 27 Feb, 2011 By mpm

"Nothing endures but change" -- Heraclitus\ Sometimes, change happens when we're not looking for it, or we don't really want it. Sometimes changes that we don't want lead us to places that make more sense for us. This is one of those times.\ I've been struggling with health issues (life-altering, but not life-threatening, thankfully) for almost 6 months. They have led me to make a significant change in my work life. I have decided to step out of co-running OpenIssue, a business that I helped start more than 2 years ago, so that I can work part-time, to get (and stay) healthy.\ OpenIssue will continue with its strong team focused entirely on CRM and data (using Salesforce, Convio Common Ground, etc.). I'll still be working with OpenIssue on odds and ends moving forward.\ I'll be looking for small projects, or being a piece of larger projects. Please feel free to drop me a line, and please read my page about what I'm looking for.

Taking the Red Pill

On 05 Feb, 2011 By mpm

I imagine many of you have seen the movie "The Matrix." If you have, you know about the Red Pill.

The red pill is a tough one to swallow, and once you swallow it, there is no going back. In some ways, I think I was born with the red pill in my body, with slow-release timing, and it's just about completely dispersed in my system right about now. I think also at varied times in my life I have chosen red pill booster shots. I don't want to stretch this analogy too far beyond recognition, though. I do feel like I'm beginning to see things more clearly than I have in a while - things that are uncomfortable. Lately, this has been primarily generated by the fact that I have been struggling with a chronic health condition that has made my life somewhat difficult to manage. And that has a way of putting so much about my life, and our collective lives into a sharp kind of contrast that makes some things hard to ignore. Things that were much more easy to ignore when I was healthy, and living my normal life.

We have chosen, for a variety of reasons, to live with a set of illusions about who we are as human beings, and what we are capable of. And, as is clear in so many ways, we are learning the hard way about how false these illusions really are - we are all, in a sense, taking a big dose of the Red Pill without our permission.

If you have some time, definitely listen to this podcast - an interview with Barbara Kingsolver about her book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." I had the pleasure of listening to it yesterday. The interview, and her book, is a few years old, but it's a great interview, and I can tell from her writing that she is someone who has taken the Red Pill.

Are Our Politics Poisonous?

On 24 Jan, 2011 By mpm

This article was written for Seminary of the Street, for their January 2011 newsletter.

The conversations and conflict in the wake of the shooting in Arizona provides a good object lesson about something Buddhists call "The Three Poisons." These are concepts familiar to all of us -- greed (or craving), hatred (or aversion) and delusion (or self-deception).

We can easily see the greed, hatred and delusion that we feel fuels the actions of others, those who we might consider our enemies, or those on the other side of the political spectrum. The greed of Wall Street bankers, doing their best to reap huge benefits while allowing others to assume the risk -- or the greed of the super-rich, who have just recently been handed the continuation of huge tax cuts.

We can call easily to mind the delusion of watchers of Fox News, being fed a constant stream of lies that they seem to swallow easily and whole. And we can find hatred of our President, hatred of immigrants, and hatred of the poor rampant in conservative politics.

What is much harder for us to see is our own greed, hatred and delusion, and our unwillingness to admit that we share the same characteristics of people that we so easily deride. I can recall nights in previous years watching news about Vice President Cheney, and feeling nothing but hatred for who he was and what he stood for. I know I have, at times, swallowed left-wing conspiracy theories whole, just because of the people who were delivering them. And my greed might be small "g" greed -- attachment to certain kinds of food, attachment to a particular way I want things to go -- but it is attachment, nonetheless, and poisonous.

Read the rest of the article at the Seminary of the Street website >>