This Bird Has Flown

Monday, January 12, typically would have been a good day for my dad. That night the Oregon Ducks played The Ohio State Buckeyes for the NCAA Football National Championship. But my dad didn't see the game and we didn't get a chance to discuss it the next day.

At about 9:30 am -- after a brief illness -- my dad died. He was 81. He had been battling several health issues, but his death was still a bit of a shock.

To date, I haven't had a good cry. Sure, I've gotten a bit misty-eyed a time or two, but I haven't broken down. The main reason why is that it was a good death. He didn't suffer long and he died in his sleep. For my money, that's the best way to go.

I haven't gone as far as banging a drum like Zhuangzi (at the death of his wife), but I have taken some solace from that story.

Life and death. 

It's the ebb and flow of the existence we know.

BP - Death with Dignity vs. Death for Profit?

Virtual Target Practice

Trey Smith

In a recently released report about the Sandy Hook school shooting of last December, one of the revelations is that the shooter (Adam Lanza) possessed a video game called School Shooting. As reported by the Guardian, the game features "a character controlled by the player who enters a school and shoots students."

I am sure that some people will point to this particular game as being a cause of the tragedy. Other people will broaden the scope to say that all violent video games are part of the problem and, consequently, should be banned. Still others will point out that millions of people play violent video games and yet they don't commit heinous acts, so the problem obviously isn't the games themselves.

Where do I stand on the issue? Sort of in the middle.

I do think violent video games are part of the problem, but that doesn't mean that I believe they should be singled out. Violence permeates our society. Our federal government has a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. This perspective has trickled down to local police forces. Even ordinary citizens -- like George Zimmerman -- wrap themselves in the shoot first mantra.

Most of the top box office draws in the film industry employ varying degrees of violence to sell tickets. The same is true for television programs. Heck, a good deal of the most popular music these days is filled with violent themes. When you add in the amount of violence showcased in a great deal of the "hallowed" religious tracts from the Abrahamic religions, the whole thing ends up tied neatly with a bow!

Yes, a video game entitled School Shooting is vulgar, but so too are the violent themes that seem to worm their way into every nook, cranny and crevice of our lives. Banning one tiny element won't make that much difference at all.

Zhuangzi Prepares To Die III

Scott Bradley

Zhuangzi is on his death bed and his disciples speak of giving him an elaborate send-off. Zhuangzi tells them that his coffin will be the vastness and all it contains his companions — what more could he need? But his disciples have other worries.

"'But we fear the vultures and crows will eat you, Master,” said they.

Zhuangzi said, “Above ground I'll be eaten by crows and vultures, below ground by ants and crickets. Now you want to rob the one to feed the other. Why such favoritism?"
(Zhuangzi 32; Ziporyn)

Zhuangzi jokes and teases even as he awaits death. This alone might inspire us to ask what disposition in life makes this possible.

But there is much more here, of course. There is in the hearts of his disciples still a fear and denial of death. We might do well in our own times to consider why we engage in such absurdities as the grotesque embalming and interring of dead bodies in hermetically sealed coffins, as if it could make any difference beyond taking up and rendering useless still more space. Is this not a subconscious fear of the complete disappearance and absorption into vastness that is death?

There is also here a lesson on prejudicial bias. The favoritism of his disciples is mostly a matter of denial; they would prefer that the decomposition of Zhuangzi's body be something unseen and thus subconsciously deniable. But it also reflects a larger bias, that of life over death. This is a central point of instruction for Zhuangzi. He observes that we diminish our enjoyment of life when we allow our preference for life to render us fearful of death. There is nothing morbid in this; it is in no way a denial of life or the desire of life to live. Life brings with it an impetus to its self-preservation and continuation, and this is affirmed. Yet life must end in its individuated forms, and this is ever much an aspect of life as is its desire for continuation. For this reason, Zhuangzi suggests we learn to see life and death as a "single thread"; it is not just that you can't have one without the other, as true as this may be, but that they are ultimately one and the same. What? "Seen from the point of view of their sameness, all things are one."

In what sense are they the same? In that sense in which the vastness is even now the coffin of Zhuangzi.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Zhuangzi Prepares To Die II

Scott Bradley

Zhuangzi was dying, and his disciples wanted to give him a lavish funeral. Zhuangzi said to them, 'I will have heaven and earth as my coffin and crypt, the sun and moon for my paired jades, . . . all creatures for my tomb gifts and pallbearers. My funeral accoutrements are already fully prepared! What could possibly be added?'
(Zhuangzi 32; Ziporyn)

What I think this story attempts to convey is that in releasing himself into mystery, in “hiding the world in the world so that nothing can be lost”, Zhuangzi has in life freed himself from the fear of death. It is a “release” because it requires the letting go of one’s grip on identity as if it were a thing not subject to the unavoidable transformations that characterize the phenomenal world. It involves “trust” because it ultimately requires that we affirm the way things appear to be and however they may actually be. Trust does not involve belief in any specific outcome; it is free of content; nothing specific need be ‘true’.

There is the option of belief, of course. There is life after death. We will (hopefully) go to heaven. Yet if this is so, it too is unavoidable and our disposition toward death would be little changed, except of course, that belief has as its mutually-generating, paired counterpart, doubt. Belief is born of doubt, and doubt of belief. Thus, our attempt to fix a firm foundation upon which to rest our anxiety and hope is precisely what makes that foundation unreliable.

I mentioned heaven without reference to its paired counterpart, hell. Of all the horrible ideas ever conceived by humankind and inflicted upon humanity, this must be the most awful. I recently heard a rabbi opine that if there is God, then there must be hell, for otherwise Anne Frank and Hitler would share the same fate. I would suggest that the mentality that gives rise to this is precisely the same that gives rise to the hell on earth that the Jewish State believes it has a right to impose upon the people of Gaza. “All history is a deserted battleground of rights and wrongs,” comments Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610). It is, most ironically, a supposedly moral ‘heaven’ that gives impetus to so much cruelty on earth.

This eschewal of all contentful belief might be mistaken for disbelief. It is not. Disbelief requires that belief be entertained in the first place. To refuse to believe that the moon is made of green cheese is not disbelief, as if disbelief were the only other possible state of mind, and that one must subscribe to one state or the other. Trust is open-heartedness, open-mindedness, and unmediated thankfulness. If we wish to call Reality God, then trust without belief is our purest, vastest expression of thankfulness, and that, I would suggest is true ‘worship’.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

TYT - Renisha McBride, 19, Shot To Death Trying To Get Help

Zhuangzi Prepares To Die I

Scott Bradley

Zhuangzi was dying, and his disciples wanted to give him a lavish funeral. Zhuangzi said to them, 'I will have heaven and earth as my coffin and crypt, the sun and moon for my paired jades, . . . all creatures for my tomb gifts and pallbearers. My funeral accoutrements are already fully prepared! What could possibly be added?'
(Zhuangzi 32; Ziporyn)

Like so much that is profoundly simple, this story can elicit a cursory nod before we move on to things meatier. I propose to stop and consider it with the question, What if Zhuangzi really, really felt this, and these are not just poetic sentiments? This, I think, might lead us to better understand the deeply liberating psychological impact of "hiding the world in the world".

Before beginning, however, a few words on the story generally are in order. We do not know who wrote it, or whether he is narrating an actual event, or simply making it up. Thus, we do not know if Zhuangzi did say or would have said these things. But since we are not interested in hero or guru-worship, none of these things are important. At this remove, the point of the story can only be to teach. So, let us learn.

The author's intent is not to lead us to an admiration of Zhuangzi, but to reveal in storied form how releasing oneself into mystery liberates from the fear of death. I have entitled this post "Zhuangzi Prepares to Die", but the implication is that he has long been prepared for death. In life he has released himself into all the givens of life, and among these, death is the most unavoidable. This has transformed his way of living. In this sense, this story is as ever much about life as it is about death.

"Hiding the world in the world so that nothing can be lost" is Zhuangzi's metaphor for this release into mystery. We could say it is a release into the Totality, or into the Oneness, but these words might lead us to believe in, and thus depend on, some particular outcome. Yet, Zhuangzi's letting go into mystery requires no belief, though we might say that it requires trust.

We entrust ourselves to mystery. Do we really have any choice? The only alternative is to fight back in fear against what cannot be avoided or in any way altered in any case.

There is the option of belief, of course, and this we will address in the following post.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

TYT - Obama 'Really Good At Killing People'

Somebody's Grandmother, Somebody's Mother

Trey Smith

I offer the following two snippets without comment (because they speak for themselves).

An eight-year-old girl provided Amnesty International with the quote that leads its latest report on targeted killing in Pakistan's tribal regions. A drone strike killed the girl's 68-year-old grandmother as the old woman gathered vegetables last autumn. "I wasn't scared of drones before," the little girl said, "but now when they fly overhead I wonder, will I be next?"

Her uncertainty is understandable. An elderly matriarch's death is inevitably tragic for her grandchild. Her survivors are made to bear an even greater burden when the death is cloaked in mystery. Was the strike a murder? A terrible mistake? Did the grandmother inadvertently do something to make the drone pilot suspicious? How can other innocents avoid her fate? The U.S. doesn't just refuse to explain its actions (or to compensate the families of innocent people it wrongfully kills). Our government cloaks the killings in extreme secrecy, refusing even to acknowledge its role. Of course little eight-year-old girls wonder if they're next. What would you think if a Hellfire missile arbitrarily blew up your grandma? I wonder if an eight-year-old girl is next too. It would make no more or less sense.
~ from 8-Year-Old Girl on Drones: 'When They Fly Overhead I Wonder, Will I Be Next?' by Conor Friedersdorf ~

The last time I saw my mother, Momina Bibi, was the evening before Eid al-Adha. She was preparing my children's clothing and showing them how to make sewaiyaan, a traditional sweet made of milk. She always used to say: the joy of Eid is the excitement it brings to the children.

Last year, she never had that experience. The next day, 24 October 2012, she was dead, killed by a US drone that rained fire down upon her as she tended her garden.

Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day. The media reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother's house. Several reported the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All reported that five militants were killed. Only one person was killed – a 67-year-old grandmother of nine.

My three children – 13-year-old Zubair, nine-year-old Nabila and five-year-old Asma – were playing nearby when their grandmother was killed. All of them were injured and rushed to hospitals. Were these children the "militants" the news reports spoke of? Or perhaps, it was my brother's children? They, too, were there. They are aged three, seven, 12, 14, 15 and 17 years old. The eldest four had just returned from a day at school, not long before the missile struck.

But the United States and its citizens probably do not know this. No one ever asked us who was killed or injured that day. Not the United States or my own government. Nobody has come to investigate nor has anyone been held accountable. Quite simply, nobody seems to care.

I care, though. And so does my family and my community. We want to understand why a 67-year-old grandmother posed a threat to one of the most powerful countries in the world. We want to understand how nine children, some playing in the field, some just returned from school, could possibly have threatened the safety of those living a continent and an ocean away.

Most importantly, we want to understand why President Obama, when asked whom drones are killing, says they are killing terrorists. My mother was not a terrorist. My children are not terrorists. Nobody in our family is a terrorist.
~ from Please Tell Me, Mr. President, Why a US Drone Assassinated My Mother by Rafiq ur Rehman ~

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GRTV - Staging the Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria

What to Say

Trey Smith

There is an insightful piece in the Guardian today, Grieving As an Atheist: A Surprising Dilemma, by Tiffany White. She tells of initially being at a loss for words upon learning that her best friend's mother died.

I felt like I should have been saying the usual things: "God is with her now", "She's now in heaven" or "You're in my prayers". These phrases sound better because these are the phrases we're used to saying. "She's in a better place" provides a sense of hope and optimism. "You're in my prayers" shows caring and understanding. But that day, as I stood there on the phone struggling to think of the right things to say, I realized I couldn't say those phrases anymore. I couldn't tell her I was praying for her because I wasn't. I couldn't tell her I thought her mother was in "a better place" because to me that place was a hollow grave.

As White states, there are some pat phrases we offer when we want to be empathetic or sympathetic. When you grow up within a religious tradition, there are several of these stock phrases you can pull out of your quiver whenever the need arises. These phrases may lack genuine substance, but they make the utterer feel as if they have performed their solemn duty.

But even if I were still a Christian and had the privilege to pepper my condolences with hopeful phrases of heaven and angels, those phrases might sound better, and sure they provide immediate reassurance (which is what they're designed to do), but the phrases themselves are empty. When people say they're praying for you, how often are they really? But saying "I'm praying for you" sounds nice, regardless if there's any truth to it or not. We're conditioned to say these phrases whenever we're confronted with a tragedy, but we put little thought or effort into why we say them.

When faced with tragedy or heartache, if we are at all honest with ourselves, almost anything a person can say is empty. It doesn't make the situation better or bring a loved one back from the dead. So, what could a religious adherent or an atheist say or do as a meaningful gesture? I think White hits upon the best answer.

During my second phone call to my best friend, I decided I would let her do the majority of the talking. After all, this wasn't about me, it was about my friend, and I realized the best thing I could do for her was to simply be there for her and be a supportive listener. I told her she could call me any time she wanted, even if it was 4am, even if she just wanted to bawl in my ear. Even though I wasn't armed with an arsenal of hopeful and optimistic phrases to make her feel better with, I realized that simply being a caring and understanding friend was more important. And isn't that what really matters?

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The Seventh Seal Revisited II

Scott Bradley

Death, what it means and how to meet it, is the principle theme in The Seventh Seal (Bergman; 1957), but this also brings religion to the fore. The son of a Lutheran chaplain to the royal household, Bergman has a lot of religious baggage with which to deal.

That the knight and his squire have just returned from ten years in the Crusades, murdering, raping and pillaging at the behest of the Roman Church, looms large in the background. The squire, never having had much faith to lose, has only become more sure of his cynicism. Religion is a scam. While they were off suffering the torments of war, those who sent them continued to profit through the nurture of fear and prejudice. But the knight, once a true believer, has been cast into despair. He still wants to believe, but cannot. He has already believed a monstrous lie.

The Black Death that took one of three Swedes ravages the land. Priests burn 'witches' alive. Prompted by the Church's ceaseless promulgation of self-negating guilt and the fear of judgment, troops of self-flagellants stagger through the land. Death has a fearsome face; God awaits with more dreadful tortures still.

Have things really changed all that much?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The Seventh Seal Revisited I

Scott Bradley

I just recently twice watched one of my all-time favorite films, The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman. The second watching was with commentary, but the commentator seemed more interested in the art than the subject — death.

A knight and his squire return to Sweden after ten years of the crusades only to find themselves in the midst of the black death. Death comes for the knight and his growing retinue of companions as he makes his way back to his castle, but he challenges him to a game of chess and thus delays the inevitable — death always wins in the end.

The knight has nearly lost his faith in God and is torn between a desire to restore that faith or to rip all thought of God out of his heart. His hedonist squire never entertained such folly. They and all the several other characters must in their own way face the personification of death who now stands before them. One beautiful young woman meets it with seeming thankfulness. The knight despairingly pleads with God for answers. The squire accepts fate squarely, though not without protest. "See yourself in the mirror of your own indifference," he tells the knight. Still, they all die the same death.

Yet the knight has in some sense triumphed over Death. Initially, he challenged Death to a game of chess so that he might have a last chance to find answers — is there a God, what happens after death? But even Death tells him, "I know nothing." Then he discovers life, not so much in himself as in a young and happy couple and their infant. In delaying Death with a game of chess he allows them to escape—at least for a while. Acts of kindness somehow make life more meaningful. And it is also in their company that he discovers that it is the sweet moments of life, however fleeting, that give it meaning. Yet it is we who must make it so.

There is death because there is life; together they form a mutually arising and mutually affirming whole. They are one string and one body, Zhuangzi tells us. Seeing them as such is his way of facing death so that he might get the most out of life. Authentic living, he seems to say, is only possible when lived in a thankful awareness of its counterpart.

Reluctance to die seems an essential attribute of life; desire for death is a negation of life, at least while it can still flourish. It is the fear of death, one's own and that of others, that saps the joy out of life, and it is this that Zhuangzi suggests can be overcome in thankful acceptance of the way of things, even while repeating with Death, "I know nothing."

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Why Is a Short-Term Agonizing Death More Heinous Than a Long-Term One?

Trey Smith

On a recent episode of The Young Turks, comedian Jimmy Dore made what I think is a great point. 

US leaders are all up in a tizzy because they allege that President Assad used chemical weapons on his own people in Syria. President Obama has termed this usage as crossing a "red line." Secretary of State John Kerry has stated repeatedly that the vast majority of the world has decided that the use of chemical weapons is not acceptable. Chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction.

But what about depleted uranium?

In a manner of speaking, depleted uranium could be considered a chemical weapon as well. It is the chemical properties of this vile substance that often leads to long-term health issues and agonizing deaths. The chief difference between a poisonous gas versus depleted uranium is that the former tends to kill more quickly, while the latter can take years or, sometimes, decades.

Of course, there IS another important difference: The US regularly uses depleted uranium on the battlefield. Since whatever the US does is right and just, no one can criticize us for utilizing a weapon that leads to agonizing deaths.

Dore's point is that we are in no position to be the final arbiter on this issue. IF the Syrian government is guilty of this crime against humanity, then we are guilty 100 times over! If the Syrian government is guilty of killing hundreds of people with gas, then we are even more guilty of compromising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as well as tens of thousands of our own troops!

If people believe that it is okay to bomb Syria for their crime, would you feel the same way if another nation decided to punish the US for our crimes against humanity?

People as Throwaway Pawns

Trey Smith

The reason a missile attack on Syria is proving so unpopular on both sides of the Atlantic has nothing to do with neoimperial hubris. The reason is that it is a bad idea. "Punishing" a dictator for killing his own people by simply killing more of his own people seems beyond cruel. It seems stupid. It leads nowhere.

Public opinion may be a poor guide to the minutiae of state policy. But that opinion has been saddled with two long wars, both failures. As a result, leaders in London and Washington (and possibly Paris) have been sufficiently nervous to pass decision to their national assemblies. In British the result was a rebuff. In Washington, President Obama has decided to refer Syria to Congress and France's president, François Hollande, may do likewise.

In the attacks on Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the goal of western intervention was at least clear. It was to topple a regime. Since the UN forbids such overt aggression against member states, action must be dressed up as humanitarian or to enforce UN resolutions. But everyone knows what is the intended outcome.

In Syria, an attack would be in retaliation for a proven breach of international law on chemical weapons. No one has the will to topple the Assad regime. Action is described as merely punitive and a "deterrent", directed purely at a past incident of a chemical massacre. This is gesture war. It will not punish the guilty, such as members of the Assad regime, who should be arraigned before a war crimes court. It will merely destroy buildings and kill people. It seems peculiarly pointless.
~ from The West's Threat to Attack Syria Is an Idiotic Gesture by Simon Jenkins ~

If revelations about the US drone program have taught us anything, it is that missiles or bullets shot from drones aren't half as precise as government leaders pretend they are. Drone operators frequently have no clue who they have just killed and injured.

And that's why it is beyond idiotic to think that missiles fired into Syria will help their situation in any way, shape or form. Personally, I wouldn't term this strategy as idiotic; inhumane is the word I would choose.

In order to "punish" the Assad regime for something no one is even sure they are responsible for, the US wants to kill innocent Syrians. And let's be clear about this. If the US employs missiles, innocent citizen WILL be killed and maimed. It is the nature of the beast.

Basically, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are advocating a strategy that treats the people of Syria -- mainly the poor who don't the wherewithal to get out of harm's way -- as throwaway pawns on the geopolitical chess board. To score some sort of political points, both men are willing to sacrifice some "faceless" people. And I'm sure they will try to browbeat members of Congress to allow them to play this deadly game.

Bambi Had It Better

Trey Smith

Below I am sharing an absolutely unbelievable article posted at Alternet. The short story it tells defies commonsense. After reading it, I hope you have the same response I did: WTF? What is wrong with these people?

When an Illinois family brought a baby fawn to a no-kill shelter at the Society of St. Francis on the Kenosha-Illinois border, they figured the fawn's mother had abandoned her, and hoped to save her life.

That hope turned into a nightmare two weeks ago when multiple squad cars and heavily armed police officers arrived at the shelter with a search warrant for the fawn that had been nicknamed Giggles for a noise she made that sounded like laughter. "It was like a SWAT team," shelter employee Ray Schulze told WISN 12 News.

Apparently, the Department of Natural Resources had received anonymous reports of a baby deer living at the shelter. Nine DNR agents and four deputy sheriffs, all armed to the teeth, was the proportionate response. The agents even had aerial photos of the fawn going in and out of the barn, because Wisconsin law forbids the posession of wildlife.

No problem, shelter employees said. Giggles was scheduled to go to the wildlife reserve the very next day.

Giggles never made it. According to WISN 12 News, the agents "corralled workers near the picnic area and then set out in search of the fawn." And that was more or less the end of Giggles.

"I was thinking in my mind they were going to take the deer and take it to a wildlife shelter, and here they come carrying the baby deer over their shoulder. She was in a body bag," Schulze said. "I said, 'Why did you do that?' He said, 'That's our policy,' and I said, 'That's one hell of a policy.'"

Later a spokeswoman for DNR made sympathetic noises about how the shelter tried to do the right thing, but policies are policies. She also denied agents killed Giggles at the shelter, saying she was tranquilized, then euthanized later.

It was not a response that satisfied shelter workers, who also wondered just how much the Operation Giggles cost the taxpayers.
~ Overkill: Armed Agents Raid Wisconsin Animal Shelter; Kill Baby Deer Named Giggles by Janet Allon ~