Prayers, preachers and packin': Is this the vision of Christ?

Louisiana not only has liberal gun laws, but it's a place where you can take a gun to church. So while a high school in Washington state bemoans the violence of another school shooting, what does it mean when faith-talking conservatives praise gun-toting laws for Sunday worship protection?

Louisiana passed a law allowing guns in church several years ago. It did so as it has a popular foundation of support from a state where Second Amendment rights are as critical to the culture as are the Ten Commandments. Governor Bobby Jindal, whom few may know well outside Louisiana, outside of television images about the oil spill along the coast, advocated, supported and signed the bill into law.

The Ten Commandments, however, were modified by the words of Jesus Christ.  One might wonder when weapons are forged for violent response in places known as God's house rather than the rational and peaceful ways the ways of Christ proclaimed.

In the Old West gunslingers were supposed to check their guns at the door.  These days guns may be hidden from view, then taken into church without worrying about being checked by anyone.

And while guns are celebrated by the National Rifle Association, and are being taken to church, mental health experts remind us it is the verbal atmosphere of praising guns that allows violence to breed. Perhaps in that sense it isn't guns themselves. Instead it's the constant barrage from apologists who take extreme positions when it comes to guns.  Automatic rifles are seen as the best for hunting deer.  Those who argue about any type of restriction for guns are mocked even as multitudes of gun-lovers, and their lobbyists, continue to assert that it isn't guns who kill but people.
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This reporter conducted a survey of preachers in Natchitoches, Louisiana five years ago.  The survey found that most of the ministers contacted across Protestant groups either collected or just owned guns.  The Catholic Church in the main part of the city responded to the survey by stating that at no time did the priest in charge have a gun on the premises.

The violence of the gun remains a symbol of Western expansion, part of the symbolic takeover of the country, a country whose land was wrested from Native Americans as the expansion grew particularly great after the Louisiana Purchase.. Settlements developed with gun protection in Arizona and Oregon, where the Lewis and Clark trail ended.

The gun is glorified in stories, and by the media, and its rights are consistently upheld at election time, even as school shootings continue every year and as the number of guns in the United States continues to grow.  This is true in spite of the fact that in the small towns of Oregon, in the 1940's and 50's when hunting for deer was particularly an activity involving men whose families ate the meat brought home.  And in a town like La Grande, Oregon where almost every man had a rifle locked up and where every man's son was taught to hunt with their fathers, no school shooting was front page news.  Guns are as American as apple pie, but they were not talked about for defense but for hunting game.

In the wake of Washington State's misery, as the most recent example of a school shooting, it is likely, sadly too, that the gun-owning politicians will likely condemn the violence as an isolated thing and continue advocacy of guns even within the church. Oregon will continue to display its gun shops proudly on main thoroughfare and offer gun shows alongside car shows as entertainment.
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The saddest commentary of all in the public pronouncements of guns is that in the place where Jesus is to dwell as the head of the church, the gun can go to the altar in the pocket of the
supplicant while on knees bended in prayer. It is a symbol of the violence available anywhere, in a shopping mall, at a school, and even in a church where parishioners brandish weapons with pride as they pray for protection---or to shoot straight.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Quakers: How to forge links for religious understanding

Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses

In a world where divisions of all types can occur among people, building bridges toward understanding can occur by looking at areas of agreement.   On the surface, Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses might appear so different in their beliefs that they would be unable to interact kindly.  But it turns out there are fundamental truths believed by both where they could dialogue in constructive ways.  It is an example of what could be done with many groups to create good will among religious groups and groups of various kinds.

Quakers admonish their followers to examine other religions with an open mind and heart. Others do as well, including many other religious group and individuals that include, but are not limited to, Unitarian-Universalists, Unity Church, and the Baha'i Faith .  Atheists too can find paths to peace in looking at the good within a given set of spiritual beliefs. World Religion Day, which is celebrated annually, is a time when members of different religions come together and share their ideas in ways that promote understanding. To do that means to get past preconceived notions to areas where a given group excels.

As a reporter who has covered religion over a number of years, some of my knowledge of the Jehovah's Witnesses comes from my interaction as an adult in social media groups or places where music and writing is shared.  Other information is gleaned from interviewing members of their church. But years ago I had already formed a positive view of Jehovah's Witnesses based upon my interaction with an any elderly couple I knew as a child.

I grew up in a small town in Eastern Oregon called La Grande, and the elderly couple, the Yentzers, were the parents of my Mother's stepfather.  They were known for their great love for one another and their kindness to others.  On cold days, when I would visit their home, they would greet me with candy and hugs, as they asked questions that showed interest in me.

I read the Watchtower many times during my visits.  It was usually on a side table, and even as a child I enjoyed reading almost everything I could find.  I had been raised to have an open mind and to ask questions. This was something new that challenged my thinking that I could compare with my Father's Mormon family and those of my Mother's core family who were Quakers.

Jehovah's Witnesse have many beliefs in common with Quakers.  They believe as Quakers do in non-violence and refuse to bear arms. They recognize Jesus as central to their faith, just as Quakers do, and do not believe in the Trinity but Christ as the Son and head of their church as Quakers do as well. Many Quakers retain the belief in the Trinity, but differ from other Christians in that Christ is seen not as God but God's son.

Group support for one another within a community is important for both Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses. Witnesses also offer love and support to people outside their own religion, as do Quakers, although social activism is not a major principle of Jehovah's Witness belief.

Quakers advance the preservation of the good of the earth and care and caution with regard to taking care of one's health, as do Some of the Jehovah's Witnesses avoiding pork and unclean things, but many simply focus on living a healthy life.  Much of that depends on the individual's personal behaviors in each case. Quakers also have made a conscious effort to express community, regardless of race; and in the South, where many fundamental Protestant churches are not integrated, Jehovah's Witness groups pride themselves on embracing members of all races.

For every spiritual group there is a set of beliefs and principles that define it, but the best part is the way a person may practice in relationship with others. A loving heart and open mind is fundamental to the Quaker view, the concept of a loving heart regardless of belief.  To examine ways to dialogue with one another, when there are differences, establishes the fundamental principle of how to get along with others.  It is the concept of a loving heart for all, regardless of belief, that can reinforce for everyone the notion that all men are brothers truly.

Small towns offer potential for ethical and spiritual resolutions to government inertia

Crowd at annual food festival in Natchtioches, Louisiana

While people nationwide in the United States are annoyed with the inertia of the federal government, often it is at the grassroots where problems can be resolved and true mediation occur.  Two towns, one in the South and one in the West, are examples where that might be able to take place, as other areas of the country can examine their connections that could serve to ignite a new direction for government to function more responsively to the needs of ordinary people.

census rally in La Grande, Oregon - CF

Local communities have close common interests because there are fewer degrees of separation socially.  People have long-standing relationships and marriage among families that fosters permanent bonds.  Social connections and spiritual bonds are formed at church.  This means there is a strong platform for discussing community problems.

Political problems do occur in small towns, but that dissension ordinarily only goes just so far, because an angry tongue unleashed against a neighbor is felt not just in one's immediate neighborhood but reverberates across town.  The higher up the food chain of government, however, the less personal and direct the relationships are, making it easier for people to become hostile in prominent and more long-lasting ways than occur in small towns.

In local communities like Natchitoches, Louisiana and La Grande, Oregon there are not just long relationships but some "bad blood" between individuals and factions, the town politicians know that helping to effect resolution of problems will help the overall community interest.  It is difficult to side with one faction over the other because overlapping relationships too. 

The process of having good things begins with grassroots coalitions that support the growth upwards of benefits that exist for everyone.

Sometimes that mediation and reconciliation takes place in simple ways, when two people from diverse groups agree on a problem that affects the greater good.  It is easier to talk things out in small towns over a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop or on a park bench where two people can overlook the town and speak of the good things while sorting out the problems.

Can reconciliation and mediation truly take place in ways that work?  It did during integration in Natchitoches when quiet negotiations took place among black and white business and community leaders who had never been schooled together but knew each other by reputation or in passing at large gatherings, usually involving immediate physical needs.  These negoitations allowed integration to occur between the Steel Magnolia ancestors and those of Uncle Tom's cabin with little violence or recrimination.  Ben Johnson, a prominent African American businessman and Arthur Watson, the town's most high-profile attorney were two of those taking leadership in days where other places had serious violence during integration.  These men helped keep the town intact, the voices of hate and dissension down, that allowed black and white children to begin attending school together in relatively peaceful ways.

La Grande, Oregon developed from the settlement of various factions of predominantly European groups into Indian territory under harsh conditions.  Out of this settlement came negotiations that remain part of the town's underpinnings, the type that can serve the nation at a time it needs this type of effort the most.

In La Grande, the mediation with Native American groups made a difference in the life of the town, so that Indian blood in one's veins became valued, not denied as a way to succeed.  Sacajawea, who was the famous Native American woman accompanying the Lewis and Clark expedition on the Oregon trail that bonded Louisiana and Oregon in the Louisiana Purchase, is widely revered in La Grande where an apartment building, and once an old hotel, were named after her.

It is that type of movement that works towards mediation among individuals, small groups and small towns that is now required to move the larger community forward, when people of good faith, regardless of political view or religious affiliation, sit down together and examine the issues that are common to most folks in their daily lives.  These resolutions support the potential of a movement up the chain where major government entities now sit so far removed from ordinary folk they seldom understand the local community plight.

That's the root of anti-government feeling at a time when the nation needs better bonding as a shield against outside attack and the breakdown of the culture from within from drugs, crime and acts of hate.

With grassroots bonding and the work of coalitions that cross racial and political groups,  small towns like Natchitoches and La Grande will be able to take great steps in maintaining their economic base and likely can improve it by accenting their values in getting things done.  These are solutions of the spirit that many people understand because they live and work closely together.

Grassroots mediation and working together on common issues can improve local communities, but this process can also form the basis of improving government at the national level where it doesn't seem to work.  As Hillary Clinton wrote in a book with reference to the raising of children, "It takes a village."  In this case that village might mean small towns making a difference in getting people to communicate amicably so they are able to take the message to the state and national levels and restore civility to government.

Religion offers social benefits and a way to advance in business insmall towns

Natchitoches, Louisiana is a town where belonging to a church is important for both social and business success[/caption]

While many Americans may not always attend church, the right answer for social and business success is to at least espouse a religion in most places in the United States.  In the South it can make a difference in whether or not an individual has a support system as well, as often the church is the very center of recreation and a place to meet those who can help ensure one has the right contacts to advance in business.

That center of social action, the church, takes precedence over almost any type of contact and interaction in small towns.  Whereas many of the people of Portland, Oregon profess no religious affiliation, in La Grande, Oregon, a small town in the Eastern part of the State, membership in the Mormon Church can help facilitate making friends and finding job opportunities.  In La Grande, many people are Mormon, with twice the percentage of membership at 21% of those who profess to be Christian compared with approximately 9% in the State.

Many people in La Grande, who are Mormon, are descendants of the early settlers to the area of Eastern Oregon.  For children growing up in the town, the church affiliation offers a social experience that often fuses many of the activities in other organizations.  Often the same child is a member of the local girl scouts as well as the Mormon Church, where the focus is on learning skills and values that add to the community experience.  The Mormon Church's precepts of hard work and the importance of the family fit well with the Western traditions of rugged independence.  That popular saying, recited by mothers and grandmothers about idle hands being part of the Devil's workshop reinforces the values of work as a way to stay out of mischief.

In Natchitoches, Louisiana the dominant church is Southern Baptist.  The African American community has a number of Baptist churches, and the white community does as well.  For the most part the races do not mix on Sunday, even as they are buried in separate graveyards.  The most famous cemetery, one of the oldest in the United States, has few African Americans who are, for the most part, formerly servants of some of the more prominent white families, many of whose descendants continue to live in the town.  The Mayor, Senator of the District and President of the University all are often members of the largest church in town, First Baptist Church, a place where social activity thrives and new residents almost always given a friendly greeting and a welcome to attend.

The uniqueness of small towns in the United States is the impact of religion on social behavior that is not the same as in the cities.  In the small communities a special church in a town has a unique status and often is recognized as the one to attend, or at least hold membership, because it can make a difference in having the right friends and business contacts.  In cities, however, it is not a particular church that is important but rather, at minimum, a declaration that one is Christian, with being Jewish a secondary choice in Eastern cities.

How one worships also offers insight into the education and status of an individual.  Although Americans consider themselves open to different religions, most people are cautious about admitting any belief other than Christian.  There are, however, crossover memberships in New Age organizations so that people embrace an eclectic belief system, while continuing to identify themselves with a particular denomination or religious group.  In the South, however, most people continue to advocate a more fundamental Christian belief without much of the enticement of other belief systems fused with it, as occurs in the towns of Oregon.  By a wide margin, according to the Pew Forum most people in the South are Evangelical Christians.

Men are more apt to express no religious affiliation and African Americans more likely to identify themselves as Christian.  Two-thirds of these African Americans consider themselves Baptists.  Hindus and Jews have the highest income levels.  The West has fewer people who express themselves as having a religious affiliation or who say they belong to a particular denomination.  The opinions and religious views differ by region, with Southerners more apt to be conservative, born-again Evangelicals, the Midwest more of a mix of both conservative and mainstream, and the West with more people who identify themselves with no particular group and more apt to have more liberal social attitudes and religious beliefs.  But in many of the groups in the West Coast, the absence of religion can have a certain status as well, especially among the younger age groups.

Despite the changing climate of faith in America, with the tendency to be eclectic about religion as the more dominant theme for most folks, the value of belonging to the right social group, which turns out to be the church in small towns, continues to be important if one wants to get ahead and meet the right people.  So if you are that new kid on the block in a small town like La Grande, Oregon or Natchitoches, Lousiana and you are opening a candy store on the corner where everyone might come, the best place to begin that marketing effort might be around the tea and coffee in the church courtyard, or snack in the Mormon social hall after Sunday services, if you want to be successful in a small town.

Dreams of Our Mothers

[caption id="attachment_15257" align="alignleft" width="221" caption="Women working"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff --  Today's mothers are unique, as "the hand that rocks the cradle" may be difficult to identify anymore with the new families struggling to decide who and what mother is.

The classic image in "Leave It to Beaver" is not the American family of today.  Today's mother is apt to work outside the home and have little time to have all the neighborhood kids over for the day.  The new world of busy mothers means children are more and more requiring technology to be tethered to the family, as opposed to the dinner hour when everyone gathers around the table to chat about the day.

In La Grande, Oregon and other small towns like Natchitoches, Louisiana one can still find mothers doing the same things they used to but paying for it with their lives.  Mothers now die like fathers do on the open roads of life and have the tensions of the work world.  But a small town means families that have remained in the town remain close emotionally as well.  Yet that is changing as well.  Emotional or physical estrangement from many causes has created distances far greater than yesterday's mother found.  What's worse is the question:  Who is the mother?

These days mothers are stepmothers, big sisters, auntie or the neighbor next door or even the Facebook mom who nurtures everyone.

So what are the dreams of the mothers today, as in the past the responsibility was to care carefully, play with the child and provide guidance for major life directions.  Today's mothers dreams of having the time to do that and hoping that, despite a unique relationship that may not be tied to a birth of a child,  they will be identified with motherhood in the same way.

Today we will attend a funeral of a stepmother with a family wrenched apart by clashes with the deceased woman's new boyfriend and the step-family, as the children's father had been married twice.  So the children have had to make shifts in their lives to accommodate new relationships after a divorce or death.  The natural mother of the adult children is seldom mentioned in the mix, as the grown children continue to identify relationships.  And the answer to "who is the mother" becomes complicated.

For all those women who have children, have cared for the children of others, who watch over children in the work world or who take the time the time for a little mothering on a street corner of a child's life, congratulations, as new life has been poetically identified as not just the physical but spiritual renewal.  Congratulations to all those who offer that kind of relationship and to all mothers who have dreams of a better world for all of us.

Chief Joseph: The Christmas message from the 'peaceful warrior'

La Grande is a small town in eastern Oregon, located in Wallowa Valley, an area of great history and cultural charm.  This town, that developed soon after the Lewis and Clark expedition, lies near the famous Oregon trail.  It is a repository of much West Coast Native American folklore and a place where Chief Joseph is revered, because the love for others from this 'peaceful warrior' reminds us of the message of Christmas.

Rugged mountains surround the pristine beauty of the valley landscape where Chief Joseph was born.   Every year the town of St. Joseph,  located not far from La Grande, honors Chief Joseph with an occasion known as "Chief Joseph Days."  During the holiday season, the life of this man and his wonderful message are worth remembering as they remind us that brotherhood is represented by many cultures and ways of life.  Now is a good time to remember the man of peace who taught love in the midst of violence and who offered an example of a life lived in kindness and forgiveness.

Chief Joseph lived 64 years, from 1840 until 1904. He was born in the Wallowa Valley and baptized  in 1838,  as his father before him had converted to Christianity by missionaries to the area. He belonged to the Nez Perce tribe that was one of the first in the West Coast to have Christian converts. The elder Joseph had an amicable relationship with the white men who had come to the valley until the gold rush of 1863 when the federal government, in an effort to further colonize the west, confiscated six million land acres and restricted the Nez Perce to a reservation.

After that, Chief Joseph’s father defied the United States government, tore up his Bible, denounced the American flag, and refused to move from his beloved valley.

Young Joseph became the tribal chief of the Nez Perce following the death of his father in 1871.  He carried on his father’s traditions and resisted the federal orders demanding the movement of the Nez Perce to a reservation. For a time it seemed the tribe might be allowed to stay in Wallowa Valley, but that was not to be.

In 1877 a United States military force, led by General Oliver Otis Howard, demanded the tribe move from its village.   When the Nez Perce refused these orders to move from their lands, the military began to plan an attack that so worried some of the Native Americans that members of the tribe raided a few white settlements and killed some of its members.  The fierce response of the Army led to one of the greatest and most tragic journeys of any Native American tribe, as the Nez Perce were chased across a 1400 mile stretch of country where they fought with pride and courage.  In one battle 200 Nez Perce fought valiantly against a force of nearly 2000 US soldiers.

The bravery of Chief Joseph and his people became the subject of newspapers in the late 19^th century where the Chief was proclaimed as “the Red Napoleon.”  The Nez Perce brought other Native American tribes who rose to protect them during the latter campaigns the great tribe had with the US Army, but it was Chief Joseph nevertheless who was credited with great military feats so that by the time of his formal surrender in

1877 his successes were trumpeted far beyond his tribal reservation walls.

Chief Joseph represents one of the greatest leaders in American history. More than a hundred years later he remains a profile in courage of a man who stood proudly in defeat and who represented a people to whom many of us owe so much for the land we love and the country we value and proclaim as ours.

When we speak of our Founding Fathers, we do not speak of men like Chief Joseph, a true American, who provided an example not just for his own people, and not just for his own time, but for the ages.  Although he died a broken man in a non-Nez Perce reservation in Washington State in 1904, never allowed to return to his Oregon home, Joseph maintained his dignity throughout his years of pain, as he watched the exile of his people, many of whom died from epidemic diseases and in loneliness and despair.

Chief Joseph reached out to his brothers and gave the country some of its greatest lessons of strength in despair, of goodness in grief, and a model of peace for the world.  These are his great words that we should always remember and that we should honor as we should honor this great man as a Founding Father for us all this Christmas season and at any time we speak of great Americans and Christian values:



“If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace.

There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give

them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great

Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all

people should have equal rights upon it.”



This message of inclusive love among all people was the same message given by Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.  Like the Christ whose words Chief Joseph encapsulated in his words and behavior, let us follow the ways of the peaceful warrior.