How are you being scripted living in empire? A call for zeal . . .

 What’s your script?

 Everybody lives by a script—whether implicit or explicit.  We get scripted through the process of nurture, formation and socialization, and it happens without our knowing it.  The dominant script in our society is one of technological therapeutic military consumerism.  It is a script enacted through advertising, propaganda and ideology, especially in the liturgies of television, promises to keep us safe and happy. That script has failed. The script of technological therapeutic military consumerism cannot make us safe or happy.

The work forward is dynamics of hope for a habitable planet, just and equitable wealth/resources, and peace sustained by a counter-script that follows a spiritual/psychic re-birth, what is spoken and opined for hundreds of years—to denounce the dominant script.

 Enlightened forms of counter script are nurtured, formed and socialized by work of those devoted to work out skillful means, practices, collaborations, community/group/disciplined work* affording relinquishment of the dominant script and embracing of a counter-script, which is crucial, pivotal and indispensable in society precisely because there is no one to challenge the dominant script and present the counter-script other than those engaged in this vital work that offers a dynamic hope for the planet, species, and peace of a third kind.

*E.g., Socratic dialogos and dialectic, Jesus’ sayings (writings) [not modern Christianity per se], Buddhist Dharma, philosophical traditions with perennial and returning reductions ever honing the human niche in a complex universe.

Image: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

Counter Script, See Walter Brueggemann, Counterscript: Living with the elusive God, The Christian Century

[America’s] consumption ignores the need [Poor]; [hence] the Goods

Qoheleth 9.^{11-12, 16-18}

 

I turned to observe                

under the sun

that not to the swift              

the race

nor to the wise mind             

bread

discerning                              

favor

for time and chance             

encounter them all

 

I said good [is] intelligence

over valor,

yet wisdom of the poor  

is despised

[their] voice

unheeded. . .

 

[thus]

Sayings of the wise

in quietness

being heard over

the clamor

of one reigning

in stupidity—

 

A better intelligence

than implements of hostility

 missing in error

causing destruction

of a good many.

 

 To capture the commendation of possibility in the pericope, read 9.12-15; translation, July 2025

 

 **

 

Blessed the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Kata Maqqaion 5.³ (pericope: 5.^1-12, to be read within literary portion, “sermon on mount”)

 **

Additional reading

 

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

- Jame Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (1961), “Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a letter from Harlem”

 

 

 

A commentary and illustration of US collective impact in a seriously harmful way neglecting the “all” and “we” of a spirit of America in an age-old promise of prosperity [via consumption].

 

 

**

 

Under the SPM, the number of people in poverty increased from 40.9 million in 2022 to 42.8 million in 2023.   Poverty in the United States in 2023 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Singapore PM’s Reality Check to Trump Amid Tariff War In Parliament, Apr. 7, 2025

 

. . . quietly sharing this both as informative and as comparison to the intellectual buffoon in the WH—a spectacle of an anti-intellectual force in the electorate—the dumbing and numbing of divided state of America in technopoly via widespread use and addiction to dark arts with social medium  

Full: Singapore PM’s Reality Check To Trump Amid Tariff War In Parliament: ‘Just The Beginning Of…’

Lawrence Wong, 4th Prime Minister of Singapore, 4/07/2025

new year taking shape

 

Walt Witman 

numb

new form shifts spirit

in recognition of her 

eschatological voice 

like gods to consolation—

"we few, we happy few”

overlook anywhere misfortune

meets home

 

sgc, 2025

 

An early reflection on the impact of social media on our civic process and the 'numbing-down' of the American collective psyche.

UUA - call to honor & uphold non-negotiable sacredness . . . call to justice

 

UUA Announcement  Unitarian Universalist Association November 2024

Dear friend,

We gather on the morning after, in a time of great fear and devastation and very real risk to ourselves and our Beloveds. There is so much that we cannot yet know. Even if we know the shape and fear the character of our next governmental administration, we cannot fully know what is yet to come in this country.

What I do know, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that we are a sanctuary people. We can make that claim. From the powerful efforts of our elders in the middle of the twentieth century through to our congregations and communities offering shelter to migrants today. Whether harbor or pink haven, our homes, sanctuaries, and even our national headquarters model what it means to offer solidarity, shelter, and asylum in the face of what many of us cannot begin to imagine. These are times that will be defined by the continued and increased need for organizing, and a faithful commitment to mutual aid. 

I want to invite us all back to what we learned in our earliest understandings of what humanity itself means. We draw our purpose from the call to honor and uphold the non-negotiable sacredness of each and every person, of Earth, and of all beings, bound up together in an abiding love that rests in the call to justice. 

So many of us are afraid today. Fearful for the safety of our loved ones and overwhelmed by the public plans to deny our basic human rights. I invite us to feel the reality of that concern, and to hold one another in our grief. I also want us to remember how very many others in our UU communities and across the nation share our values and prepared all the way through this election for what might be asked of us through the remainder of this month and beyond. Look to your community partners. Draw on all you have learned through UU the Vote and other opportunities to work for electoral justice. Know that you are never alone. 

Your UUA will be with you this day and for all the days to come. We have been planning for this possibility and are here to offer best practices for safety, theology, spiritual practice, and communal care. We also know that people may come to our congregations in perhaps larger numbers this weekend and in the coming weeks. We acknowledge the additional stress and strain this creates for so many of you, and we are deeply grateful for the ways you can shift to meet the needs of this moment.

Together, we will rest in the strength of our covenants and bring that love, generosity, sacred witness, and values driven interdependence to bear as we continue to work toward a future where our liberation is collective, and all of our people can count themselves whole. 

Let us keep working toward all that we hold most holy together. 

Amen, Ashe, and Blessed be.

Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt

President of the Unitarian Universalist Association

An unpromising future of the People in this American Empire -trashing of the Union

 

We the People

These last images before 2024 nation-state election illustrate a boding preface to another and more destructive t’RUMp maladministration that at this point is nothing short of an omen of death in ways that will manifest in further shallow, flat, small and weird and down-right evil manipulation, micro-management, and hegemonic decision-making that will further divide and weaken the union and constitutional valuation, sending millions in distressful scenarios that will take years to recover from while many will die at his hand.

 

t'RUMP at his best, projecting himself unknowingly [smart—right?]

After colossal negligence of the Covid Pandemic when t’RUMP demonstrated significantly underperforming leadership capacities proved conclusively his deficits on the mismanagement of government resources, messaging, and plain old get over your addicted ego and let the big hitters run the program.

In the final year of t’RUMP presidency, over 450,000 Americans died from COVID-19, and life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the largest decrease since World War II. Many of the deaths were avoidable; COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40 percent higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the Group of Seven (G7).[1] –Exceptional, Right?[2]

He suppressed scientific data[3], delayed testing, mocked and blocked mask-wearing, and convened mass gatherings where social distancing was impossible. Despite the mounting threats of COVID-19 and global warming, he pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord. He installed industry insiders in regulatory posts tasked with protecting Americans from environmental and occupational hazards; their regulatory rollbacks resulted in 22,000 excess deaths from such hazards in 2019 alone.[4] He pushed through a $1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, creating a budget hole that he then used to justify cutting food and housing assistance for the needy.[5] He tried, but failed, to repeal the ACA, then bent every effort to undermine it, pushing up the number of uninsured Americans by 2.3 million. He denied entry to refugees fleeing violence, abused immigrant detainees,[6] and penalized immigrants for accessing basic social services.[7]

The pattern of government neglect set the stage for racist and nativist appeals Trump has and will probably resume, thus adding to longstanding policies that  contributed to persistent race-based health gaps bequeathed by the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow segregation and Native American genocide, and widening gaps by income[8], education[9] and geography[10]. In 2016, Trump gained his largest electoral margins in counties with the worst mortality trends. [11]

An ancient epistle of St Paul to the exiled and distressed people living in the current Empire (57_CE), serves as a fitting historical political context for comparison, especially we who in praxis have taken on a form of resident aliens. [kenosis] and are awoken. 12]

t'RUMP at his best, pumpkin complexion,
white orifice and piss-colored hair

Their throats are an opened sepulcher; 

they use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of vipers is under their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, 

and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

---

---

[1] Trump's Policy Failures Have Exacted a Heavy Toll on Public Health | Scientific American

[2] Study: More Than 335,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved During Pandemic if U.S. Had Universal Health Care < Yale School of Public Health

[3] House Democrats Renew Investigation Into Trump COVID-19 Response: Coronavirus Updates: NPR

[4] Lancet report details devastating impact of the Trump administration's health-harming policies, calls for reforms

[5] The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2018 to 2028

[6] Under Trump, US no longer leads world on refugee protections | AP News

[7] Federal Register :: Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds

[8] The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014 | Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion | JAMA | JAMA Network

[9] Population health in an era of rising income inequality: USA, 1980–2015 - The Lancet

[10] US County-Level Trends in Mortality Rates for Major Causes of Death, 1980-2014 | Oncology | JAMA | JAMA Network

[11] Diverging Life Expectancies and Voting Patterns in the 2016 US Presidential Election | AJPH | Vol. 107 Issue 10

[12] See—read Hauerwas, Stanley; Willimon, Willimon H. (1989). Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press. ISBN 978-0-687-36159-5

The Possibility of Peace between Factions--a practice that nurtures Hope

 Fortunate are the peacemakers, for they, pupils of God, shall be named.*

Creating Peace requires right effort, time, courage to let go—to give oneself to silence, breath; and then under simple conditions and often with support of a non-anxious person(s), receive mediation process where parties within a simple practice can hear oneself and the other, share their suffering, needs, mutually understand the other and carve out a path to peaceful resolution. 

Thich Nhat Hanh in this excerpt offers an example of how this simple, profound process can work with any faction experiencing the challenge of letting go of their suffering, who like collective America and Israel, out of a fear of the unknown, prefer suffering that is familiar.

From The Conversation: Making Sense of These Times: What do we make of ourselves after September 11, 2001,

         This summer, a group of Palestinians came to Plum Village and practiced together with a group of Israelis, a few dozen of them. We sponsored their coming and practicing together. In two weeks, they learned to sit together, walk mindfully together, enjoy silent meals together, and sit quietly in order to listen to each other. The practice taken up was very successful. At the end of the two weeks practice, they gave us a wonderful, wonderful report. One lady said, "That, this is the first time in my life that I see that peace in the Middle East is possible." Another young person said, "That when I first arrived in Plum Village, I did not believe that Plum Village was something real because in the situation of my country, you live in constant fear and anger. When your children get onto the bus, you are not sure that they will be coming home. When you go to the market, you are not sure that you will survive to go home to your family. When you come to Plum Village, you see people looking at each other with loving kindness, talking with other kindly, walking peacefully, and doing everything mindfully. We did not believe that it was possible. It did not look real to me."

       But in the peaceful setting of Plum Village, they were able to be together, to live together, and to listen to each other, and finally understanding came. They promised that when they returned to the Middle East, they would continue the practice. They will organize a day of practice every week at the local level and a day of mindfulness at the national level. And they plan to come to Plum Village as a bigger group to continue the practice.

       I think that if nations like America [Israel] can organize that kind of setting where people can come together and spend their time practicing peace, then they will be able to calm down their feelings, their fears, and peaceful negotiation will be much easier.

 

 

https://practiceofzen.com/2020/09/16/peace-is-possible/

 

* 

The Gospel According to St Matthew 5.9 [personal translation] 

http://www.theconversation.org/archive/essence.html

https://plumvillage.org/articles/peace-between-palestinians-and-israelis