27\u00a0 66%\u00a0 18%\u00a0 1mph ENE bar29.95 falls windchill26\u00a0 Imbolc<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon<\/p>\n
A strange, sometimes troubling struggle has broken out in the responsible section of my Self.\u00a0 The sometimes subtle, sometimes hammer blow obvious skirmishes have me puzzled about what actions to take, if any.\u00a0 The formal study of Daoism I began a couple of weeks ago has begun to push me in a way that I hope will resolve this matter, or at least give me a way to handle it.<\/p>\n
The struggle is over politics.\u00a0 As I’ve written elsewhere politics defined my life during my late teens,\u00a020’s, 30’s and early 40’s.\u00a0 That is to say, by my junior year in high school I was a political animal, a politician and an activist.\u00a0 President of my high school class\u00a0for my freshman, junior and senior years, a favorite teacher pushed the Little United Nations Assembly of Indiana to accept me as the presiding officer for the 1965 Little United Nations.\u00a0 The year before I represented the Republic of Chad.\u00a0 In the fall of 1965 we protested the CIA recruiters on the campus of Wabash and I never looked back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Draft eligible and permanently active from that point forward I got involved in civil rights, student rights and anti-war politics. I was a student senator for three years at Ball State, then ran an unsuccessful campaign for president of the student body.\u00a0 I helped organize and lead anti-draft and anti-war rallies, marches and teach-ins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In seminary I pushed\u00a0the seminary on anti-war politics, became an early\u00a0feminist and began a ten year involvement with anti-racism training.<\/p>\n
While working at Community Involvement Programs as their janitor and weekend counselor, I lived in the Stevens Square Neighborhood.\u00a0 There I got\u00a0involved in neighborhood level politics, leading an effort to push\u00a0General Mills out of the community and organizing the Stevens Square Neighborhood Association.\u00a0 Made a lot of friends and few enemies.\u00a0 It was fun.\u00a0 This was the 1970’s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1978 the Presbytery of the Twin\u00a0Cities\u00a0Area hired me to work on the West Bank as a community minister.\u00a0\u00a0I got involved in community based economic development, building affordable housing, organizing against unemployment and for broader community involvement in the management of philanthropy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1984 I left the West Bank and took over urban missions for the Presbytery which expanded the arena of action.\u00a0 In various ways I was still at it when I met Kate in 1988.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over all this time I had a very active hand in DFL politics working at the precinct, congressional and state levels.\u00a0 Then I left the Presbytery in\u00a0 1991.\u00a0 Not long after that Kate and I moved to Andover.<\/p>\n
Since then my political work has shrunk to near nothing.\u00a0 I send the occasional e-mail, make a phone call, show up (sometimes) at the precinct caucus, but I’m part of no ongoing, organized effort to make or change policy.\u00a0 The whole climate change issue is fraught with political issues of real import, many of them.\u00a0 I’m interested, especially in water related issues and Lake Superior.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet I do almost nothing.<\/p>\n
The 1960’s was a “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” era.\u00a0 My political superego came into maturity in those times and this notion became a benchmark for my own assessment of responsible behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus, the struggle.\u00a0 I wonder, sometimes, where this guy went, this political guy. It’s like he crawled under a rock, but that’s not so.\u00a0 No, this is a struggle that has moved back and forth in my\u00a0mind since the move to Andover.<\/p>\n
Now the Daoist studies I’ve engaged propose a way of addressing it.\u00a0 Daoism suggests that there are times to retreat and times to advance, times which call for more yang, times which call for more yin.\u00a0 The wise man, Daoism says, adjusts his inner life to what it calls the temporary conditions, the way the Tao manifests itself.\u00a0 This area of Daoist studies has my attention right now.\u00a0 I’ll keep you informed because this struggle is not productive and it’s not over.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
27\u00a0 66%\u00a0 18%\u00a0 1mph ENE bar29.95 falls windchill26\u00a0 Imbolc \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon A strange, sometimes troubling struggle has broken out in the responsible section of my Self.\u00a0 The sometimes subtle, sometimes hammer blow obvious skirmishes have me puzzled about what actions to take, if any.\u00a0 The formal study of Daoism I … Continue reading Is It a Time to Advance or Retreat?<\/span>