Religions of Wisconsin

This week, I have so far seen:

-Four Buddhist monks (bhikkhu) in kasaya standing around the jewelry counter in Sears, looking at diamond necklaces. I think, judging by the color of the robes, they were Tibetan. I don't know if that makes this any more or less unlikely, but I thought you'd like all the details I could offer.

-Two different bhikkhu, three days later, chatting in a McDonald's. McDonald's, in case you were wondering, is not known for offering vegetarian options, especially in the US, (though I do talk about their surprisingly helpful nutrition labeling here); granted this is not necessarily a requirement of all bhikkhu, but there was a certain juxtaposition in the image.

-A woman who, upon me holding the door of the aforementioned McDonald's open for her and the small child she was carrying, told her child to say "thank you" because that's what you say when somebody performs a mitzvah. (I'm all for teaching cultural literacy early, but if your kid can't say "hello" yet there's a good chance "mitzvah" is beyond them. I admire your dedication, though, Polite McDonald's Stranger.)

-A group of Mennonites at the zoo, which while not odd in and of itself, is somewhat odder considering that Owl and I have seen at least one group of Mennonties every time we've been to said zoo. Which is a lot of times. It is, in fact, more times than we have seen the zoo's tiger, who spends much of his time sleeping, with no concern for my burning desire to be best friends with it.

-A Hasidic boy and his father buying Sprite from a mall vending machine. The boy had a kippah with the Acme Road Runner embroidered on the back. I saw them later, sitting on the ground outside the mall waiting as a minivan driven by a woman in a tichel picked them up. 

Briefly, a disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in anything at all, especially religion, and especially at least two of the three religions mentioned above. This is why I give you links. Sometimes the links are to Wikipedia. They may or may not have been written by experts. Sometime the links are to forums. Probably not experts, but they know more than me. Sometimes they are to actual academic discussions or legitimate articles. Those are probably by experts. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, even if you read it here!

Religious diversity is a wonderful thing. So is cultural literacy, which, when it pertains to religion, is a) super important and b) so often woefully lacking. As an example, in the area I grew up, it was entirely reasonable to, if you were the class's Token Jew like me, expect a) to be asked if Jews believe in God, b) to be told Jews don't believe in God, c) to be told Jews killed Jesus, d) to be told that I, personally, was responsible, as a Jew, for killing Jesis, e) to ask me if I "spoke Jewish" and f) to face outrage if I asked, in turn, if they "spoke Christian". Not to generalize, but most of the people asking me these questions were Christian, because most of the people I grew up around were Christian. Religious diversity: important, but hard. And I, myself, have some glaring blind spots when it comes to other religions, and sometimes even my own. Furthermore, as an atheist, or if you prefer, Secular Jew, I have found that it's not always enough to respect religion. If you don't practice it yourself, some people just won't recognize your opinions. And sometimes other atheists will scorn you for trying to be respectful. Sometimes, it turns out, people aren't very nice, and that comes out, more often than ever, when you challenge their core beliefs.

But religion, or lack thereof, is just another fascinating aspect of all of our collective and individual identities. We are these amazing, complex, deeply intuitive creatures, with a capacity for introspection and awe that should be cherished. The fact that we have developed so many vastly intricate and immensely captivating religions and denominations and sects is a thing of beauty. The assumption that not having a religion makes you devoid of a moral code, compromises your humanity, or makes you arrogant is absurd, but so too is the assumption that having a religion makes you complacent or unintelligent. Non-religion does not make you blind to beauty, and religion does not make you blind to reason. If we accept that, if we learn to see the humor in a kippah with the Road Runner on it without judging the wearer for being too pious, or not pious enough, or not pious in the right way, we will all be much better for it. 

P.S. Since this was a very link-heavy post, because I like letting others explain things for me, and because we rely on outside links a lot in this blog, I set up a poll, where you can tell me what you think about clicking on a dozen links when you read our pretty, pretty words. You can find it here------->*

*(may be slightly lower or higher on the page but I trust you to find it yourself from here. I believe in you!)

First World 21st Century Problems

No citizenship post today, but I will get back to the question I left you with - one you probably already knew the answer to - or at least held opinions about. 

The Puritans, who settled all over what is now Massachusetts, were interested in religious freedom... for themselves. They were very strict Protestants who, in Europe, wanted to rid the church of any vestiges of Catholicism. They were very pious, strict Protestants who did not have a voice in the English, and later Dutch, Church as they wanted. They wanted to live in a place where they were free to practice their religion and live where laws reflect their religion. You can probably see where this is heading, right?

When the Puritans started their new colonies they made laws that Puritans would support. They did not allow the practice of other religions within Puritan colonies and they had a specific hatred for the Quakers. In 1660 they executed one, a woman by the name of Mary Dyer for the severe crime of living in the colony while practicing Quakerism. This peeved King Charles II of England somewhat (in the way water displeases cats somewhat). In 1661, as a response to Mary Dyer's hanging, King Charles forbade the further execution of Quakers in the Massachusetts colonies. When that didn't work he revoked the charter for the colony and sent his own governor to enforce some actual religious tolerance in the New World. 

For those who wonder where we, especially in New England, got our history of religious tolerance and diversity you need look no further than England. In fact, it would be best if you stopped there. The Puritans had very little (basically) nothing to do with bringing religious tolerance to the American ethos.

Fun Fact: The Massachusetts Bay Colony executed 4 Quakers between 1659 and 1661, they are referred to as the Boston Martyrs in the Quaker tradition. The first execution was on October 27th of 1659. Today, October 27th is International Religious Freedom Day. The irony, at least to me, is palpable.

On to the thrust of today's post. I wanted to share a book with you all: The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (I highly recommend the book!!) It is a book I read with voracious appetite over the course of a long weekend as I traveled home for an old friend's wedding this month. The book is a work of historical non-fiction, but told as one part mystery novel and one part hero's journey. The action, as it were, centers around the 1854 London cholera outbreak that killed more than 600 people. The outbreak struck the Soho neighborhood around Broad Street and within a three day period more than 100 people in the small neighborhood were dead. It didn't take long for the rest to flee or fall ill themselves. 

The book focuses on two different men who followed the course of the cholera outbreak: Jon Snow, a  Soho resident, doctor and scientist; and Henry Whitehead, a clergyman who was stationed at a church in the Soho neighborhood. The initial investigation is carried out primarily by Jon Snow, who traces the deaths and comes the radical (at the time) conclusion that the disease is waterborne, not airborne. Overcoming a great deal of push-back from community members in Soho and in science Dr. Snow is able to get the water pump at Broad Street shut down, and so stop the outbreak in its tracks. Despite his brilliant research Dr. Snow did not receive credit in his lifetime for correctly marking the way in which cholera spreads (it is indeed waterborne, and the infection did indeed start at the Broad Street pump the doctor had shut down). 

Reading the book while on a plane traveling the length of half a country I marveled at the advances we have made in science, city planning, and social issues since 1854 (only 200 years ago). The scientific community now openly believes that just because something stinks doesn't mean it's going to kill you (that was the only acceptable belief in 1854). We know that disease spreads in many ways, but water is a big one and just because something tastes clean doesn't mean it isn't teeming with invisible bacteria. As a community we've moved past believing that a person's character determines their likelihood of illness (another widely held 1854 belief.) We don't use cesspools anymore to dispose of human waste. We also don't dump in into rivers, lakes, or harbors (at least not intentionally). We realize that out of sight doesn't really mean out of trouble and modern cities must be designed to reflect that knowledge. Human waste is corralled away from residential areas, clean water is piped in. This is true in every centrally designed and planned city in the industrialized world. Even poor areas of those cities. Modern day New York dwellers aren't likely to get cholera just because they don't live in the fashionable area of town, nor are they going to have trouble accessing clean water, or even electricity if they are able to pay for it.

The book made me appreciate how the little things in my life that I take for granted are really big things that I should be grateful for. I have access to clean running water, electricity, sanitary living conditions, personal space, and a relatively high degree of personal security. I don't live in fear the way every historical figure Johnson peoples his very street-level retelling of the outbreak do. They are realized they lived in close quarters with Death and that He could claim them, their family, and their neighborhood with relative ease and brevity. For all the things we have to be afraid of today in the United States, we don't have fear the way the inhabitants of 1854 had fear. There's no comparison. And for that I'm truly grateful and appreciative.

But, some people still live that way. After Haiti's 2010 earthquake there was a huge outbreak of cholera that claimed over 9,000 lives on the island. Africa also continues to suffer from cholera outbreaks, especially in central Sub-Saharan Africa in countries like; Kenya, the DRC, Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. And the thing is, it's a treatable condition and a preventable problem. Both things can be fixed with clean, accessible water, and education.

Why isn't is being addressed? Because there is another facet of 1854 life that we still haven't managed to change. When the problem doesn't affect us directly it's easy to not care and look the other way. Cholera outbreaks are very isolated. It made it easy for the wealthy of London, who lived in droves just one street away from the 1854 outbreak, to ignore the problem or write it off as dirty living and the problem of the poor (brought on by themselves no doubt). In fact, it was the government itself that made the problem possible by encouraging the use of cesspools and dumping polluted water and waste into the Thames and then allowing Thames water to be distributed to the general public. Today, we can look the other way because it's not our country. Not our neighborhood. It's the problem of another government, one that's probably corrupt or lacking proper channels to address the issue. It's easy to make excuses and excuse ourselves from global responsibility, but the fact remains - we are all people with basic human dignity. We are invested in this world and though we may not suffer the poverty and fear directly, it affects us all. We have to watch. We have to pay attention. We have to engage. Because there is a solution and it is within our reach to bring it about.

Read about the issues that pertain to cholera and so many other things that come along with unsafe drinking water at Water.org. They're a great organization and even if you can't donate your money or your time (I know I can't at the moment), the best you can do is not look away. Stay informed and stay engaged.

Citizenship 101: The Beginning (Not Really Though)

Welcome to Citizenship 101. Today we begin nowhere near the beginning. History doesn't have a clear beginning, middle, or end. And the history of countries is particularly difficult to pin down. In the United States the beginning comes well before European settlers set up the colonies. It started between 23,000 BCE and 9000 BCE when Asian nomads crossed a frozen land bridge to the continent we now call North America. From then until 1492, when the continent was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus, there was a ton of history and thousands of distinct civilizations, nations, and cultures. I could spend an entire blog just discussing that history, but I am not the archaeologist of the pair so I will leave that period to Raven's expertise.

So I am going to begin in the middle, instead of the beginning, with the "discovery", colonization, and settling of The New World.

Here are some basic facts you should know about the United States before it was the United States.

"Discovery"

- Columbus wasn't the only one who thought the world was round - everyone thought that! 1492 was the year they invented the globe - Columbus believed the circumference of the globe was smaller than it actually was, leading him to believe that he could circumnavigate his way to East Asian riches by sailing into the empty water we now know isn't empty at all.

- Columbus landed in the Bahamas on October 12th 1492, but that wasn't the first time Europeans hit New World soil. Leif Ericson landed in Newfoundland in 1002 or 1003, almost a half century earlier.

- Columbus was a stubborn ass who abused the natives, thought they were too stupid to know where they lived and went to his grave believing he'd found a new route to East Asia. Seriously, why do we celebrate this man?

Colonization

- Between 1565 and 1634 lots of European settlers from England, the Netherlands, France, and Spain began to colonize the Eastern coastline of the new continent.

- In 1590 Roanoke colony, founded by Queen Elizabeth I, mysteriously vanishes along with all its colonists. Modern archaeologist detectives believe the colonists split with some settling in Merry Hill in North Carolina and others assimilated with the Native Americans in the area.

- In 1607 the Virginia Company founded Jamestown in Virginia, which would struggle in its quest for gold, but later succeed hugely in planting something even more valuable (tobacco). 

- In 1620 the fun-loving Puritans joined the colonizing party, hoping to practice their stricter version of Christianity away from the loose and immoral Protestants of Europe.

- Most settlement happened for one of two reasons, religiously persecuted groups gained a monarch's permission to settle or a company gained the monarch's permission to settle and make money in the New World. In both cases the monarch gave permission because it would make the home country wealthier.

- There were 4 distinct areas of colonization: the tobacco colonies in Virginia, The New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies formed in Pennsylvania, and the Southern Colonies between Virginia and Florida.

- The tobacco colonies were settled by the Virginia Company and would eventually become fertile and wealthy farming land for tobacco. It was made up primarily of Virginia and Maryland, with Maryland becoming a haven for Catholics and Virginia for more traditional Protestants.

- The New England Colonies began with the Pilgrims in Plymouth and eventually split into several colonies: Massachusetts, the more religiously liberal Rhode Island, the more restrictive Connecticut, and the wild and untamed colony of New Hampshire.

- The Middle Colonies including New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were a mish-mash of all sorts of settlers fleeing religious persecution and became a very prosperous and comparatively egalitarian place for its time.

- The Southern Colonies, which began as only the Carolina Colony, were poorer, mainly agrarian colonies that eked by in pre-Revolutionary times.

Settlement

- By 1775 there were 12 settled colonies: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Delaware, while often listed as one of the 13 colonies was never actually a colony. It became a state in 1776, after the Declaration.

- Settlers came to the New World in one of three ways: freely, indentured, or enslaved.

- Slavery was practiced all over the New World, but was especially prevalent in the South, especially in tobacco rich areas like Virginia and Maryland.

- The difference in the working conditions of indentured servants and slaves was largely hope - many indentured servants never worked their way out of debt, but they had the opportunity to do so. Slaves had no opportunity. Indentured servitude also petered out much faster than slavery.

- Indentured servants and slaves were both more common in the South than in the North, but both areas had them and without their free labor the 12 colonies would never have been as successful.

- Georgia was largely a buffer area between the more prosperous Carolina colonies and the more hostile Native American nations, poor farmers were granted land in the territory in order to basically serve as a human wall against a less than friendly neighbor.

Truth or Myth?

Starting all the way back with the Puritans, this country has been built on the deep belief in personal freedom and religious tolerance.

I'll give you my two cents next time.

Let me know if you have questions, comments, or more information you'd like to know in the comments!

Houses

There is an entire generation that can, by and large, define their personality by which house they belong to.

Of course, not everybody of my generation has read the Harry Potter books, but they are nevertheless a sort of cultural touchstone. Most pop-culture savvy millennials are at least familiar with terms like Hogwarts and Muggle, even if they haven't actually consumed any of the media in the Harry Potter franchise.

So, understandably, which of the four Hogwarts houses an individual belongs to has become something of a point of speculation for some. There are hundreds of quizzes online that attempt to solve this question, but the definitive quiz by and large seems to be the Sorting Hat quiz on Pottermore, a site moderated by JK Rowling herself.

July 31^st was Harry Potter's 35^th birthday, so the series has been on my mind recently. Earlier today I got into a conversation with some friends about which of the four Hogwarts Houses we all saw ourselves as, and several of us took (or retook) the Pottermore Sorting Hat quiz. Some of us were surprised by the results. Some of us noted that they had changed from earlier results on the same quiz. Some of us recalled relating to one house in particular when we first began to read the books, and then having our views change overtime. That makes sense, we agreed. Personalities change over time. In the decade it took for the books to be written, all of the readers evolved as individuals. What house they most resonated with as an early reader might well be completely at odds with what house they resonated with by the time the series had culminated.

Then one of us pointed out that, at Hogwarts, the same thing happens. Over the seven years a student is expected to attend Hogwarts, a lot can change. But they are permanently assigned to a house that best fit the personalities of their eleven-year-old self. Granted, this brought up several interesting considerations---for instance, Neville displays few traits of the typical Gryffindor for the majority of the series, but in the end proves himself capable of wielding the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself. Does the Sorting Hat know who a student will end up becoming? What are the greater implications of that?

Think back to your eleven-year-old selves. Who were you then? Who are you now? Do you still hold the same fundamental values? Are your principle worldviews still the same? Do you interact with people the same way?

And when it comes right down to it, how important is the Sorting Hat? How strong of an influence does a student's house have on them? After all, Hagrid asserts that "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin," though this is clearly untrue since Peter Pettigrew, who betrays his best friends for Voldemort (though ultimately sacrifices himself in a final act of redemption) was a Gryffindor, and the inverse certainly isn't true since there were countless Slytherins who never “went bad” and countless more who redeemed themselves. So, while being sorted into a particular house comes with certain stigmas and expectations, it is not enough to shape who you are or who you will become. Yet, it serves as a convenient way for Hogwarts students to label themselves and others. It becomes a part of their identity, both internally and externally, and influences both how they are viewed and how they are treated.

At eleven, human brains are still far from being fully developed. It seems absurd that so integral a part of a young witch or wizard's identity would rest on a choice made at so young an age.

Admittedly, that choice is being made by a sentient hat, so this may just have to be one of those times where logic takes a back seat to magic, and that's perfectly alright.

What house are you? Is this different from what you used to see yourself as? Tell us in the comments below!