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<DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Don Bushman's email is worthy of a serious look by
all of us. I suppose it will. I printed it off and will give it some prayer
time. Yawl inspired me to write an editorial to our local <U>Salina Journal</U>
embracing the need to "change our gun culture," because doing gun control is not
going to have much traction. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> In particular, I like the idea
of defining an alternative topic on which we can find "common water." I'd
like to see some ideas on this. It has the possibility for a more immediate
impact that can be carried out electronically where, of course, ideas can
quickly spread. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> Shades of, "The 100th
Monkey." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> Inner
Peace, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> Bill
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=onedonbushman@gmail.com href="mailto:onedonbushman@gmail.com">Don
Bushman</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=oe@lists.wedgeblade.net
href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">Order Ecumenical Community</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, December 22, 2012 3:12
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Oe List ...] Yes and . .
.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>I suggest we find the common water table for conversation.</DIV>
<DIV>The surface well opening certainly has to do with gun violence.</DIV>
<DIV>I believe community safety is the common water table conversation.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>In the last several days when the Newtown tragedy arose in conversations,
I shifted the conversation to community safety. I live in a very red area only
1 in 20 people has matriculated from a bachelor's program, a county where with
one Episcopal Church and one Catholic (mostly Hispanic) 14 Methodist and 77
Baptist churches. I even hear banjos 10 minutes out of the city limits. Every
time I shifted the conversation about the necessity of community safety I
found I could have a civil interesting and sometimes profound
conversation.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>During the Town Meeting Campaign, Joe Pierce and Jim Phillips were a team
fund raising for TM 76. At one council Joe did a presentation on how to
respond to the question of what the $1,600 dollars purchased. (I reflect in
open mouthed amazement that the fee was only $1,600 by the way) At the heart
of his presentation was the insight of the only way to have a conversation
about whether or not that community wanted to participate in the TM'76
campaign -- was to shift the conversation away from a dollar by dollar
accounting to the what the value of the outcome a Town Meeting could
produce.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Yesterday Mr. La Prick, (do the translation from French to English thank
you Google Translate) of NRA association illustrated why if you start where he
started, (the only way to defend against an evil man with a gun is a good man
with a gun), a shift of conversation is reuired. To enter into a conversation
about how we defend against an evil man with a gun, is to enter into a
conversation of self defense. . . .quite a different conversation from talking
about characteristics of safe community. Not to mention that one conversation
could very likely not expand his grasp of the situation. If I were to enter
into that conversation with him, I would begin talking with him with as closed
a mind as I am certain he has. Where is the room for the conversation
there?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I believe that what is good for the community is good for each member of
the community. And if anything is good for one, but not for the whole
community; it is therefore in fact not good for any one member of the
community.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>In the conversation of community safety, I would also like to
explore if our community is safe, against what does the individual have to
defend themselves? And what is the most effective way to do that?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Three years ago I had a very intense conversation with one of my very
best and oldest of friends. Unlike my brother and son who own gun arsenals, he
only owned 4 guns, 2 of which are antiques and one of those is a flint lock
rifle, hardly one to be used against an intruder. And his question of me at
the end of our heated exchange was: "Don, if an intruder in the middle of the
night threatened you with a gun, what would you do to defend you and your
wife?"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I thought about it a long time and here is my answer, I would attempt to
talk my way out of the situation, and if I did not succeed, it would be what
it would be. I happen to think my chances are as favorable as if I had to
reach and risk killing another human being with my (currently non existent)
bedside gun.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>And as a credential for those of you familiar with my own liberal
personality: In high school I walked away from a challenge fight in each year
of my high school career, in the midst of the embarrassment that was, because
I had determined even then responding to violence with violence only
determined who was the more violent. And since then lived through a robbery at
gunpoint in Fifth City with George Packard, and more recently I have talked
down two who were exchanging blows. I cite these not to claim some expertise
or power, merely to say I have experienced some of the emotions that go with
those threatening situations. (Not to mention reading the book Jon Jenkins
found titled Men Under Fire)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>The necessity for having a plan for self defense and being prepared to
implement it is a necessity in our times. I think it is also necessary first
to think about the community context. I find the very language interesting,
self defense clearly has as purpose, the defense of oneself. Community safety
on the other hand has as its purpose the elimination of the need for self
defense.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I met Obama in Chicago when he spoke at the SCUPE conference I think in
1998. I almost dropped what I was doing at that moment in order to convince
him to run for president. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>(Actually the second time I had that urge. The first time I acted on it
and did have a conversation with Dick Celeste. I thought it to be a bold move,
I had yet to learn that people in his position, have to listen to people
who had way more financial and political clout than I will ever
possess.)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I believe he is exactly what we need at this moment, a leader who is
passionate about the historic context of the constitution and a leader who
attempts to convince all of us about the next pragmatic possible step we can
take. At the time when we need someone who acts quite pragmatically, the very
nature of the ideological standoffs works against our grasping how appropriate
his leadership style is. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I will be glad to use my one opportunity of access to Carolyn Lukensmeyer
if I can go with a plan and a commitment.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Peace</DIV>
<DIV><BR>On Dec 22, 2012, at 9:31 AM, James Wiegel <<A
href="mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</A>>
wrote:<BR><BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV>
<DIV>Gordon and all . . .</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Yes, and, aren't we blessed ones . . .</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Born, like Gordon and others indicate,</DIV>
<DIV>From such a different far off womb or culture or time</DIV>
<DIV>To still feel and appreciate the warmth,</DIV>
<DIV>The nurture that birthed and growed us up</DIV>
<DIV>Not sugar coating (too much) the reality</DIV>
<DIV>Of what we were born into</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>And yet to have been so blessed</DIV>
<DIV>To have chosen / been chosen / launched onto</DIV>
<DIV>This immense journey </DIV>
<DIV>Into such a different era</DIV>
<DIV>Remember The Snout?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>As Joe Slicker says, sometimes, </DIV>
<DIV>My, my, my, my.<BR><BR>Jim Wiegel
<DIV><A href="mailto:Jfwiegel@yahoo.com">Jfwiegel@yahoo.com</A></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Joan Chittister “Christmas is not for children. It is for those who
refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes newly and with
purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go so that life
can be full of new possibility always, for those who are agitated with
newness whatever their age.”</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>On Dec 18, 2012, at 21:37, Ken Fisher <<A
href="mailto:hkf232@gmail.com">hkf232@gmail.com</A>> wrote:<BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Thank you, Doris. Thank you, Gordon.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I love my 'cowboy' hats, be they Resistol-Texan or
Akubra-Australian.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I was once a big fan of Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, the Cisco Kid,
Have Gun Will Travel and The Rifleman.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Later it was Peter Gunn!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Time for a change.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Ken</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Who would want to miss and episode?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>On 2012-12-18, at 11:05 PM, Doris Hahn wrote:</DIV><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline><FONT size=+0>We all grew up in a gun
culture if we grew up in the U.S.A. (note Gordon's manner of speaking:
"It's essential if we're to have a real shot at changing the images...."
Earlier this evening I watched a Newshour interview with five or six
people from Newtown who were meeting to decide how to respond to this
latest horror, and one of them said something about "what we are
<I>shooting </I>for...." It's small, but it's real and deeply imbedded;
maybe we could say, "symbolic." <BR><BR>About 27 years ago, while I was
visiting my mother, I decided to oil my old 410 shotgun (given to me by my
dad on the occasion of my 11th birthday). Other family members wandered
about the kitchen where I was sitting, and someone asked what I was going
to do with the gun. My young nephew immediately answered, "shoot people,"
to which I quickly replied, "not people -- birds." My nephew responded
with a pain-filled frown, "Why would you kill a bird?!" <BR><BR>It was
probably about 1956 that I last shot that gun. In 2004, just before moving
to Indiana, I took it to a local gun shop and sold it.<BR><BR>I believe
the conversation has opened up again, and surely we can do our part in
helping it to move along. I will be exceedingly happy if Feinstein can get
her bill passed, and having the president do something radical would be
helpful, but I think Gordon is right about what our job is, at least for
now.<BR><BR>Doris Hahn</FONT><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 4:52 AM, Gordon Harper
<SPAN dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:gharper1@mindspring.com"
target=_blank>gharper1@mindspring.com</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
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class=gmail_quote>
<DIV text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<DIV><BIG><BIG>Since I'm part of this problem and hopelessly complicit
in sustaining it, I'll start with a little confession. Like many
of us, I grew up in a gun culture, in my case as a Wisconsin farm
boy. I loved the various rifles and handguns I accumulated over
those early years, and I continued to sharpen my target shooting through
college and graduate school and even as a young professor (never really
had the heart for hunting). I was (full disclosure) a member of
the NRA starting in high school, so that I could get my cases of 22 ammo
for a pittance. (I dropped my membership while in college, when
the organization started to morph into the right wing entity that we see
today.) <BR><BR>When our family joined the symbolic order and
moved to the West Side, I got rid of everything except for a special
treasure, my Ruger Single Six (replica Colt six-gun) with its beautiful
rosewood grips and fancy Mexican fast draw holster. Lane Erskine
and I used to enjoy sharing our fascination with our handguns'
workmanship. Unlike Lane, who was given to packing heat as he
moved about in 5th City, I kept mine unloaded and in a locked case in
our room. <BR><BR>After a few months, however, I became concerned
that even with those safeguards, in our community, with the kids having
easy access to everyone's rooms, it was too much of a risk. With
great sadness, I took my beloved revolver and holster to a gun shop in
Wisconsin and sold them, thus ending my gun ownership phase. When
it came time, a few years later, to decide which of my siblings would
inherit our father's firearms, I chose not to participate in the
distribution.<BR><BR>I start with this to make the point that what we're
dealing with in this gun culture lies very deep in many of us.
I've had--and still have--a love affair with the classic American
Western film. This is a tradition that exalts the single shootist,
who is able to do good and make things right for others precisely
because he has at least one sidearm and when necessary uses it
well. <BR><BR>I see myself mirrored in the fascination of young
people today for all the first person shooter games, battlefield
adventures and standing one's ground against those hordes of attacking
vampires. It's a manifestation of our special culture as
Americans, with our frontier tradition and mythology. Which in
turn is an aspect of what we sometimes refer to as the concept of
American exceptionalism. <BR><BR>To deal seriously with gun violence, it
seems to me, is to take on the challenge of shifting these profoundly
rooted national and personal images and stories of who we are.
They are so much a part of us that we hardly ever feel the need to talk
about them--they're simply assumed, taken for granted as part of the
common ground we share as Americans. <BR><BR>We all grieve when
events like those of this past week occur, and we feel personal shock
and pain when one of them hits close to home. At the same time, at
some deep level we also find our way to accepting these occurrences as
the tragic but necessary side effects of our special nature as a
frontier people and the unique role of our nation in the world.
<BR><BR>It's like the collateral war damage to innocent people that
we've accustomed ourselves to living with. We lament it, and we
truly want to keep it to the bare minimum, but we also feel that our
historical role requires our paying this cost (a bit of White Man's
Burden, <I>redivivus</I>). Theologically, there's a strong
connection here with the myth of redemptive violence, which provides a
religious rationale for many among us to accept the way things are and
for at least part of the deep resistance we encounter to changing the
gun laws. <BR><BR>I suspect that we will now begin to see some modest
changes in access to semi-automatic weapons, some improvements in
preventing, spotting and caring for mental illness, maybe even more
support for our educational systems. </BIG></BIG><BIG><BIG>I'm
hoping it's also a point in time where we will see, in various formats
and venues, the start of the conversation about our national identity
and values that we very much need to have.
<BR><BR></BIG></BIG><BIG><BIG>What I find myself looking for are ways to
engage our neighbors and ourselves in surfacing and exploring together
these largely unquestioned images and stories that so powerfully shape
our behavior. What is really special or exceptional about
America--the good, the bad and the ugly--relative to what is special and
exceptional about any other nation and people? How are we to
understand that exceptionalism, and what do we do with it in today's
world?<BR><BR>Some of us might like to get rid of the whole idea of
exceptionalism, but I think in this country, it's there, and we have to
engage it. Doing so, it seems to me, is key to that long range and
indirect strategy we've been talking about in this conversation.
It's essential if we're to have a real shot at
</BIG></BIG><BIG><BIG>changing the images from which we continue to act
and from which we and others continue to suffer. <BR><BR>Engaging
these conversations, I'm afraid, means welcoming and
</BIG></BIG><BIG><BIG>listening deeply to those with whom we strongly
disagree--sharing and discussing together what we think the times call
us to preserve in our heritage, what to leave behind and what to
recreate.</BIG></BIG><BIG><BIG> If it's to work, it will have to
be uncomfortably inclusive, in a big tent, as the Occupy folk like to
say. <BR><BR>We could begin to start such
conversations in our workplaces, our churches, our book groups, our
community meetings, at the pub or coffee shop, over dinner with friends,
on line, using all these wonderful social media tools. It's
something each of us could tackle, if we chose to, without much of an
organizational structure. Maybe down the road at some point, . . .
.<BR><BR>Is this a tactic--and a conversation--we want to be part
of?<BR><BR>Gordon</BIG></BIG>
<DIV>
<DIV class=h5><BR><BR><BR>On 12/17/2012 1:45 PM, <A
href="mailto:jlepps@pc.jaring.my" target=_blank>jlepps@pc.jaring.my</A>
wrote:<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV>
<DIV class=h5>Colleagues <BR><BR>I'd like to add one more note to this
lively dialogue (which I hope continues, and perhaps even begins to
focus). <BR><BR>It's obviously the case that a change of heart is
required in this situation. The question becomes how to make that
happen, and I'm reminded of Martin Luther Kings's response to us WASPS
who were opposing desegregation because "we need to have hearts change
to support integration." To paraphrase him, "Laws can't make you love
me, but they may prevent you from killing me." Strict gun control may
be that kind of law. And, IMHO, whatever will prevent this sort of
mass murder is worth doing. Also I've noticed that hearts are
remarkably adaptable to their external situation. <BR><BR>In terms of
luring the tiger, the question now that she's out of her lair (sorry
Cynthia), what do we do: well perhaps something initial like
forbidding the sale of assault weapons and mass magazines. That might
be able to get some support from tigers. After all, we endure
considerable inconvenience to insure safety on airplanes,, so perhaps
the inconvenience of forbidding access to these instruments of mass
destruction might be a possible first step. <BR><BR>I don't believe
we'll be able to change tigers into lambs, but maybe we can help
de-fang them! <BR><BR>John
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