Century marks

Christian Century, July 17, 2002

DYING RITE: Human beings are homo ritualis, creatures of ritual, says poet-philosopher Czeslaw Milosz. Although rituals mark the entrance of persons into life, fertility and death in traditional cultures, they are not simply rites of passage. These events signify something larger, "the coming together of a certain number of people to participate in something that exceeds them and unites them ... Through communal participation the veil is parted and for a brief moment the space of Imagination, with a capital I, is visible. Such moments allow us to recognize that our imagination is paltry, limited, and that the deliberations of theologians and philosophers are cut to its measure and there fore are completely inadequate for the religion of the Bible." In a secularized society, however, many of these rituals have lost their meaning or fallen by the wayside, though death continues to demand ritual observance. Especially because "scientific-technological civilization cannot cope with death," modern folk "accept a religious funeral with a sense of relief. It frees them from the necessity of an almost impossible improvisation when, at best, one can come up with a moment of silence and the playing of a Mozart recording." The more conventional the rituals connected with death, the better, according to Milosz (To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays, excerpted in Cross Currents, Spring 2002).

GROWN-UP STEM CELLS: A study of stem cells taken from adults has raised new hopes that they may possess much of the magical versatility of embryonic stem cells--in which case they could hold the key to therapeutic breakthroughs which do not involve the morally objectionable process of creating and destroying human embryos for the sake of extracting their stem cells. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (July 5), researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical Center have found that a cell in adult bone marrow was able to grow into a variety of cell types, including blood, bone, brain, fat and liver. Scientists still doubt, however, whether adult stem cells can be useful in treating Parkinson's and other brain diseases.

HEED MY LIPS: In a recent speech on Wall Street President Bush addressed the growing crisis in confidence over corporate malfeasance. It was intended as a warning to corporate executives, but some are suggesting that Bush himself is in need of some upbraiding. According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times (July 7), Bush benefited from some of the same techniques he now deplores while serving as a director for the Harken Energy company. Harken bought out Bush's own failing company at an unusually high price. Harken itself then did poorly, but with Enron-like accounting techniques was able to hide its losses and inflate its stock price. Bush sold his Harken stock at all inflated price, from which he profited immensely, right before the stock value tumbled. Krugman quotes from the Washington Monthly: "The `new tone' that George W. Bush brought to Washington isn't one of integrity, but of permissiveness .... In this administration, enriching oneself while one's business goes bust isn't necessarily frowned upon." Bush can take corporate executives and accounting firms to the woodshed, but the switch may come back to lash him.

GLBT AND P? Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA) has come out of the closet as a Unitarian affiliate group in support of what they call "the philosophy of loving or relating intimately to more than one other person at a time with honesty and integrity." The acceptance they seek is analogous to the acceptance Unitarians grant "the divorced, the intentionally single, gays and lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people." What they are promoting is different from both "swinging" (a form of recreational sex involving spouse-swapping) and "cheating" (a covert, extramarital affair). Some polyamorists claim they are "hard-wired" that way, others look for enrichment through overt, multiple partners, and still others want to experience liberation from having to have all their needs met by one other person or from "the societal ideal of one man marrying one woman until death do them part." This group says it experiences the same kind of stigmatizing that gays and lesbians do, and it suggests the label "adulterer" is oppressive.

HORRID THOUGHT: They don't get much more patriotic than columnist Bob Greene. Still, in commenting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance, he mused: "You can believe that the California federal court's decision to get rid of `under God' was wrong, as I do, and still give some thought to questions you hadn't really considered before. Such as: What if we were told that in some enemy country, the children routinely stood in school each day and, in unison, declared their allegiance to that nation? It sounds fine, here; if the same thing were described about a nation we dislike ... well, the politicians would have a field day with it. Imagine! Children in schools, standing up to pledge their allegiance daily!" (Chicago Tribune, July 1).