War trophies of an embarrassing past

The Bells of Balangiga are going home, where they belong. In spite of the chauvinism of Wyoming’s Congressional delegation, a decades-old debate about where the bells belong has ended. The dictionary notes apt synonyms for “chauvinism” include jingoism and excessive nationalism.

Unlike Wyoming politicians, Defense Secretary James Mattis rejected chauvinism and made the ethical choice, coming to Cheyenne to announce his decision. Mattis’s decision conflicts with the position of many veterans’ organizations, though his respect of veterans is unquestionable.

To his credit, Governor Matt Mead, who opposed repatriation of the bells, admitted Mattis has a perspective and an understanding of history “that is broader than mine.” As war trophies go, a thoughtful perspective and understanding of history leads most to believe that as long as they remain in the U.S., the bells are trophies of an embarrassing chapter in America’s ugly imperialistic past.

Our nation’s politically-polarized psyche results in part from the inability of many Americans to understand their life experience is not the same as those on the other side of a debate or controversy. Those who believe these bells are sacred U.S. war trophies should consider the Philippine side of the story as to how they ended up here in the first place.

In August a dozen years ago, a news correspondent for a popular Filipino investigative news program came to Wyoming to do a story on the bells from his country’s perspective. Listen to how his countrymen and women view the history.

It was “September 28, 1901, during the Spanish-American War. The Philippines then was at the last stretch of Spanish colonial administration and the Americans were already ruling the whole country.”

That raises the question. “What was the U.S. was doing in the Philippines?” Historian Michael Beschloss’s “Presidents of War” documents the American quest for empire, new commercial markets and opportunities to convert “heathens” to Christianity as motives for invading and occupying that small island nation.

Mercado continues, “According to the tale of the Balangigans, various types of abuse were experienced by them at the hands of the Americans, from stealing to inflicting physical pain.” Mercado says it was these abuses by U.S. occupiers that caused the people to plan an attack on the Americans.

“The plan,’ he reported, ‘was for all the males to gather inside the church, to hide arms [i.e., bolos] inside coffins, and to dress in women’s clothing so that they would not be noticed. The next morning, while the Americans were eating breakfast, the bell of the church rang. This signaled the attack.

“The Filipinos had no other weapons but bolos and knives, but this battle was recognized by history as the worst defeat of the Americans in the war here.”

Mercado’s report describes American retaliation. “They revenged (sic) and burned the entire town of Balangiga and its neighboring towns. This chapter in history is called ‘kill and burn’ and it was enforced by Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith. His order: ‘Make Samar into a howling wilderness…and kill all males 10 years old and above.”

It was a vengeful massacre of the people of Balangiga for which these bells became an American “war trophy,” eventually finding their way to Warren Air Force Base.
As a State Senator in the 1970s, I lobbied for the return of the bells to the Philippines. I thought then and I continue to believe that our country’s values are realized more by its generosity toward other nations than by the exercise of chauvinistic bullying over them.

In the U.S, the bells are jingoistic symbols of a history that 21^st century Americans should regret, a history we have thankfully moved beyond. In the Philippines, these bells symbolize the patriotic courage of their ancestors.

A part of our most recent history with the Philippines includes fighting side-by-side in World War II and Vietnam and the role Filipinos play today as allies in an important part of the world. Wyoming politicians don’t have to take that broad a perspective, though they should and Secretary Mattis did.

A Thanksgiving Ode to Compassionate Cheyenne

Sometimes these columns write themselves. I’ll be sitting at my desk, twiddling my thumbs, wondering what to write about. Suddenly, there it is.

Recently, the talisman came in the form of quotes from the October 23^rd Wyoming Tribune-Eagle report on the City Council’s decision to forego an endorsement of kindness and compassion.

It was the words of City Councilmen Rocky Case and Dickie Shanor. It was Mr. Case who said, “Some words on a piece of paper are not going to deter someone who is going to commit a less than kind act.” In the same debate, Councilman Shanor announced, “I don’t believe that’s my job as a city councilman to be generous with taxpayer dollars.”  

Mr. Case has been among the most committed public servants in our community. So, his quote gave me reason to think about the significance of “words on a piece of paper” and whether they have the power to change people’s lives. Mr. Shanor’s pronouncement raises the question of the meaning of generosity and whether the trait should be avoided by elected officials.

How would Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, not to mention the Galilean Sage whom they quoted throughout their writings, feel about the alleged meaninglessness of putting words on a piece of paper? Surely, they would not have employed so many words on pieces of paper had they believed those words were without any impact on people who were contemplating less than kind acts.

What about Thomas Jefferson? His words on a piece of paper changed the world. The “Federalist Papers,” were nothing but words on pieces of paper and yet they continue to influence the course of our nation.

Indeed, the job of city council members is to consider which words to put on pieces of paper; e.g. budgets, ordinances, resolutions. Words on pieces of paper are what it’s all about in a nation of laws.

Words elected officials choose not to put on those pieces of paper also matter. Take, for example, the refusal of Cheyenne’s City Council and the Wyoming legislature to put words on pieces of paper protecting gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender citizens from discrimination. So it is with the decision not to endorse compassion as a guiding principle for the city.

Perhaps Mr. Shanor’s words deserve more thought. Generosity. What does the word mean? Why would a public official deny generosity is part of his job in deciding how to use taxpayer dollars?

Jesus told us generous people give to all who ask. Both Matthew and Luke put those words on pieces of paper. Elected officials cannot do that with the public’s money. None the less, when making decisions about how to use that money, true leaders can still be generous.

Leigh Buchanan is the editor-at-large for Inc. Magazine and the former editor of the Harvard Business Review. She is an expert on leadership and defines it to include generosity. The term includes a willingness to be open to the ideas of one’s colleagues, to listen especially to an explanation of those to which you may not be initially warm before dismissing them or diminishing them.

Mr. Shanor quit listening the moment he learned the national compassionate movement’s website mentioned the United Nations. He was no longer generous. He was unwilling to consider any other information, including the fact that the Compassionate Cheyenne movement did not adhere to the choices made by the national organization. 

Listening honestly is an act of generosity and should be an expectation of those who hold the public trust, especially when deciding how to use tax dollars.

The term “compassion” is frightening to many. Everyone wants to be known as compassionate. However, some need to define the word for themselves. Putting words of compassion on a piece of paper without controlling and limiting their application proved far too generous for some of our elected officials.

Fortunately, none of this affects the Compassionate Cheyenne movement. It will boldly continue its work and Cheyenne will be better off for it.

Sunday's Sermon @ Highlands-A climate change conversation with the Creator

“A conversation with the maker of

heaven and earth”

Me: Oh…I am so stressed out. It’s Saturday night. My sermon isn’t done. I sit and stare at the scripture readings from the lectionary and the longer I stare the blanker my mind.                                        

GOD: Hey…Rodger

Me: Uh Gawd, it’s you again? I mean Oh God! It’s YOU again.

GOD: Don’t mess with me. I am in no mood for it. What is that you’re reading?

Me: It’s the lectionary. I’m working on Sunday’s sermon.

GOD: The lectionary? Sometimes I think the elves would have you preachers preaching about anything just so it’s not relevant to what’s going on in the world. You ought to be preaching about the United Nations Report on climate change.

Me: That’s mixing politics with religion. No can do

GOD: POLITICS? POLITICS? The fate of God’s creation…the earth, the seas, the rivers, the mountains, animals, fish and all you humans…that is not POLITICS. That’s spiritual.

Me: Okay. Okay, didn’t mean to set you off.

GOD: Well, I am not a very happy camper. Don’t you humans ever learn? I gave you the Garden of Eden. Everything you needed. You would go without nothing. I asked only one small favor. Don’t eat the fruit of one lousy tree and you went right for it.

Me: But that really was the woman’s fault. She’s the one who said Adam should try it…and that snake! Why did you put a talking snake in the Garden to begin with? What good could possibly come from that.

GOD: Myth, Rodger. Don’t you understand that was a myth? The earth would only be 6000 years old if you read that stuff literally. It was a story I used to try to teach humans that if they just take care of the Garden, they would never lack for anything.

Me: What about the Great Flood? I suppose that was a myth too? 40 days and 40 nights of rain, all the earth destroyed.

GOD: Yeah, myth, all myth. A story designed to teach that the behavior of humans has a consequence. If you are corrupt and violent toward one another and the earth, you will lose it all.

Me: Then you promised the earth would never ever be destroyed again.

GOD: That is not what I said.

Me: Au contraire mon fraire. I have it right here. Genesis 9 and I quote you, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." Do those words ring a bell?

GOD: So, now you think the Bible is literally a science book? The Bible is not a science book, never intended to be…that’s why you and I have to listen to the scientists. We can hold the Bible in one hand and the UN study in the other and figure this thing out. The two are not mutually exclusive. The myths, allegories, and metaphors I used in the Bible are there to help you understands yourselves. It takes scientists to tell you how threatening climate change is to the earth.

It just made my head explode when I listened to that Senator say climate change was no problem because I promised after the flood I would never again destroy the earth. Blah, blah, blah. Talk about false prophets. Even in the myth, I said I would not destroy the earth again.

I couldn’t speak for you humans. Science can explain it better than me, but this is your doing. Look, I created the earth, the trees, plants, rivers and seas, the animals, birds and bees, and last I looked, before I created humans, all was good.

Well Rodger, all is not good now. It’s like Jeremiah said when he was quoting me, “I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.”

Me: Yeah, I fear you are right. What are you telling me? Are you getting ready to destroy it all again?

GOD: Hey, don’t put it on me. You all are doing the job yourselves. Let me read from the UN report.  QUOTE: “Unless the world makes some drastic and immediate changes to combat the damage already done, hundreds of millions of people may be irreversibly imperiled by drought, flooding, extreme heat and increased poverty in the decades to come.”

Me: Pretty bleak. It says a team of 91 scientists from 40 countries analyzed over 6,000 scientific studies before reaching that conclusion. So, God, what are you doing about it?

GOD: Me? What am I doing about it? What you humans are doing about it. After all, I did my job. I created you with free will and the intellectual ability to reason and think for yourselves.

Me: That’s the problem. You see God, that free-will experiment hasn’t worked too well. As you may have overheard, we have a lot of politicians who believe the whole thing is a hoax. Many of them believe the fault does not lie with human beings. Know what that means? If it’s not our fault, it must be yours!

GOD: Why am I reminded of Adam & Eve trying to cover themselves with fig leaves? As you know, I don’t tend to view things in a political sense. I’m more theological, a ‘right or wrong’ sort of guy and how you all have treated the earth is just plain wrong.

Must I remind you of how this came about. There it is in the Book of Genesis and I quote myself, "God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

Me: Well, we humans have certainly exercised dominion over them all…just as you asked. We’ve created an entire economic and political system that depends on how well we exercise dominion over the earth and its creatures.

GOD: “Dominion” is your English translation of the words I used. You all think the scripture was written in English. Well, it wasn’t written in English. Genesis was written in ancient Hebrew and your word “dominion” was actually “radah” and it doesn’t mean “control.” It means “responsibility.” I was saying that humans had a responsibility to the rest of God’s creation.

Me: Hmm, that changes everything. But, we’re going to need some time. As things stand today, most everything we do depends on not changing anything. Coal miners need jobs, the economy depends on us buying more things we don’t need. Did you hear the Presbyterians debate whether the church should divest itself from fossil fuels investments?

The denomination has about $150 million invested in companies that either produce or consume fossil fuels. The Presbyterians decided rather than anger the congregations in fossil fuel states like Wyoming, we’d kick the can down the road by joining a five-year initiative to pressure companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Apparently even church attendance depends on ignoring the issue. How much time will you give us to turn it around? We’re going to need a lot.

GOD: Well, you don’t have five years to study the issue. It has been studied to death…literally. And besides that, it is not up to me. It’s up to you. Here’s the problem. According to the scientists, a 2-degree-Celsius rise in temperatures will spell widespread disaster, causing flooded coastlines, intensified droughts and altered weather worldwide, wreaking havoc on agriculture and natural ecosystems.

According to the UN report, a crippling wave of poverty would ensue. To make matters worse, the world is already clocking in at 1-degree-Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, which means we’re more than halfway there. At the rate we’re going, global temperatures are set to hit the mark by 2040—unless a lot changes, and fast.

Me: Reminds me of the words of Jesus in Matthew. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines & earthquakes. But as soon as 2040? That’s only 22 years away. People my age may not be around for it but my oldest grandchild will be 30 years old, my youngest only 27 when all of this comes to pass. What kind of planet will they inherit?

GOD: I tried my best to make sure you all had the best science available in order to encourage you to think about this long ago, but there’s still time, not much, but there is still time to act. What are you going to do to change attitudes, persuade your fellow humans to act to keep the planet from reaping the whirlwind?

Me: As James said in the Bible, “We have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.” What can we do? There is so little time and we are just a small church and we already do what we can. We recycle and plant trees, nurture the bees. We study the issue and use our voices as we can to encourage others. What more can we do?

GOD: Well, I was listening to NPR the other day.

Me: You listen to NPR? I hope you called in a pledge.

GOD: Of course, what did you think, that I listen to Rush Limbaugh? Of course I get my news about what you all are doing from NPR as they go to and fro upon the earth. In any event, this fellow, a scientist who helped write the report said that saving the earth is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but maybe not within the laws of politics.

Me: Yes, that is the problem. So long as climate change is only a political issue the earth is in trouble.

GOD: So, change that dynamic. Use the voice I gave you; use the feet and hands I gave you. Take your brains and apply your intellect to the word of God I gave you. Speak and act as though the future of the earth mattered to you as much as it matters to God.

Me: How do we do that?

GOD: Study the science. Know the truth. Study the Hebrew prophets. Study Jesus. Learn how they confronted the empires in the times in which they lived and do the same. Use the words of Hosea who stood before a cruel king and said, “Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea are taken away.”

Above all, remind the people and their elected officials. The earth is not theirs to do with as they choose. The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord that your children may have a future on the land.

Me: We’ll talk about it among ourselves and get back to you.

GOD: Dilly, dilly. You do that. But make it quick. There isn’t much time left.