Dear Friends,

In response to last week’s Update, a friend wrote
to say, “Good message — but still not at the heart of the problem. The
real problem is lack of spiritual connection, to each other, to the
planet, to Life itself.  Until this separation issue is addressed,
everything else will be in vain.  This has been the message of the
sages throughout the ages, whether Buddha, Jesus, Moses, ML King or
Gandhi.”

Good point.  While respecting the diversity of
spiritual perspective and religious experience, our yearning for peace,
justice, stewardship and community must be driven by moral values, by a
heartfelt concern for the life around us.  Yet what inspires us to
connect with others, to engage in a compassionate way with the world
around us?

This conversation could be – and should be – long and
ongoing, as it gets to the heart of the pressing challenges of our
time.  For today, I’m content to bite off one small piece:  the q
uestion of how we are called to serve.  If the reader will indulge me a
longer-than-usual Update, I would like to share a modified and
condensed version of a speech I gave earlier this year at Drake
University as part of the Stringfellow Lecture series.  The speech was
entitled “Politics as a Religious Vocation.”

                                                          * * * * *

What
does it mean to be called to a religious vocation? Daniel Webster
defines vocation as “a call, summons or impulsion to perform a certain
function or enter a certain career, especially a religious one.”

In
the Hebrew Bible, God plucked Amos off his farm and commanded him to
prophesy to Israel.& nbsp; In Jeremiah’s case, he tries to resist
God’s calling and says, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a
youth.”  But God will have none of it, and Jeremiah goes forth to
prophesy, largely ignored and abused by those to whom he is sent.  Then
there’s Jonah, who does everything possible to avoid God’s calling. 
With the help of some angry sailors and one giant fish, God finally
compels Jonah to warn Ninevah of its pending punishment, and the people
of Ninevah repent and are spared.

In the New Testament, Jesus
calls his first disciples with remarkable brevity, saying “Follow me
and I will make you fishers of men.” In the Book of Acts, Luke writes
of the calling of the apostle Paul while on the road to Damascus, who
required a voice from heaven and sudden blindness to accomplish his
transformation.

Literature and history are full of calls to
vocations in political and social justice work.  Dorothy Day was deeply
moved by a march on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and “offered up a
special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and anguish, that some
way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow
workers, for the poor.”  The next day, she met Peter Maurin, who helped
her found the Catholic Worker movement.

Gandhi’s call came
through his own pain, and through understanding how that pain was but a
small reflection of the pain of many others.  After being physically
thrown off a train because he wasn’t white, Gandhi writes, “winter in
the higher regions of South Africa is severely cold . . . I sat and
shivered.  There was no light in the room . . . I began to think of my
duty.  Should I fight for my rights or go back to India?  The hardship
to which I was subjected was superficial – only a symptom of the deep
disease of color prejudice.  I should try, if possible, to root out the
disease and suffer hardships in the process.”

My own calling
came while fast ing to cure an intestinal problem.  During the second
day of my fast, without any warning or expectation, I had the sudden,
emphatic realization that I was being called to a life of service.  It
was an ecstatic experience.  Yet once the luster of the moment wore
off, the idea terrified me.  What I really wanted to do was to farm and
play music.  So, for the next five years, like Jonah, I did everything
I could to run away from my calling.

Yet each time I got more
deeply involved in farming, I would injure my back, each incidence
worse than the last.  I tried to focus entirely on music, but back
problems kept me from sitting for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time,
making it impossible to practice.  It was becoming clear to me that, no
matter how hard I tried to continue on my own “road to Damascus,”
something was pushing me in a different direction.

Since 1984,
my public service work has taken many forms, both inside and outside
the arena of electoral politics.  Religion, spirituality, community and
role models have been critical motivators in my work.  Several years
ago, inspired by Gandhi’s “Confession of Faith,” I wrote a set of
guiding principles.  While I am saddened at the times I have failed to
live up to these principles, they have served as a compass and proven
instrumental in helping me find my way.

The evolution of my
political activism is a series of ad-ons, beginning with peace in
1980s, justice and poverty in the early 1990s, land use and sustainable
agriculture since the mid-1990s, and now global warming.  Holding
political office is only one aspect of my work, but a critically
important one.  If we truly want justice, if we truly desire systemic
societal reform, then we MUST be involved in politics.

Gandhi
said it like this:  “My bent is not political but religious and I take
part in politics because I feel that there is no department of life
which ca n be divorced from religion and because politics touch the
vital being of India almost at every point.”

Politics motivated
by a thirst for power, or money or even a love of the “game” of
politics, will achieve more harm than good.  Too many people approach
the political realm with ulterior motives, lacking vision, without a
sense of calling or greater purpose.  It is this type of person that
has come to give politics a bad name, and of such that Webster spoke
when he defined politician as a term “frequently used in a derogatory
sense, with implications of seeking personal or partisan gain,
scheming, opportunism, etc.”

Back to Gandhi.  In America today,
more than ever, we need good people in politics, people genuinely
motivated by moral values, people concerned with the greater good.  Not
the narrow values of exclusion and fear.  Not a false set of values
that negate the integrity of people who think differently, who worship
differently, who l ook different, who have a different sexual
orientation.  When religion becomes exclusive and provincial, it
becomes harmful, hurtful and false.

Over time, as I’ve talked
with people who want to run for office, I’ve developed a list of traits
one should possess and develop. They are: (1) a sharp mind, (2) clear
vision, (3) a compassionate heart, (4) a strong stomach, (5) a stiff
spine, (6) a good set of legs (for all that door knocking!), and most
important (7) a sense of spiritual purpose.

Perhaps even more
important than all these is COMMUNITY.  Community doesn’t just mean our
family, friends, coworkers or even extended circles of people who think
like us.  Community means all that and more.  As Bill McKibben writes
in his new book, “Deep Economy,” “The key questions will change from
whether the economy produces an ever larger pile of stuff to whether it
builds or undermines community – for community, it turns out, is the
key to physical surviva l in our environmental predicament and also to
human satisfaction.”

Community building is an important part
of the work that Lynn and I hope to accomplish through “An Independence
Movement for Iowa.”  Again to McKibben:  “{development} should aim not
at growth but at durability.  It should avoid the romantic fantasies
offered by the prophets of endless wealth in favor of the blunter
realism of people looking out for each other.”

That’s community,
a spiritual vision of economic growth and political engagement that is
both democratic and sustainable.  Though the seeds and traditions of
community run long and deep in this great, pluralistic country of ours,
we have much work to do – and much damage to undo.  Rediscovering our
neighbors and rebuilding our town squares is gaining momentum from one
end of America to the other, and as much as anywhere, right here in the
heartland. Yet to move beyond the culture of fear and consumerism sold
to us by those who would divide and distract us, to move beyond a
segregated, isolated America of gated prison communities for the poor
and gated safe communities for the rich, there must be a deepening of
our personal and collective commitment to values-based lives, work and
civic engagement.

Gandhi challenged himself to listen to “that
small, still voice within.”  That’s good advice today in a world grown
noisy, chaotic and confusing.  We would each do well to listen for that
voice and let it guide us in our lives.

Thank you,

Ed Fallon

UPCOMING EVENTS

Thursday, June 21, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.

Nature Rocks – The Concert ($25 donation)
Indian Creek Nature Center
6665 Otis Rd SE, Cedar Rapids
Contact:  (319) 362-0664 or visit http://www.indiancreeknaturecenter.org

Saturday, June 23, 10:00 a.m.

A discussion of national budget priorities and the Iraq War
Led by Congresswomen Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee
Helmick Commons at Drake University, Des Moines
Contact:  Caucus for Priorities at (515) 244-1207 or Jessica@sensiblepriorities.org  

Tuesday, June 26, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Iowa Global Warming Candidate Communication Workshop
Iowa Environmental Council
521 E. Locust, Suite 220, Des Moines
Contact:  Steve Falck, (515) 244-1194 ext. 209

Wednesday, June 27, 7:45 p.m.

Open Discussion of the U.S. Farm Bill
Led by Laura Krouse, biology instructor at Cornell College
Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn Street, Iowa City

Friday, July 6, 9:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Ed Fallon will be the guest host on Jan Mickelson’s show
WHO Radio, 1040 AM

Friday, July 13 – Saturday, July 14