The Phoneless in Society

June 25, 2011

Mr. Randall L. Stephenson

Chairman, CEO and President

AT&T

208 S. Akard St.

Dallas, TX 75202

Dear Mr. Stephenson,

I would like you to regale you with a short story about AT&T that I am sure will amuse you.

We have been AT&T wireless customers for over ten years and Robb Hall at our local store, Wireless One In Bella Vista Arkansas,  is one of the best customer service people out there. He has helped us for more than ten years.

But my tale  began June 3 when I decided to take advantage of AT&T's offer to upgrade my system, with a new two year contract and new phones for my wife and I, several months before our contract expired.  What a nice offer!

We went to the AT&T Corporate store, 20 miles away in Rogers, Arkansas, to look at selection and features for the phones. We concluded a nice Motorola Atrix 4G would be just what the doctor ordered for $99.00 apiece.  But I thought I'd better check online first!  Lo and behold, online offered  a refurbished Atrix 4G phone at 49.99 each!  Such a deal!  We ordered them and they duly arrived several days later. Unfortunately we couldn't turn them on nor unlock them, no doubt due to our decrepit age.  We are both 70 after all.

So, we sent the phones back and asked for working ones.  Your nice customer service representatives  agreed to Fed Ex them to us, and we received the working replacements within a couple of days.  You then received the non- working originals back on 6-20-11.

The new phones were magnificent! We could get e-mail! Text! Go on Facebook and twitter! Check our minutes! Navigate and track our positions on the earth with a GPS! Magnificent!  Unfortunately, what we could not do was to figure out how to answer the phone, transfer our contacts, set up a speed dial system, or make a call. We are old. And we figured the problem was ours, so we took it to our local phone store in Bella Vista, AR,  where one of the aforementioned best customer service reps, Robb Hall, works.  Since we had ordered online Robb couldn't do much but took the time to educate us in how some of it worked. 

Robb patiently explained we were not educationally challenged and showed us where to go to download the manual, which we did.

We could make calls! Even receive them! Great.

But, in about two weeks it became apparent that a Motorola Atrix 4G was much too much phone for us. We don't text. We don't need to go online and tweet or twit or facebook or SOCIALLY NETWORK WITH ANYONE! We are apparently both Luddites and challenged in the social department. It is a major effort to text with arthritis of the thumbs, not to mention other decaying body parts. We need a phone to make calls!  Despite the fact that our children no longer communicate by any means other than text we keep attempting to call them.  Perhaps you could explain what "B4 C:md ph I" means.

Now the fun began. I called your online customer service center on Jun 23rd to say the phones were too much for us and we would like to exchange them. 

Endless wait for the disembodied voice to get me to a human...no option for that.  I could buy a new phone, check my bill online or amend my service plan but I could NOT, under any circumstance, talk to a human. I persevered.  Three redials,  a broken fingernail a few verbal mortal sins and several missed options later I got my human.  Whose response was "No problem!  Simply return the old phones to us using the USPS return sticker we provided and go to the AT&T store, decide which replacement phones you would like, then call us back, give us the model and we will send you the new one's". Oh Joy, Oh Rapture! Sounded fair to me! So we sent the old one's back and kept the tracking number.

I picked my wife up at work over lunch, and we drove the twenty miles to the store. We found a basic phone a Pantech Breeze II which my wife liked,  but the salesperson said we would have to wait until the old phones were received by AT&T to get the new one's......Otherwise $119.00 per phone.

"What?",  I asked, somewhat bemused. "We have to go without phones for two weeks or so while the mail system handles the return?", I asked rather stupidly. "Yes" was the reply. "Why then did your customer service people  tell me to return the phones which I did this morning and they are now in the hands of the USPS, an organization I would rather not mess with".

"I am sorry sir, whomever told you that online (someone named Gloria at God knows what location) exceeded her authority." 

"What do we do now", I asked, descending into a state of existential angst to rival Kafka on his best day.  "I have no phone."

"Perhaps if you go back online they can fix the problem", was the response. I was entirely too addled to see the irony in the statement. I drove wife back to work, drove home and proceeded to go online, and then recalled the Customer Service Center, a process similar to Dante's descent into the fifth circle of hell.

I began the process at 8:47AM, lunch and the visit to the AT&T corporate store was about noon and I was finished about 5:35PM. In that interim I talked to 7 people, three of whom attempted to help me.  Bonnie Capman in Huntsville, Alabama gave it a good shot. "I've corrected the records and you should have no problem now.  I have noted the file that you are to get the new phones at the upgrade rate."

So I returned to the Corporate store 20 miles away and spoke to Doreen Smithers who showed me the phones and said, "no, the records have not yet been altered and you must wait until AT&T receives the old phones....COMPANY POLICY!"  There it was, that dreaded word that strikes fear in the heart of every customer....Company Policy"...the decree from the great beyond. So I went home.

Back online, this time to two men, one who transferred me to a "supervisor",  who in the final analysis after more than thirty minutes online, told me there was nothing he could do....COMPANY POLICY...

I pointed out I had already paid for the old phones which were in the mail. Couldn't they just give me new ones at the upgrade price and if it turned out I was mistaken about returning the old ones, simply bill me for the new ones at the NON-UPGRADE price. 

Apparently not, "Because, (according to your Customer Service Supervisor) how do I know if you are telling the truth that you returned them." A rather interesting twist.  Imply the customer is lying and probably cheating you. Great customer service!

I said:

1) Here is the USPS tracking number. They have had it since 10:57:48 AM and it is now 3:20.

2) What difference does it make if I am lying you will simply bill me later.

3) Why must you receive the old phone, I have the SIM card, the old phone is useless.

4) Where did you hone your customer service skills..... Dachau?

I am sorry for that last comment, it was most ungracious and unreasonable.

He replied, I am sorry sir...COMPANY POLICY.

I hung up and fixed myself a beer and a plate of chocolate not knowing whether inebriation or a sugar high would be preferable.  So I did both.

After I simmered awhile and took a short catnap, I called again to the now achingly familiar Customer Service Center to say I felt it unreasonable I should go without phones for two weeks since we have no land line.

Lo and behold Brenda Britt of the Longview, TX service center agreed with me! (Don't you agree there is just something about those Texas women. )

She looked into the matter and discovered dear Bonnie Capman had simply failed to get supervisor approval for the exchange. Within about thirty minutes of holding, my upgrade had been cancelled and received supervisor approval and I could go into any store and upgrade my service to a Luddite phone at the "upgrade price" ! WOW! Thanks Brenda!

So I called the AT&T store in Rogers. Perhaps, under the circumstances,  a bit of whimsy on my part...or possibly a grim fascination with Dante. Seven redials later ("We are sorry we are very busy helping other customers"),  in frustration I called my wife in the Home Office of Wal-Mart to cry and moan a little. She said I'll call Doreen!

Four minutes later I received a call from Doreen. "Your wife called from the Wal-Mart Home office and asked me to call you."  The words "Wal-Mart Home Office" has apparently mystical properties rivaling the Minotaur or Sphinx in inscrutability.

"Doreen, my sweet, will you check to see if the records are cleared so I can get the new phones you showed me earlier today?"

Of course.......no not yet I have spoken with my supervisor and COMPANY POLICY......

I sank into a fit of despair rivaling Van Gogh before the ear cutting. "Why great God in heaven have you abandoned me to this cruel fate?"

Redial Brenda...unbelievable trouble to find the same person in the same call center.

"Yes it has been changed Mr. Middleton as I told you.  The store person didn't check closely enough. We have completely cancelled your upgrade and you are free to go in any store and upgrade to the phone of your choice at upgrade prices."

Once again Brenda, you have exceeded all expectations and marched directly into the halls of Valhalla trailing a scent of..........well, never mind.

Redial my AT&T corporate store....five, six, no seven times. "Hello Doreen my lurking little cherub would you mind checking the records one more time?"

"Of course Mr. Middleton. Oh, here it is! they've cancelled the upgrade! You are free to come in and pick out any phone at upgrade prices."

Terrific, Doreen, my dappled little pudding, how much is the upgrade price for a Pantech Breeze II"

"119.99"

"But that was the retail price without the upgrade,  right?"

"Right they are the same."

You mean I spent all day.........no, no. Surely you jest, mon petit!"

"No sir, there is no discount whether upgrade or not."

"So my Motorola Atrix 4G, which cost $99.95 new or $49.95 refurbished, and texts, goes online, has wifi, internet and bluetooth whatchamacallit, has 34 different ringtones and operates by voice command and has been blessed by the Pope and the internet gurus as "the best damn smart phone out there",with, if I am not mistaken an app that will raise the Confederate flag while whistling "Dixie", is cheaper than this little Pantech Breeze II which is just for making calls? It's $119.99?

"Less rebate which comes to you in the form of a credit card.  And the data plan and text plan...."

"I'm talking about the cost OF THE PHONE, Doreen." I checked with my Non-corporate store here and it is $99.95 less rebate according to Robb Hall who is rarely wrong

"Yes sir.  It is more.  I don't know why."

I don't know why either.  It is now 7:45 at night and I am finished with phones today.  I am going to pull out my SIM card, return my neighbor's phone and if I have a heart attack tonight and cannot raise the ambulance I will come back from the dead, move next door to you at 207 S. Akard St. in Dallas and appear throughout the AT&T corporate offices as a dreadful apparition, hovering over cubicles, rattling chains and moaning viscerally throughout the day.

Since I got what I wanted I have few complaints..........I guess. We will see what happens tomorrow.

I may call customer service again just to have a moment of humor.

Very truly yours,  

John P. Middleton, the phoneless

Who is Christ?

I have written and spoken many times about the vision of Christ that sees him as "Logos" of God. The Greek word "Logos" is literally translated as "word" , but means more in the Greek. It can mean, Avatar, speaker, prophet, teacher and other interpretations. The writer John sees Jesus as "Logos" when he says "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

Logos then can be interpreted as meaning the manifestation of god IN HUMAN FORM bringing God's words to all of humankind.  I will use it that way when I use the word "Logos".

Let me first state that to see Jesus as the ONLY bringer of God's word may be the way a conservative Christian might see Him, but I do not share that view.  Here's why. The Buddha brought many great truths in his search for universal compassion.  So does Krishna, or Lao Tze. To avow only Christians have the truth is to say God cannot manifest Himself to others in different ways.  Even if we deny the essential Christian arrogance of that position, simple geographics and demogaphics would tend to deny it. When God appears to a far away culture he would do so in response to that culture, not to some westernized version, don't you think? Otherwise he might be incomprehensible to the listener. Not exactly what "Logos" is all about.

Even Shakespeare, not a clergyman at all, speaks a universal truth when he attests, "this above all to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, though canst not be false to any man."

So God appears to humans primarily through scriptures, through nature, and through the community of diverse believers in many different oral and written traditions. That diversity works in God's favor.  He can make himself known to the greatest number through diversity.

Where then does that place Jesus?  Are we saying Jesus is no different than Krishna? Not at all,  They are very different yet very similar. Even Islamics see Moses as the Law bringer, Jesus as the Love bringer and Muhammed as the Truth bringer. Three manifestations of God in their opinion.

I want to focus on the love aspect of Jesus.  As Love bringer, he brings, in my mind the highest order of awareness and instruction to us. There is no other prophet or Avatar who loves more. It was his single greatest commandment that regardless of what the "Law" said we are to LOVE God and one another and that "ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS HANGS ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. Clearly He is the Love bringer.

When someone brings us Laws or a set of tenets one claims to be true, one abandons love for dogma. That is the exact reason Jesus taught the greatest commandments listed above. Law and dogma can never replace what is in your heart.

I believe God is love.  And so the expression of love made known by Jesus is no doubt God's word in my mind, the "logos".  What other tenet would God propose?  Certainly not Law or a belief structure!

Am I saying one must be a Christian to be saved?  Absolutely not. Christianity is a religion, human made, human driven and human flawed with wars and hatred and dominance in full measure. I am saying one must be spiritual and manifest Love regardless of one's religion I am saying that Jesus TRANSCENDS religion, and is UNIVERSAL as is God.  The Islamic jihadist or the Hindu caste of the untouchable would be unacceptable to the love ethic of the Love Being, or God. But that does not mean one cannot find God through Hinduism or Buddhism, one certainly can, but only through the love ethic of those faiths, not through the war ethic that exists in all religions.

To suggest that Buddha or Gandhi or many others of those eastern faiths were not spiritual and in tune with the Love ethic would be patently wrong. They found spirituality and closeness through God by means of the Love ethic through other faiths.

I am a Christian because I am a westerner. But also because first Century Christianity was about Love, called "The Way" by those people. There is no higher aspiration to my mind than love.  Exactly what Christ taught, and Buddha, I might add.

So who is Christ? The most perfect provider of the Love ethic, the Love bringer, and, as such, a means of salvation. In fact, as Love bringer, the ONLY means of salvation.

What about Christ as something more than Love Bringer or teacher? Isn't He the savior and redeemer, didn't His blood, shed for us, provide us with the means of "salvation"?  I might argue that His incarnation and resurrection were supremely more important than His death, but I have no problem with his bloodshed on our behalf. 

Buddha was the only one who made it through life unscathed. Krishna, Christ and many others were sacrificed at some level. But, lest we begin to worship dogma, let us be careful what we mean when we say Christ "died for us". I believe it was to restore the path to God broken by the Jews continual turning away from God and disinterest in the message of the eighth century prophets. What He restored was the Love relationship with God. The turning of the heart regardless of what was written in the Law. That is what His baptism of the heart is all about, not whether you were dunked or sprinkled, but your personal Damascus road experience, that moment in time when you said, "I get it!  Thank you God!"

Does that mean we never sin again? Surely not!I can personally attest to many days spent "over the line". But spirituality is about relationships as Jesus told us.  Relationships with God and Humans.  We cannot be spiritual when we say "you cannot come to my church or receive communion because........"!

We cannot claim spirituality when we swoon in an aroma therapy class. It is too personal and has no relationship value.  It is all about ME!  How I feel. What's good for me...not spiritual.

Similarly when the Islamic jihadist says, "I feel spiritual when I kill Jews", we need no scripture to tell us that is wrong because it is not about positive loving relationships.

We cannot violate the love ethic and call ourselves spiritual people, the two must go together.

We Christians have bought into a Christian belief structure which clearly violates God's love command on any number of levels. We practice all sorts of unloving tactics. Some allegedly Christian churches say, No women in the pulpit, no gays allowed, or perhaps silently, no Blacks allowed. None of which would please Jesus I would surmise. What possible benefit is it to exclude someone from practicing worship?  What possible benefit to exclude a whole sex from preaching their faith to us?

So we need to think further about this love bringer, this savior who restored a broken relationship with God.  When we claim he is God's son or the second person of the Trinity but only applying to we Christians, we have set up a dichotomy between a single, universal God and a Christian limited Jesus. If God is universal so must be Jesus or he is not LOGOS.

I would argue he is universal through the love ethic. That is his teaching, purpose, prime reason for being, our means of salvation. How we then worship Him becomes a entirely different procedure perhaps than what we are familiar with.

We need to stop thinking of Christ the PERSON and start seeing Him as Christ the Logos.  Love bringer as the means of "saviorness".

His death on the cross is symbolic of the death of the old Law and the birth of the new Love. That is the thing for which He should be worshipped.

Faith and Reason

 "Faith" is not  a substitute for thought.

 All universal truths and all of the universe cannot be understood by the human intellect alone. If we did have understanding  of all conditions it must come somewhere in the future since we clearly do not totally understand truths, or truth, now.  We must assume the human intellect can be expanded beyond what we have available now.

 While I can't attest to that last assumption, I can say, unequivocally,  we do not now have the tools to understand these infinite things.  We must, therefore, have had to ASSUME that, the moon was not made of green cheese before 1969, since we had no direct, or little direct evidence. In other words we accepted on faith that the astronauts wouldn't sink into it.  We may have suspected they wouldn't and we may have observed the moon, but we did not have, or had little, direct empirical evidence until 1969.

 We accept a number of things "on Faith", that the car coming toward us will stay in its lane, that others will stop for a red signal, etc. We simply do not have the power to predict the future. It is unlikely we ever will have. The human genome project is fairly far along, and while new discoveries are being made every day, some things, like the future, teleportation, invisibility seem simply beyond our genetic proclivities.

 There is an element of doubt in the word "Faith".  No one knows about God because no one can know. Attempting to understand the infinite is currently impossible with a finite mind and always will be.

 Science believes there are 11 dimensions at last count. But we only perceive four, even though we can deduce the rest from scientific experiments. We don't KNOW for sure. Electricity, as of this moment, is still a "theory".  We can't yet "prove" how it works.

 I believe in a God not because it explains the unexplainable as the ancients may have believed. Rather I believe in God because it offers us a benign rather than chaotic vision of the universe; a meaningful design and purpose, rather than random events. While science can get us close to the "Big Bang", it cannot explain where those elements that caused the bang came from.  I don't believe there is any conflict between science and God. Conflict with Religion, certainly! That man-made construct is full of human excess, pain and hatred. That is not God. It is a human response to God, badly done. In keeping with my benign vision, something purposeful must exist to start the process. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

 So when I say we must accept the existence of God on "faith" I am simply saying we call this infinite causing form "God".  Does He or It interact with us daily?  Debatable! Does He or It control us physically or mentally, NO!  Does He or it have a purpose for each and every person? Unlikely but debatable. But I think that a world with less randomness is a better explanation than having chaos rule.

Although sometimes I see nothing but chaos. As a colleague said, " I think that apparent “random events” are important to the design of the universe.

 There are various physical constants of the universe that have been measured, the speed of light is just one.  Others include the charge of electrons and protons, the strong nuclear force that hold atoms together, Planck’s constant, and others.  We have empirically measured these constant forces, but there is no explanation for why they are that value, they just are.  If some of these constants were slightly different values then life as we know it would not be possible, even the very nature of the universe would be different.  Certain constant values would have led to a universe that would be much more “chaotic” in nature.  I believe that a higher power “God” had a role in setting up these “random” parameters that make it possible for life to occur in the universe we inhabit.  Empirical proof exists for the values of universal physical constants, but it is a matter of faith as to why they exist (is it totally random or purposeful).

 There is a counter argument of sorts.  It takes life and a certain level of intelligence to even have this conversation we are having.  Therefore the physical constants of the universe would have to fall within certain ranges, before you and I could even contemplate the idea of faith and God. There are scientific theories that indicate that an almost infinite number of universes may exist (random).  Perhaps only a very small fraction of infinity allows for universes where God can be contemplated as a moving force of the universe (ordered existence).  A small fraction of infinity is still infinite, but be careful if you find a way to jump from one universe to the next.  You would probably cease to exist upon arrival."

 There is the possibility of Spinoza's God whom Einstein believed in. A Non-Theistic God, who had no "person" but was the forces of the universe somewhat like Luke Skywalker's  "force" but less specific. It can be said of Spinoza's God that "the universe IS God.  Heaven is not in the equation, but rather a sort of Buddhist spirit merging with said universe upon death. This claim can be said to be an extension of science's claim that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only altered.

As a friend once said,  "Can matter be destroyed? Yes. If you want proof, come round to my house and try my wife's cooking."

Finally, although Einstein spent a lifetime and failed to find a "unified field theory", or purpose, we can't prove it doesn't exist anymore than we can prove it does. If the universe is random, how do I explain what makes me feel good about myself when I do a good deed that society, the humanists, know nothing about? It can't be social because I did it alone, but I feel good! How about the sense that  goodness has attributes beyond empirical measure? The similar near death experience of the dying, so similar despite differences in age, ethnicity, background.  No I can't prove God exists any more than you can prove he does not, but we a better with Him than without.

Prof. John P. Middleton

The Trinity

The above graph depicts a traditional explanation of the Christian concept of The Trinity. While it is accurate as far as a human construct of a divine concept can be made accurate, it suffers from need of further explanation. It is insufficient to claim, as the church has for centuries, that The Trinity is a "mystery" that must be accepted through faith without understanding. That is not to say that the Divine can be made known through reason alone. It cannot. But if we are to have faith in a concept the concept must be rationally reasonable. We should not have had faith that the moon was made of green cheese until 1969, for example. The "green cheese" concept was not based on any rational values. It was silly. Similarly, we should not have accepted  the idea that "little boys are made of snails or puppy dog tails", simply because we could not disprove it until genetic science developed.  It would have been a faith based on irrationality.

The Christian faith needs rational explanations for its belief systems even if we cannot begin to approach the divine with reason alone.

So, we must attempt to understand the Trinity rationally as well as mystically as did the Gospel writer of John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us". KJV John 1:1, 1:14

For those with understanding, the idea was that Christ was "Logos" of God. "Logos", in the Greek (λóγος,), means "Word" or "discourse" or "reason".  In short The word and reason of God, incarnate.

Note that the word "Logos" (English) also had the meaning "discourse".  More about that later.

We Christians then fell into a trap of Christology when we avowed that the ONLY way to worship God was through Christ. If we were to attempt to graph the Trinity in a different way we might see the following;

                                                                                                God is:

        The Father                                        The Christ                                     The Holy Spirit

These are not mutually exclusive concepts.  When one embraces one, one embraces all. You cannot have an understanding of God or spirituality without all three elements.

The characteristics of the three elements are different.

The Father

The Father is the pure spirit, the unknowable, the Alpha and Omega, the mystical aspect of God that is hidden from us. It is for that reason that early believers including the Jews would not utter or write the name of God, acknowledging that no human could approach that holiness or amorphous concept with reason.

The Christ

The Christ is the Word, The unknowable, made knowable through and in human form. As such, while he IS God, He is also a human being.  Both fully human and fully Divine. When He speaks or acts He does so with the Power of the unknowable God because He IS that element. His life then is pure and simple and loving as God is pure and loving and not ostentatious.

Unfortunately many Christians stop here and we have many who claim we can only approach God through the manifestation of the Christ. This puts forth a concept like "you must be a Christian to be saved", which has an effect of completely ignoring the third part of the Trinity.

What is clear is that the Christ can be known through reason since He has a human form and speech. But that aspect of Him that is Divine can only be known through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit

If there were a part of God ignored, this would be it. The Spirit of God is manifested in many ways. To claim it is absent from the teachings of Buddha or Ghandi, or Krishna, or Mohammed would be simply wrong. It is also manifested in many parts of the human condition, in art, music, literature, poetry, all the arts, the human spirit is infused with the divine, the reaching upward to deity. Art is loaded with manifestations of the spirit of God. To claim art is not spiritual would be a huge mistake. To say the Shakespeare, for example, does not reflect the Holy Spirit would be patently ridiculous. Now this is not to say that a Christian cannot be infused as well. Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, John Wesley, Calvin and so many others like Mother Teresa are clearly attempting to espouse the Spirit of God through their ministries. Yes, they may be believers in Christ, but their understanding of Him differs and their conclusions, even their religions or denominations,  are not the same. Something else, beyond the traditional understanding of Christ as a one way street is operating here and that something is the Holy Spirit.

It is here we encounter the Greek meaning of Logos as "discourse". A discourse characterized by interaction, by RELATIONSHIP with the divine. Perhaps irrational, perhaps incomplete, perhaps flawed, but none the less a relationship, a give and take where He infuses us and we respond. This is , in short, the Christian concept of "Grace". It is described as the "unmerited" love of God. Not earned, but given, to which we respond with Love of fellow human.

It is no wonder that Christ refers to baptism as the baptism of the " Holy Spirit". It is not through reason but through faith, it is a rebirth experience defying reason. It is a change of heart, of something beyond reason. It has no reason.  It simply IS. And its result is Love.

If we were to use a linear graph (an imperfect process at best, we would wind up with something like the following;

God

The Father                         The Christ                       The Holy Spirit

Unknowable to Humans         Knowable as the human                    Sensed as the spirit

If then we were to attempt to chart this understanding it might look a little like the following:

        The Father                 The Christ                      The Holy Spirit

Cannot say much more    Can study and know   Cannot study but can "know" or "feel"

    inscrutable                            reason                                mystical

The Trinity then is the understanding of God as best humans can through reason and "Faith" or mysticism.

What then does our intellectual understanding, our understanding through reason alone, mean? I have listed some tenets which only make sense using the foregoing understandings.

1. "One must be a 'Christian' to be saved" is in error because it substitutes a human religion for the Divine Holy Spirit.  It stops at the first two parts of the equation. It not only denies the third aspect of the Trinity but also limits the Human manifestation of God to Jesus Christ alone. Ghandi and Buddha, for example, cannot be human manifestations of God, even though we must acknowledge they can through the Holy Spirit. What a twisted understanding we have!

2. "You can only receive communion if you are a member of my denomination" has the same problem as number 1 it denies your spirit.

3. God is "out there" and I am here, creates a horrible separation between the Holy Spirit and Mankind, a relationship which we have already admitted occurs in non-sectarian, religion neutral art.  God dwells within each human being through the Holy Spirit regardless of their religion or non- religion.  We are all children of God.

4."You are not welcome or are in some way disadvantaged if you are (fill in the blanks) Illegal, Gay or Lesbian, a woman, A Muslim, an Episcopalian, a two headed dwarf, etc. Nothing in the concept of the Trinity nor in Jesus ministry would claim this.  All are welcome in the spirit and flesh.  To deny this is to totally misrepresent Christianity as a concept or as a religion. When I encounter a denomination that won't allow me to receive communion if I am not a member,  I am dismayed and saddened beyond measure.

There are any number of other examples of human constructs that, so sadly, contradict the Trinity and the Spirit.

The overriding tenet of all faiths is that God, or the Creation, is Love and our mission is to develop some form of unlimited compassion. Even Humanism, even total Atheism,  avows the same concept, that even WITHOUT God, we need to develop some form of unlimited compassion.

God as Love

If one accepts the idea that God is Love. Then one must understand love with both reason and spirit.

It is not reasonable to claim that "God is Love unless you are a "fill-in-the-blanks" as previously outlined, as that denies the Spirit once again. If we accept the mystical revelation of God then we must embrace mystical Love. A Love which has no boundaries, no limits, no caveats, no conditions, no what-ifs, no gotchas!

If we are to understand God's love as best we Christian humans can we need to understand the Trinity.

We need to understand there are no boundaries to the Holy Spirit and we all possess it no matter who we are.

Prof.  John P. Middleton

May 2011

The 2012 Budget

Article from the April 19, 2011 edition CHN Human Needs Report :

The FY 2012 Budget:
House Republicans Take Steps To Drown Government in a Bathtub;
The President has Other Priorities

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist famously observed a decade ago that he didn’t want to abolish government, but just to “reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”  The Budget Resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on April 15 would drag the federal government pretty far across the tiles.  It would over 10 years cut spending by $4.3 trillion, two-thirds of which would come from unprecedented cuts in low-income programs such as Medicaid and SNAP/food stamps.  But despite ample rhetoric about deficit reduction, the plan would only shrink the deficit by $160 billion over ten years.  Why so little despite massive service cuts?  The budget uses almost all of the savings to cut taxes by $4.2 trillion over the decade.   In contrast, several proposals released by the President and House Democrats produce more deficit reduction and, while not providing complete protection to low-income people, at least do not attack them. 

There is little subtlety in the House Budget Resolution’s (H Con Res 34) choice of winners and losers.  The budget makes permanent the Bush-era tax cuts, providing millionaires with an annual tax break averaging $125,000.  The budget also assumes the estate tax will continue at the reduced levels agreed to in the tax cut deal enacted by Congress last December.  About $800 billion in revenue increases in the new health care law would be eliminated, as the budget calls for repealing the law.  In addition, the budget would slash the top income tax rates for individuals and corporations from the current 35 percent to 25 percent.  The cost of this major reduction would be offset by unspecified cuts in tax expenditures – the tax credits or deductions now adding up to $1 trillion a year.  While many tax expenditures are of disproportionate benefit to the wealthy, the large income tax rate reductions are exclusively for the rich, with extra benefits to the super rich. 

If the rich are clear winners in this budget, low- and moderate-income people just as clearly take huge losses.  Medicaid alone would be cut by $1.4 trillion over ten years.  Major structural changes would be made to Medicaid and SNAP to restrict federal spending in these programs.  Instead of open-ended funding to respond to changes in need, both Medicaid and SNAP would be changed to block grants.  Medicaid would be cut 20 percent and states would receive a share of low-income medical costs that would shrink more and more over time.  The expansions in Medicaid provided in the new health care law would be repealed.  Protections that currently prevent states from reducing certain core benefits or reducing eligibility would be eliminated, allowing states to manage the loss of federal funds by serving fewer low-income people and/or serving them less well.  Further reductions in payments to health care providers would also be likely.  Changing SNAP to a block grant would prevent it from responding to the increased need that occurs during recessions.  SNAP was successful in assisting millions of people driven to food insecurity because of the Great Recession; the billions of dollars pumped into the economy through SNAP was seen by economists as doing more to spur the economy and prevent job loss than almost any other action taken. 

In addition, the Budget Resolution as passed by the House would cut housing assistance and make low-income renters pay more.  It would cut education by $17.7 billion in FY 2012, and by $250 billion over ten years.  Annual appropriations for Pell Grants would be cut by 60 percent; the mandatory funding (provided by law and not subject to annual appropriations) would be eliminated. 

In all, the budget projects a $1.6 trillion cut in annual appropriations for programs other than defense, homeland security, and veterans over the next decade.  But to see the true vision of this budget, one should follow projections through 2050, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.  At that time, federal spending would shrink to less than 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the lowest level since 1951, when Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps did not exist.  By 2050, all programs besides Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt would shrink to only 3.5 percent of GDP.  Since defense is assumed to continue at close to its current level of 3 percent of GDP, the House budget would essentially do away with most other programs.  This decimation of services would take place because of a cap on all spending, starting with a cap on annual appropriations (aka discretionary spending) in FY 2012, with a binding cap on all spending as a percentage of GDP envisioned for future years.  If spending exceeded the cap, there would be across-the-board cuts (these automatic cuts are called “sequestration”).

Medicare would also be cut substantially, although most of the cost-cutting would not show up until 2022 and beyond.  Growth in Medicare would be limited to increases in inflation, even though health care costs routinely grow 2 percentage points beyond regular inflation.  Instead of paying the costs of the Medicare benefits package (less the patient’s current share), Medicare would pay towards health insurance policies for retirees.  The budget does not call for initiatives that would actually reduce the cost of health care, and by repealing the health care law in fact does away with such policies.  Instead, the plan simply limits federal payments, shifting the burden to Medicare beneficiaries.  According to the CBO, in 2022, a typical 65-year-old would see his/her payments for medical care more than double, to $12,500, with the federal government paying $8,000 of the cost, for a total expenditure of $20,500.  If Medicare continued under its current policies, the total cost would be only $14,750 in 2022, with the federal government paying $8,600 and the Medicare beneficiary paying $6,150.  The large increase in total cost would occur because the budget replaces the current cost-effective Medicare direct payments with the more expensive use of private health insurance. 
Many other deficit reduction plans, including the one outlined by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson for the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, assume significant cuts in military spending (Bowles-Simpson envisioned cuts of $100 billion a year).  In contrast, the House Budget Resolution increases military spending by $215 billion over ten years.

The Budget Resolution was approved in the House along party lines, 235-193.  No Democrat voted for it; 4 Republicans opposed it (Rehberg-MT, Jones-NC, McKinley-WV, and Paul-TX).  Several alternative budget proposals were considered, including an even more draconian version put forth by the Republican Study Committee.  It failed 119-136, with 172 members voting “present.” The vote illustrated divisions among Republicans, with 119 voting for this proposal and 120 opposing it.  Democrats made up the 172 “present” vote, hoping that the most right-wing members would overturn Republican party leadership to adopt a plan even more out of the mainstream.  The alternative put out by Ranking Budget Committee Member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was defeated 166-259, with no Republicans in favor and 23 Democrats opposing.  The Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus each put out alternative budgets as well, which failed 103-303 and 77-347 respectively.  The Democratic alternatives actually produced more deficit reduction than the version that passed the House, without massive restrictions in domestic programs, because they included revenue increases.

What’s Next. 

The House-passed Budget Resolution will not be agreed to by the Senate.  It is worth taking a step back to recall what a Budget Resolution is – and isn’t.  It is not a law that requires a presidential signature.  It is an outline that spells out assumptions about how much will be collected in revenues and the sources of those funds and how much will be spent, with broad policy suggestions that may or may not be adopted by the committees with jurisdiction over various programs.  It can put more teeth into recommendations if Congress chooses to require committees to produce specific cuts, for example, although it cannot tell them exactly how to achieve those cuts.  It also contains a specific funding level for annual appropriations that is provided to the Appropriations Committees for dividing up among their subcommittees.  If the House and Senate agree on a joint Budget Resolution, the level set for appropriations is binding.  But if they never come to agreement (very likely this year), Congress has other ways of setting appropriations levels.  And the broad changes proposed, such as block grants and spending caps, will either be ignored or worked on through other vehicles. 

But the elements of the House Budget Resolution must be taken seriously, as Congress and the Administration grapple with deficit reduction.  In particular, the proposal to cap all spending has adherents in the Senate as well as the House.  A spending cap proposed by Senators Corker (R-TN) and McCaskill (D-MO) would lead to much the same result as the House Budget Resolution.  Their proposal assumes all deficit reduction will be accomplished through spending cuts, not a combination of spending reductions and revenue increases.  In order to achieve the drastically lower spending required by their cap (20.6 percent of GDP), the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that Congress would have little alternative but to restrict Medicaid through a block grant and to make major federal cuts in Medicare and Social Security as well.  (See Proposed Cap on Federal Spending Would Force Deep Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.)  Some members of Congress have indicated they will hold the nation hostage over the need to increase the debt ceiling by withholding their approval unless such caps or other ways of shrinking federal spending are attached.

The President’s Plan.

Two days before the House budget vote, President Obama released a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years.  Approximately $2 trillion would come from spending cuts, including $770 billion by 2023 in discretionary spending other than defense, homeland security, and veterans services; $400 billion in defense/homeland security; $480 billion in health care savings beyond the amount projected through the health care law; and $360 billion in cuts to other mandatory programs (such as agricultural subsidies and pension reforms).  Another $1 trillion would come from reductions in interest payments as deficit spending declined.  Finally, $1 trillion would be raised in new revenues (over and above the savings from allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers to expire).  The President explicitly rejected the restrictions to Medicaid and Medicare in the House budget, as well as opposing the cuts in SNAP and many other programs serving the poor.  However, low- and moderate-income people would not be immune to harm in the President’s plan.  His cap on annual appropriations, while not as onerous as the House proposal, would force cuts in services needed by low-income people, as his FY 2012 budget released in February illustrated.  That plan included severe cuts in community-based services and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), for example. 

The President’s deficit reduction plan includes a “failsafe debt trigger” that would impose across-the-board cuts if debt does not fall sufficiently by 2014.  The auto-cuts, in a notable departure from the House budget, would cover spending programs and tax expenditures, and would exclude low-income programs. 

The President also called for negotiations to start in May with Congressional leaders to hammer out such a plan.  Advocates have expressed concerns that, although the President’s outline is far more protective of low-income people and is less likely to push the economy back into recession, that negotiations will end up with far less in revenue increases and far more in harmfully restrictive caps, especially since the President’s proposal seems more like a description of what the end product of a negotiation should be, rather than an opening position. 

Since poll after poll shows that the public is receptive to budget-cutting when dollar cuts are described, but opposed when the impact on specific services is spelled out, advocates will have to ramp up efforts to translate concepts such as caps and block grants into the expected outcomes for people.

(For more information about these budget proposals from many organizations, see the Coalition on Human Needs’ budget webpage.)

What the Budget ought to look like

I complain a lot about the budget and the cuts for seniors and the poor.  Well here is a budget we should all subscribe to if we truly dwell in the Kingdom of God.

Progressive Caucus People's Budget FY12 Memorandum

Eliminates National Deficit by 2021

Read the People's Budget

Read The Technical Analysis and Working Paper

Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raúl M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison sent a memo to House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen April 6 outlining the Caucus' top budget priorities. The letter and attached budget information are available at this link. An op-ed by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University endorsing the People's Budget is available at this link (off-site).
The CPC proposal:
• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)
What the proposal accomplishes:
• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.1% by 2021, down 16.5 percentage points from
a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21, relative to this adjusted baseline.
• Outlays equal to 22.2% of GDP and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021.

                                                                                Overview of The Policies

                                                                                Individual Income Tax Policies

• Allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, but extend marriage relief, credits, and

    incentives for children, families, and education

• Immediately rescind the upper-income tax cuts in December’s tax deal

• Index the AMT for inflation for a decade (the AMT patch is fully paid for)

• Schakowsky millionaire tax rates proposal (adding 45%, 46%, 47%, 48%, and 49% top rates)

• Tax all capital gains and qualified dividends as ordinary income

• Progressive estate tax (Sanders’ estate tax, repeal of Kyl-Lincoln)

• Limit the rate at which itemized deductions can reduce tax liability to 28%for high earners

• Replace the tax exclusion for interest on state and local bonds with a subsidy for the issuer

                                                                                Corporate Tax Reform

• Tax U.S. corporate foreign income as it is earned

• Eliminate corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies

• Enact a financial crisis responsibility fee

• Financial speculation tax (derivatives, foreign exchange)

• Reinstate Superfund taxes

                                                                                Health Care

• Enact a public option

• Negotiate Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies

• CMS program integrity and other Medicare and Medicaid savings in the president’s budget

• Prevent a cut in Medicare physician payments for a decade (maintain doc fix)

    Social Security

• Raise the taxable maximum on the employee side to 90% of earnings and eliminate the taxable

    maximum on the employer side

• Increase benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side

                                                                                Defense Savings

• End overseas contingency operations emergency supplementals starting in Fiscal Year 2013,

    providing $170 billion in FY2012 to fund redeployment, while saving more than $1.8 trillion

    from current law spending levels over ten years. 

• Reduce baseline defense spending by reducing strategic capabilities, conventional forces,

   procurement, and R&D programs

                                                                Comprehensive Jobs Program

• Invest $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy and broadband infrastructure,

   housing, and R&D

• Infrastructure bank

• Surface transportation reauthorization bill ($213 billion)5

                                The People’s Budget Eliminates the Deficit Achieves Budget Surplus by 2

Now why in the world would you not support this unless you were a millionaire or a greedy corporation?