The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

What a wonderful view of the faith outreach in the Obama campaign! I was worried that it was only a Christian outreach – most of the press focussed there. But this makes me so happy to see – and I would love to be a part of any movements to talk about spirituality in the public square.

QT
More on Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

“…On the appearance of fearful natural events call ye to mind the might and majesty of your Lord, He Who hearth and seeth all, and say “Dominion is god’s, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation.”"

–Baha’u'llah, Kitab-i-Aqdas

There is a tornado happening about 20 miles out of Denver, CO – moving away from the city. My prayers are for the safety of the convention attendees, and the people of the town of Parker, where this tornado is happening.

There are some who are praying for torrential rains to wash out Obama’s speech. I’m praying for God’s will to be done – and for the safety of all.

As a side note – my father is dying – he is currently in a coma, and it will fall to me to decide when to disconnect him from life support. I am at a loss to understand how anyone who has experienced any kind of loss could be praying for someone else to do so.

QT

Religious intolerance is one of the nasty subcurrents that is playing itself out in the 2008 election cycle. All this “Obama is Muslim” garbage, besides being fundamentally untrue, makes it seem as though there’s something WRONG with being Muslim – and fosters a climate whereby the general populace takes for granted the possibility that there is, after all, something wrong with Islam.

This notion that “the Muslims” want the US to bow down or be killed is offensive in the extreme – but it at least it is blatantly offensive – and out in the open. Maybe we can have this dialogue too?
More on John McCain
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Here in the United States, the nation is embroiled in the political season as we gear up for presidential elections on the first Tuesday in November 2008.  We’re winding down on the primary season, and will immediately pivot into the general election campaign thereafter.  It is likely that Barack Obama will be one of the candidates for president.  As a result of the primary campaign, a number of disturbing trends have come to light – these include racism, sexism, religious intolerance, anti-intellectualism, classism, and a complete lack of unity.   The Obama Project is an effort to address this in the spirit of what WindonWater.net is all about… namely producing small ripples to push against the current…

What:  The Obama Project will be a series of posts focussed on presenting factual information about candidate Barack Obama that negates misinformation about him – but with the specific goal of NOT promoting the candidate, but rather, promoting the eradication of racism, sexism, classism, religious intolerance, and anti-intellectualism.  Of course, I hope that focussing on these things will yield more unity in place of divisiveness.

How: The mission statement of WindonWater.net is “conversation for a better world, and a happy soul.”   The idea is that by changing the way we talk about stuff, we turn the tide on cynicism and negativity.  How necessary is THAT these days?

Why: Why Barack Obama?  Well, largely because his candidacy has called all of this stuff to the forefront of public discourse.  With this candidate, we have room to talk about racism, and religious intolerance.  We have room to talk about the meaning of love of country (patriotism).  We have room to talk about classism, and sexism.  And of course, the candidate has given a groundbreaking speech on race, that gives us a starting place.

As a Baha’i, I’ve been hesitant to start this effort.  Baha’is are not supposed to engage in partisan politics, but rather, are supposed to simply vote their consciences.  I’ve fallen short of that mark often this cycle, because of being so very partisanly in support of candidate Barack Obama.  Notwithstanding, I have concluded that this is something that I can do, and even should do, and I do believe it is doable without trending toward partisanship (at least I hope it is).

Anyway – as a woman and as an African-American, I’ve been sucked in to the process because the issues are very real to me.  And I do feel a personal need to have a direct response to these issues, and a need to do so in a way that avoids the persistent negativity that has dominated the blogosphere.  I hope others will join the conversation, and lend thoughts and ideas – especially out of the box, especially with a spiritual perspective, as we work through these tough issues.

My goal is to produce one post a week – that’s ambitious perhaps – that pushes against the wind.  Everyone is welcome to continue the conversation – and of course to start topics of interest throughout the thread.  The front page will be adjusted every week to promote the latest Obama Project post.

We’ll see how it goes!

Finally – since it really is more of a blogging project than a forum effort, I’m blogging here, instead of on my main forum site.  I’ll try to RSS to WindonWater.net, just the same.

QT