What Would Thoreau Say?

Today's NY Times made reference to a story in Politico about a company that sells books by the foot or yard.  This company will put together a nice library based on color of books, subject, size etc. and ship it to you lock, stock and barrel. Originally a company built around providing walls of books for show houses or hotel lobbies, the company has exploded some 40% since the pandemic started.  Why? Because people want good backgrounds - wait for it - for their zoom calls. Yea.  Zoom calls.   We've all seen the backgrounds of the talking heads on tv.  Usually they have libraries behind them.  If they've written a book, there might be multiple copies visible; at least one of them stands upright with the cover facing the camera.  I thought those were real libraries.  Turns out they might be rent-a-libraries according to this company. Really. People are buying whole libraries just to look good on zoom. 2020, we love ya... The story got me think...

In our last post we wrote about the dog biscuits and water we leave out for our four legged friends walking through downtown.  Not only did I receive more comment on that post than any other, but many shared it with others.  It was the highest readership ever for What Would Thoreau Say? This morning, now that Bapu has returned (more below) I began to think about the relationship between animals and their owners.  Why did the story about Camo and Riley get such a reaction?  Why did people tell me of their pets or that perhaps they would now leave treats for dogs near their home?  What is it that binds us so to our pets? I think it's the unconditional love and loyalty that we get from them. In the church I served until recently as Lay Pastor, (you can find the post How the Hell Did I Become Pastor? if you scroll down on this blog) I used to say sometimes before services that in this church we celebrated the "unlimited welcome, unwavering hope and unconditional lov...

So, yesterday I sat down and wrote 1000 words about environmental action for a post I was going to put up to follow the last one.  It was inspired writing!  Pulitzer prize kinda' writing!  Man, it was good.  We were all going to read it and run out and join Sierra Club and buy a new electric car.  That's how good it was. Then Riley and Camo left a gift at the front door and all of that seemed irrelevant. We live in the historic district of Leesburg, Virginia and we leave dog biscuits and water out for our four legged friends who come by as part of their daily walk with their owners.  Every morning, whoever gets up first, heads out to change the water and make sure there are enough small and large Milk Bones in the box in front of the house to take care of our guests.  (And it's only Milk Bones.  We've tried the designer kinds, the ones you get at the Farmer's Market, and we could swear we have seen dogs turn up their noses at them.  It's like...

  Restoration Four years ago, in What Would Thoreau Say? I wrote ‘what do we do now?’ after the world was turned upside down by our presidential election. I predicted four years of hell.   I was right. Now things are different.   I really believe the restoration of America is possible.   But only if we also restore truth as truth, something that has been impossible these last four years.   Of all the terrible things that have happened since 2016, nothing, in my opinion,  nothing, compares to what has happened to the rule of truth. I refuse to give up however.   I believe truth can be restored, we can be better, and we can make a commitment to take care of each other. Joanna Macy, one of the world’s great ecologists and Buddhist scholar writes of ‘the Great Turning.’   She believes that we don’t have to stay stuck as we are and that with intentional action, we can turn things.   Her analysis is much more detailed than I want to offe...

As strange as it seems, I just finished a three-year stint as ‘interim pastor’ for an Episcopal Church.  As a layperson, that shouldn’t have been allowed, and nobody was more surprised than me when the Bishop approved the experiment.   The church, being in between priests, had been somewhat lay-led for years anyway since they had a series of very poor priests who provided little in the way of spiritual direction or strategy for a small, aging church to survive let alone thrive.  I had been a member and occasional worship leader there until one of those priests drove me away several years ago with his 16th century theology.  When he finally left, the church asked me if I would take his place. I remember saying to the church leaders, 'I couldn’t be less qualified for this job. But that never stopped me before.' Without going into great detail, after three years we increased membership dramatically, stabilized Sunday service attendance and when I left the churc...

THOREAUSAY.BLOGSPOT.COM HAS BEEN ON HIATUS FOR THREE YEARS (OR SO) WHILE I PASTORED A CHURCH ON AN INTERIM BASIS.  I DID NOT FEEL IT WAS RIGHT DURING THAT TIME TO EXPRESS MY OPINIONS DIRECTLY ON THIS BLOG. NOW THAT I AM NO LONGER LEADING THE CHURCH ' WHAT WOULD THOREAU SAY ?' IS BACK AND WILL BE UPDATED REGULARLY. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD IF YOU FEEL I HAVE SOMETHING WORTH 'LISTENING TO.' THANKS.

  Many of my friends have said the Trump view of the world ‘isn’t who we are as Americans.’   I beg to differ. This election has proven that this is who we are.   If not, he would have been soundly repudiated.   We seem to have become exactly what he stands for, speaks to and represents. But he didn’t invent it.   America First (besides being a semi-fascist slogan from the WWII era) wasn’t invented by Donald Trump.   It was invented by the way we, as a people, approach the world.   And in fact, it is the way the world approaches the world.   It is characterized by, what David Brooks calls, hyper-individualism.   Me, mine, more…to me this is ultra-individualism. We can blame Trump for four years of lies and division.   Only he is responsible for that.   But we can’t blame him for the fact that our culture and our economy only seem to succeed when we are divided and when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.   And, w...

  This election season has led me to ask the question:  "what would Doremus Jessup say?" My name is Doremus Jessup and I was born in 1935 to a mother named Sinclair Lewis.   Lewis, one of America’s great authors, spawned me in a novel entitled It Can’t Happen Here.    That book, which detailed the takeover of the American government by a dictator elected by the American people, offered a fictionalized account of what, of course, seemed impossible in the America of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson. In the book I was the small-town editor of a newspaper that offered somewhat cynical, yet factual reviews of the comings and goings of the days' fictional politicians.   Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip was the name of the eventual dictator who marshaled support from across the country - young kids to older adults - by scaring them and reminding them that only he had the answers to the problems plaguing America, principally caused at that time by bankers and th...