I got a note today from my friend Carolyn who said,  in response to Obama’s Afghanistan speech: ” I am so conflicted about what US foreign/war policy should be?   By comparison health insurance is easy and clear! ”

I’ve been thinking about Obama’s speech for the last few days. It’s taken me a few days to sort out some of my perspective on it – and it’s a perspective that keeps shifting.

For context, I root myself in the tradition of Catholic pacifism. I’m opposed to war and violence. Whenever we pick up the stick, it represents moral failure and a loss of human dignity. Now, that’s all nice and good except when people do really bad things. Then what? So I also have tried to develop a “pragmatic pacifism” (along the lines of the Justpeacemaking Theory) that is complex enough to address the real world.

From my point of view, Obama’s extension of the military model in Afghanistan is a mistake. An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

I understand Carolyn’s “conflictedness” over our Afghanistan foreign policy. On the one hand Obama’s speech was SO MUCH BETTER than anything we ever heard from President Bush that it’s hard to not just be relieved.

Obama says things that are important. He puts them in historical context. He addresses various sides of the argument. He addressed this speech to the one’s who are going to have to carry out the mission and suffer the consequences (cadets at West Point). He was very intentional about repositioning of the U.S. vis a vis global alliances. He moved away from the U.S. vs al Qaida into al Qaida vs the world. All of this stuff is good.

BUT, Obama has inherited an imperial regime and he can’t “un”-imperialize it over night. Also, I’m not totally convinced that anyone who runs for U.S. president wants to un-imperialize us. So Obama’s foreign policy decision is what I’d call “imperialism-lite” — increased troops along with increased aid/diplomacy in a regional approach with a withdrawal timeline. It’s hard to get excited about this approach either pro or con.

I think what’s important to remember is that none of this effectively disrupts members of al Qaida. That’s done effectively through Interpol, the FBI, the UN subcommittee on Al Qaida and the Taliban (and the U.S. still hasn’t paid our UN dues) and other tools aimed at disrupting international criminal networks.

Nothing disrupts the idea of al Qaida except an intensive new narrative and long-term relationships at the local level, like they are doing effectively in the southern Phillipines with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

So that’s my initial response. I’d be interested in hearing from others.

Mercedes Sayagues over at Gender Masala posted a nice reflection for World AIDS Day. Mercedes is a Uruguayan journalist and editor with life-long membership in the global women’s movement. She lives in South Africa.

Prayer for Today: May the tree of life shed its leaves on us for the healing of the peoples (Revelation 22:2).

Mercedes Sayagues writes:

Marie Mendene (right in photo above)  is an extraordinary activist from Cameroon and one of the first African women to say publicly that she lives with HIV, in the 1990s, when AIDS was a disease of shame and blame.

This is one of my favourite photos about AIDS in Africa. I took it at Sunshine, her NGO in Douala, in 2003, before antiretroviral treatment became widely available. Only a few Cameroonians in cities could get the life-saving pills.

The day I took the photo, Marie had queued for seven hours and  received only half of her monthly ARV pills. She was understandably upset about the poor logistics and delivery of medicines. AIDS magnified all the inadequacies of health systems.

That was then. Today, nearly three million people in Africa are on ARV treatment. This seemed like a dream then, but activists were campaigning hard to make it come true.

Marie had a clear vision of activism. “We should go beyond the begging bowl and the appeal to compassion, beyond the stage of being used to do prevention and awareness, and become part of real-decision making around AIDS,” she told me. Marie is to the right in the picture, with a fellow activist.–Mercedes Sayagues

The Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns has some nice Advent reflections written by their missioners around the world.

Here’s an excerpt written by Sr. Janet Hockman who currently serves in Kathmandu, Nepal.

As Advent begins, Jeremiah sets a stance for us – SEE! BEHOLD! Look and be attentive … It takes time, it means intent. Who of us also remembers to notice what is missing, what is absent as well as what is before us? Noticing something missing is an awareness of things known, things dreamed of, or hoped for, or promised.

Jeremiah names for us things so longed for: fulfilled promises, honesty, integrity, being saved, and dwelling in confidence. These things are of God. They are not new; they have been God-promised and hoped for throughout all of history.

For Nepal, as a country, they were expected from de-throned royalty, awaited in a new Prime Minister, and intended to be written into a first constitution. The absences leave the state of insecurity and continued wondering about the possibility of peace.

Read the whole post at 11-29-09-1st-Sunday-Advent.

“A friend recently gave me a textile wall-hanging from Peru that makes clear that the process of finding God in the small things of life is as profound as it is simple. A pastoral scene of palm trees and rural lean-tos has been hand-stitched by peasant women, quilt-style, across the top of a felt banner. Under it is a calendar of thirty small pockets, each of them filled with something we can’t see. Every day until Christmas, we are invited to find the part of the scene that has been pocketed for that day and attach it to the scene above, one piece of hand woven cloth adhering to the other as we go.

Some of the pieces are of benign and beautiful things; some are not. There are bumblebees and angels, wild animals and dry straw, a branch-laden peasant man and a weary-looking woman. But there at the end of the days, as common as all the rest of the items in the scene, is the manger, the sign of the One who knows what life is like for us, who has mixed His own with ours. Now, we can see, all our expectations have been worth it.

Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of sanctification for us. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifting, is sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go. We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well-lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life.

Advent relieves us of our commitment to the frenetic in a fast-paced world. It slows us down. It makes us think. It makes us look beyond today to the “great tomorrow” of life. Without Advent, moved only by the race to nowhere that exhausts the world around us, we could be so frantic with trying to consume and control this life that we fail to develop within ourselves a taste for the spirit that does not die and will not slip through our fingers like melted snow.

It is while waiting for the coming of the reign of God, Advent after Advent, that we come to realize that its coming depends on us. What we do will either hasten or slow, sharpen or dim our own commitment to do our part to bring it.

Waiting — that cold, dry period of life when nothing seems to be enough and something else beckons within us — is the grace that Advent comes to bring. It stands before us, within us, pointing to the star for which the wise ones from the East are only icons of ourselves.

We all want something more. Advent asks the question, what is it for which you are spending your life? What is the star you are following now? And where is that star in its present radiance in your life leading you? Is it a place that is really comprehensive enough to equal the breadth of the human soul?”

by Joan Chittister, OSB

From The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister (Thomas Nelson)

During Advent, I’ll be posting some short Advent reflections, with the idea of sharing together our Advent journey.

If you want to get them sent directly to your e-mail box, then add your e-mail address to the “Follow Me” box or set up an RSS feed.

Gather your evergreens. Go buy (or make) purple and pink candles. Get wire to make your wreath and a few simple purple and pink ribbons to weave together the greens. Clear a space on the kitchen table or anyplace where your household gathers. Write down a short Bible passage on an index card  – something from the Prophet Isaiah would be great – and keep it near the wreath.

Now that we’ve cleared a space for prayer and quiet celebration at home, we can begin clearing the same kind of space in our heart. It’s time to get ready!