One hundred percent of NFL players suffer injuries while playing football. It’s understandable when you consider, for example, receiver and defender covering 40 yards in less than 4 ½ seconds, colliding with each other, and coming to a sudden stop within one or two tenths of a second. Sally Jenkins, Washington Post Sportswriter, paints the above scenario and compares it to running full speed into a wall mirror. The short-term results can be torn ligaments and tendons, even broken bones, not to mention cuts and bruises. Long-term a player is looking at arthritis, joint pain, and reduced mobility.

Particularly serious is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, caused by repeated blows to the head. Ninety-nine percent (in one study) of NFL players examined for CTE showed signs of this degenerative brain disease, which can cause memory loss, depression, and aggressive behavior. Suicide is not uncommon, taking the lives of celebrated players like Aaron Hernandez and Junior Seau. And, of course, there is Damar Hamlin’s recent cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game. A normal, unremarkable tackle stopped Hamlin’s heart.  
         
So, there’s no doubt that professional football is violent and dangerous, but it’s also wildly popular and profitable. With our testimony of non-violence, can Friends conscientiously approve of football, or should we work toward its replacement by less problematic sports? Realizing full well that many Friends will disagree with me, I’d argue that Quakers can be NFL fans. How is this possible?
         
My argument relies on the element of skill in football. While violence does occur during a game, that violence is incidental, i.e., not the purpose of the game. Football’s purpose is to demonstrate athletic and mental skills. The athletic skill could be the ability of a defensive lineman to “shed” the block of his offensive counterpart. It could be a receiver’s ability to suddenly change his pass route while running near full speed. It could be the quarterback’s ability to accurately throw a long pass or quick-release a shorter throw.
         
And there is the mental dimension. As the quarterback stands behind the line of scrimmage, he must survey the position of the opposing players and decide whether the called play will work or whether he should change the play with an “audible.” Cornerbacks must decide which receivers they will “cover.” Linemen may have to decide who they’ll block or what technique they’ll use. So, in my opinion, football is a skills-oriented sport that satisfies a basic human need: to demonstrate prowess under the stress of athletic competition.
         
Boxing is quite another matter. Certainly, it requires skill, but the purpose of boxing is to physically hurt or injure an opponent. Violence is not incidental in boxing. The goal is to physically disable your opponent, perhaps through cuts and bruises to the face and body, preferably through a concussion that renders your opponent semi- or completely unconscious. Serious injuries are common in the ring; deaths do occur from time to time. It’s difficult, then, to imagine a Friend disregarding the principle of non-violence and taking pleasure in boxing. On the other hand, I can see Philadelphia Quakers rooting for their Eagles or a Texas Friend hoping that this year will see the Cowboys win a Superbowl.  

~ Richard Russell

Dances With Wolves is a 1990 movie that won an academy award for “Best Picture.” It’s also the Sioux name of the movie’s main character, Lt. John Dunbar. Dunbar begins as the quintessential army lieutenant of the Civil War period, but—after being posted to a deserted South Dakota fort and coming in contact with the Lakota Sioux Indians—Dunbar is transformed by the experience. He adopts the Sioux culture, language, and a new identity as Dances With Wolves.

So, when captured and interrogated by a U.S. Army detachment, Dunbar suddenly stops speaking in English and addresses his tormentors in the Lakota language, startling and discomfiting them. In Lakota, he says, “My name is Dances with Wolves. I have nothing to say to you. You are not worth talking to.” Earlier, he mused to himself, “I had never really known who John Dunbar was. Perhaps because the name itself had no meaning. But as I heard my Sioux name being called over and over, I knew for the first time who I really was.” At the end of the movie, Chief Ten Bears says to Dunbar, “The white man the soldiers are looking for no longer exists. Now there is only a Sioux named Dances With Wolves.”

Well, I can admire Dunbar’s transformation from one identity to another.  I have two identities in my psyche: one is that of a secular rationalist, the other is that of an antique Friend like Isaac Penington. While there are advantages to having two identities, the phenomenon creates an unpleasant tension and cognitive dissonance. I wish I could destroy the secular rationalist and transform completely into a 17th Century Quaker.    

Of course, that’s impossible. Perhaps it’s God’s will that I “dance” between faith and reason, between certainty and doubt. Perhaps I must live with ambiguity and paradox. Or maybe I’m just not as lucky as John Dunbar.

~ Richard Russell

It certainly seems so. They greet us with wagging tails. They lick our face and hands or wherever our flesh is exposed. And unlike wolves that avert their gaze, dogs make eye contact with us. They look at us steadily, seemingly with love.
         
But is there scientific research proving that dogs love us? Well, if not proof, compelling evidence that this is the case? The relevant experiments subjected dogs to an fMRI, which can image the flow of blood and oxygen to active parts of the brain. Of course, the dogs had to first be trained to lie still in the MRI machine. Then, because dogs have such a remarkable sense of smell, the canines were presented with five scents: that of their owner, a stranger, a dog from the same house, an unfamiliar dog, and their own scent. The researchers were focused on fMRI images of activity in the caudate nucleus, the brain’s reward center. They expected the strongest responses to occur when the canine subject smelled the scent of other dogs. Instead, the caudate nucleus “lit up” most when the scent was that of their owner. In other words, the dogs felt the most pleasure when smelling the scent of their owner. They liked their human more than other dogs!

Of course, it’s possible that the pooches associated their owners with food and treats, which would then be the “hidden” stimulus of the caudate. To test that hypothesis, the researchers—in another experiment—sometimes offered the canines hot dogs and sometimes praised them. They then compared the activation of the caudate nucleus when these different rewards were used. The vast majority of dogs reacted equally to hot dogs and praise. In other words, human praise—and presumably, the humans themselves—were at least as attractive to dogs as food. Moreover, 20% of the dogs reacted more strongly to praise. It’s not far-fetched to conclude that dogs love us at least as much as food. (The experiments described were done by Dr. Gregory Berns and are detailed in his book, How Dogs Love Us.)   

I’ll conclude with a poem from Dog Songs by Mary Oliver. Percy is, of course, her dog.

The Sweetness of Dogs
What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. It’s full tonight.
So we go
 
and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself
 
thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up into
my face. As though I were just as wonderful
as the perfect moon.
 
~ Richard Russell

Unforgiven won Best Picture at the 1992 Academy Awards and is tied for first place on my personal list of favorite films. The movie opens with unsettling violence as a cowboy slashes a prostitute’s face with his pocketknife. In the aftermath, all the girls of the establishment pool their money to hire a gunman to kill the cowboy who has defaced their friend

When English Bob arrives with the intention of assassinating the cowboy, Sheriff Little Bill Daggett disarms Bob and—in a sickening display of sadism and violence—kicks him until he’s bloodied and senseless. Little Bill is a psychopath who hides his sadism under the cover of “law and order;” and at this point in the movie, none of the characters have presented us with a violence that can be morally justified. 

Enter William Munny, “a known thief and murderer,” who has spent the last decade trying to live an honest life. His wife has died, his hog farm is failing, and Munny—out of desperation—decides to take the prostitutes’ offer. He and his partners, Ned and the Schofield Kid, ride to Big Whiskey, where Munny runs afoul of a town ordinance forbidding firearms within the city limits. Little Bill doesn’t arrest Will Munny. Instead, he beats him mercilessly, after which Will can barely crawl into the street and saddle up. In fact, for several days he hovers between life and death. 

Most movie goers sympathize with Munny. Although he himself has psychopathic tendencies, Will also has flashes of guilt and compassion. He frequently says of his gunslinger past, “I ain’t like that anymore.” Nevertheless, Will Munny kills one cowboy himself and helps the Schofield Kid assassinate another as the victim sits in an outhouse. There is no way to morally justify these killings.  

When Little Bill captures Ned and tortures him to death, Will decides to avenge his friend. Of course, revenge—whether for the disfigured prostitute or for Ned—can never be moral. Still, we’re rooting for Munny as he rides into town and enters the saloon outside of which Ned’s body is on display. Without warning, he kills the owner of the bar with his shotgun; but, as Will aims at Little Bill, the shotgun misfires. Now Bill and his deputies have a chance to shoot. But, with a lightning-fast draw of his six-shooter, William Munny cuts down five men, including Little Bill. A wounded Bill complains, “I don’t deserve this.” Will replies, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” A close-range rifle blast ends the conversation.

As I read critical reviews of Unforgiven, William Munny is frequently given the role of the hero. He’s the “good guy” in spite of being morally flawed. Well, Munny is not just morally flawed. He’s evil—as evil as Little Bill. They both have justifications for their violence, but—except in self-defense—violence is evil. To make that point, key scenes of the movie are backlit, producing a darkness in those scenes—the darkness of evil.  

William Munny’s rapid-fire killing of five people reminds me of a modern AR-15’s firing capability and its use in so many mass shootings. If we in the U.S.  do not ban AR-15’s and similar semi-automatic weapons, we will find ourselves among the “unforgiven.” 

~ Richard Russell 
 

Paz en el alma perdonada,
Esperanza motivando el corazón, 
Gratitud profunda enseñada por hechos,
Ejemplar que duplica el divino patron. 
 
A creative translation of the above poem may be found below. Although the initial poetic framework was done by the Bing ChatBot, Richard Russell has completely reworked the poem so that it is his.

A Social Activist
Soul peace and pardon,
Heart hope beating along,
Deep gratitude shown in deeds,
Human copy of God’s master key.
 
~ Richard Russell  

“He said he had just awakened from a peculiar dream which had haunted him at intervals through several preceding years. He had been in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the same, moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore. He was always silent, and no one ever spoke to him; but he was conscious of a vague and awful fate impending over him. He had this dream just before every great and important event of the war; for instance, before the firing on Sumter; the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc.”
 
According to Noah Brooks, a journalist and friend of Lincoln, these were the President’s words to his cabinet on April 14, 1865—the same day he was assassinated. Dreams are often symbolic, and this recurring dream of Lincoln’s is rich in symbolism. The ship must be the American Ship of State. The shore must be the destination, the goal of the United States. For Lincoln, that goal was the preservation of the Union—an objective which he wished to attain “with great rapidity.” However, as he strove for this end, “no one ever spoke to him”—a phrase which reflects the solitude of a President making the decisions that would preserve or destroy the American Union.    

It occurs to me that Lincoln’s dream can be applied to the present day. In 2023 our Ship of State is headed toward an “indefinite shore”—either a renewal of our democracy or the destruction of that democracy by a right-wing, sometimes violent faction. No one can speak for those of us who embrace democracy and the principle of toleration. Of course, “In God we trust,” but we also know that “God helps those who help themselves.” Only if we struggle mightily can we tame the forces of polarization that have plunged us into a political civil war. Only if we work diligently will our nation attain to what Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom.”  

~ Richard Russell  
 

Grocery baggers are a common sight in many supermarkets in Mexico, especially in big cities like Mexico City. They are usually elderly people who volunteer to pack customers’ purchases in exchange for tips. For many of them, this is their only source of income and a way to stay active and social. However, the coronavirus pandemic and changing consumer habits have threatened to put an end to this decades-old practice. According to Rest of World, elderly grocery baggers in Mexico are being replaced by self-checkout and home delivery services; those who stay are making half as much money as they used to.

Self-checkout machines allow customers to scan and pay for their items without interacting with a cashier or a bagger, and the impact on the elderly baggers is significant. Volunteer packers at stores like Walmart say they’re receiving 50% fewer tips than before the pandemic. Some of them have been laid off or have quit due to the lack of customers who need bagging.
               
Raúl Franco Hernández, 80, has been working for six years as a volunteer grocery packer at a Walmart Express supermarket in Mexico City. Every day, over a four-hour shift, he bags groceries for tips, working alongside the cashier—usually a young clerk who scans the groceries and slides them to Raúl…to pack while the customer pays. He told Rest of World that before the pandemic, he and about 20 other packers at the store earned up to 450 Mexican pesos (about $25) a day. But when the store fully reopened in late 2021, three self-check-out…(machines)…had been installed in place of two human cashier stations. It now has only eight grocery packers, and Franco Hernández said his daily income has dropped to about 200—250 pesos (between $11 and $14).
 
The situation has sparked protests and petitions from the baggers and their supporters, who demand that supermarkets respect their rights and dignity. They argue that they provide a valuable service to customers and society, and that they deserve fair compensation and recognition. In some places in Mexico, teenagers are baggers, but in others the elderly were given spots under a program arranged many years ago with the government’s National Institute for the Elderly. Walmart said it had notified the Institute in December that the arrangement would not be renewed.

So, the future of grocery bagging in Mexico is uncertain, as technology and consumer preferences continue to evolve. Some supermarkets may keep the tradition alive, while others may opt for more automation and convenience. The elderly baggers may have to adapt to new realities or find alternative sources of income and socialization. Or stay at home and eat less.

~ text written by Bing ChatBot and edited by Richard Russell

1The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19, NIV)

Sixty years ago, my friend Jack Burns and I went stargazing with my 6-inch Newtonian reflector telescope. On a crisp, cold night we saw Saturn’s rings, Jupiter and its moons, the reddish disc of Mars, and the white spheres of Venus and Mercury. We were elated by these celestial sights and the warmth of our friendship. In retrospect, I think we experienced the presence of God.

Well, I recently purchased an inexpensive 70 mm refractor which will reveal very similar images. Of course, the sky above Sherman is polluted by the light of the numerous towns in the area, but—by driving 75 miles north into rural Oklahoma—I should have a dark enough sky for stargazing that’s comparable or better than what Jack and I had in the 1970’s. And, sometime in the future, I MIGHT buy an expensive, large aperture scope and drive to Big Bend National Park, camp out, and set up the telescope for some serious viewing under the absolutely dark sky of this remote, desert area. Of course, the telescope couldn’t be so big that it wouldn’t fit in my wife’s SUV! Moreover, our retirement income may not be sufficient for such an expenditure.

Actually, it’s not necessary to have a large telescope to see God if you’re in Big Bend. Even with the naked eye, these dark skies are a stunning panorama of constellations, planets, and the Milky Way. Of course, those who are not religious see this celestial spectacle as the result of the laws of physics and chemistry, not the creation of God. Nevertheless, both theists and non-theists are almost always united by a sense of awe at this cosmic mystery in which we live.

~ Richard Russell        

In this country, don’t accidentally drive into a stranger’s driveway. Don’t walk up to the front door of a stranger’s house. Don’t absentmindedly open someone else’s car door. You might get shot. You might be wounded or killed as in recent “one-off” shootings.  And then there are the mass gun murders at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, the Aurora movie theater, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the El Paso Walmart, Parkland, Las Vegas, Binghamton, San Bernardino, Sutherland Springs, Thousand Oaks, Virginia Beach, Monterey Park, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Uvalde, the Covenant School in Nashville, and Louisville.   

I usually attribute all this violence simply to the easy availability of guns in the United States. In fact, we have more guns than people in this country. However, after reading the first few pages of The Heart of Man by Erich Fromm, I agree with Fromm’s contention that American culture is a “culture of death,” in which human beings are regularly reduced to the status of things that may be readily disposed of with an AR-15.  

From argues,
…the bureaucratic-industrial civilization…(in) America has created a new type of man; he can be described as the organization man, as the automaton man, and as homo consumens. He is, in addition, homo mechanicus; by this I mean a gadget man, deeply attracted by all that is mechanical (like guns?), and inclined against that which is alive…. he becomes indifferent to life, fascinated by the mechanical, and eventually attracted by death and total destruction. Consider the role that killing plays in our amusements. The movies, the comic strips, the newspapers, (TV news networks), are full of excitement because they are full of reports of destruction, sadism, brutality. Millions of people live humdrum but comfortable existences—and nothing excites them more than to see or read of killings, whether it is murder or a fatal accident in an automobile race (or a deadly mass shooting?).
 
Fromm was writing in the 1960s. So, I have updated the quote above with my comments in parentheses. There is nothing parenthetical, however, about the gun killings which plague today’s society in the U.S. When I read of or hear about another mass murder, I want to scream, “Stop it! Stop it now!” But the mass shootings don’t stop and will no doubt continue for many years to come.

 ~ Richard Russell
 

It’s time to see how spiritual the Bing ChatBot can be. I told it, “Write an
original prayer that includes the sentences, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”
This was the result:

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
You are the source of all truth and grace,
The giver of every good and perfect gift.
Forgive me for doubting your promises and power,
For letting fear and worry cloud my vision of you.
 
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
You are the healer of all wounds and sickness,
The restorer of every broken and lost soul.
Forgive me for seeking other remedies and comforts,
For ignoring your presence and your peace.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
You are the king of all glory and majesty,
The ruler of every nation and authority.
Forgive me for following other lords and idols,
For compromising your will and your ways.
 
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
You are the savior of all sinners and rebels,
The redeemer of every cross and grave.
Forgive me for trusting in my own works and merits,
For neglecting your grace and your love.
 
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
Increase my faith and strengthen my hope,
Fill me with your Spirit and your joy.
Amen.
 
Well, the ChatBot prayer is quite good. I can imagine a Catholic priest, hard-pressed for time, requesting a ChatBot prayer on his smartphone and immediately using it in some situation where he was supposed to offer a public prayer. But is the ChatBot prayer really prayer?

While prayer may be expressed in words, words are not the essence of prayer. Prayer, in its deepest form, is simply drawing close to God and feeling God’s presence. Clearly the ChatBot cannot do this. Artificial Intelligence is incapable of praying “with groans that cannot be expressed in words.” (Romans 8:26) Prayer requires a real person and a real God, together in real time.

~ Richard Russell