Blunder Bus

On my second full day (June 4) at the Grand Canyon I decided to do a bit of sightseeing. While I’ve tended to go there for the hiking, that has meant that it’s been easy for me to miss many of the other fascination things that go on there.

So I did some of their special programs, rode the buses, and caught some new views.

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Adventures at the Smithsonian

I thought I’d write up something I dealt with way back in 1999. My family and I made a visit to the Smithsonian. I thought I was well-prepared—I knew they didn’t have a rule against bare feet.

Have you ever been surrounded by seven angry security guards?

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Get it Right, People

I just came across an interesting book on religious tolerance. The book is Religion, Diversity and Conflict, edited by Edward Foley.

It documents a meeting of the International Academy of Practical Theology that occurred in 2007.

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Dismindfulness

I know it’s been a long time since I last wrote here. I’m afraid the Muses have left me. However, I do want to at least do a summary wrap-up post with some observations about the interaction between my last trip Out West and barefootedness.

If you read all the entries, you’ll know that there were times that I donned footwear (even though I had really, really hoped not to resort to it). Here are some observations and realizations I acquired through that experience.

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Non-RFRA RFRAs

I keep dwelling on Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) because I think that they could be an effective tool for barefooters to make barefooting more acceptable. If we can go into places where there are even rules against it, and nothing bad happens, then maybe we might change some minds.

But there are also states without RFRAs in which such religious claims can be made.

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John Wesley’s Barefoot Story

Here’s a story about John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church. It was told by one of his followers, Thomas Rutherford, in the 1808 edition of Methodist Magazine.

The event related occurred in 1736 or 1737, but was told to Ruthorford by Wesley in 1776, in Glasgow, Scotland.

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I recently saw a conversation in which a barefooter was chastised by family for being “disrespectful” to them. It was said that being barefoot was traditionally a disrespectful action. Others countered that bare feet have traditionally been considered respectful, and that it’s only fairly recently (and mainly in the U.S.) that many have considered bare feet disrespectful.

So, have bare feet traditionally been considered respectful?

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Franciscan Order

The Franciscans are well known as a religious order that goes barefoot. I thought I’d take a look at just what their vows say.

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I Am Chortling

While I was at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday, tiptoeing through getting a waiver for the day from their shoe rule, the Ohio General Assembly initiated an action that could unintentionally wipe it away.

So I am chortling.

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Touching the Earth

Here’s an excerpt from Land of the Spotted Eagle, by Chief Luther Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota. He lived from 1868 to 1939.

This reminds us of our closeness to the earth, and how bare feet are important to that.

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State RFRAs

The last two days we’ve looked at the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In Part 1 we saw a bit of history, noted how it ended up applying only to the federal government, and how it started out being ineffective. In Part 2 we saw how the Supreme Court put teeth back into it and then we looked at the components of the Act and how they were applied by the courts.

There is one more piece to this. Many states passed their own Religious Freedom Restoration Acts.

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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act — Part 2

Yesterday, in The Religious Freedom and Restoration Act — Part 1, I looked at the history of the RFRA, and how it was first limited to apply only to the federal government, and then emasculated in the lower courts to the point that only about 15% of the cases claiming an illegal restriction of the free exercise of religion were successful.

But it gets better from there.

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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act — Part 1

Many barefooters have a spiritual or religious component to their reason for going barefoot. There are many public accommodation laws (both state and federal) that ought to protect them when various businesses try to keep them out with the old NSNSNS excuse, but these laws are actually rather weak.

However, there is one such law, that applies in just a few very specific instances, with a fair bit of teeth in it: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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It’s a Sin

We’re all familiar with the way that many of the world’s religions have a tradition of barefootedness, particularly in holy situations. I wrote a bit about the Abrahamic religions in Discalceation. Of course there are also the Franciscans and Carmelites, and bare feet are required in Buddhist temples.

So I was a bit surprised to find a religion for which going barefooted, at all, is a sin.

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Discalceation

Here’s an interesting article on “discalceation”, which it defines as the taking off of the shoes as a sign of respect for holy ground. It comes from a book entitled “A Lexicon of Freemasonry” by Albert Mackey.

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