Greatest Do Your Homework Speech Ever

I watched President Obama’s address to the nation’s students, and I have two overwhelming responses:
First, did you see that incredibly cute curly headed boy in the flannel shirt about six rows up? No? Well, that was my son! When he got home this afternoon he said simply, “that was the greatest ‘do your homework’ speech ever.” He added, “the man just oozes charisma; you can smell it!”
Second, and way down the list in importance compared to number one, what the hell was the fuss about that speech?!? To begin with, President Obama did not say anything to students that most parents wouldn’t say to their children as school approaches. Most of us don’t put it quite so eloquently or powerfully, as my son helpfully reminded us. Still, most of us say the same thing. Work hard. Study. Participate. Try things, and if you fail, learn from the failure and keep on trying. The country is counting on you. OK, well, that last part smacks of socialism.
But seriously, what was that all about?
Given that everyone knew from the moment this speech was announced that the president would give an inspirational talk on achievement, how does one explain the opposition?
My son said this was the only time he’s ever been in an assembly of the entire school where it was completely silent. “You could hear a pin drop during the speech.” On the other hand, he said it was painfully loud when the president walked into the gym. “It was like a rock show,” he said. You can get more of sense of that excitement from the brief clip from his video than was apparent on C-SPAN.
Young people enthralled by a political leader who campaigned on the theme of change? Well, it’s no wonder the opposition wants to keep him as far away from their children as possible. Those enriched by the status quo certainly fear a charismatic leader promising change. It matters not how well or poorly he may be doing at the moment in delivering on the promise, the promise itself is threatening.
When you tell an incredibly diverse student body – and there are few more diverse than Wakefield’s – that they can accomplish great things even if they don’t have the most beautiful facilities and all the latest technologies at their fingertips, you also undermine the notion that only those to the manor born can lead the nation. Those in the manors always fear the rabble.
Of course, that does not explain all of the opposition. Some of it, as with opposition to anything President Obama does, is plain, old-fashioned racism. For them, the appearance at a school such as Wakefield had to be particularly galling. An African-American president introduced by an African-American senior class president of a school led by a strong African-American woman – well, what is this world coming to. Wakefield looks like what America, at our best, looks like, and it works incredibly well.
For this particular speech, some of the opposition reflects the deep-seated anti-intellectual strain of American culture. And some of it is just rudeness. After all, when the President of the United States speaks to school children, in person or on line, you give respect.
When our first child was born I worked for the Council of State Governments in a position that put me in contact with scores of state lawmakers of both parties. One thoughtful and well-connected Republican, unbeknownst to me, had President George H.W. Bush send our newborn son a letter welcoming him into the world and encouraging him to live and life of service. Neither my wife nor I ever voted for President Bush, and were appalled by many of his policies including leading us into a war that paused (it still hasn’t ended) only days before our son was born. Did we send the letter back? Of course not. It remains one of the prized items in the baby book. When the president says, “welcome to the world,” you say, “wow; thanks for noticing.”
When the president says, “do your homework,” you say, “wow; thanks for noticing.”
In any case, that is pretty much what our second son said after his presidential moment this afternoon.
PS: Martin did his homework!

The Unspeakable

Last Saturday I sat on the side of Memorial Bridge and watched the funeral procession for Senator Kennedy as it made the turn around the Lincoln Memorial and headed up the hillside into Arlington National Cemetery.
I got to the bridge about 25 minutes before the procession was supposed to pass, or two hours before it actually went by. Fortunately, it was a beautiful late summer evening and I brought a book.
Coincidentally, the book was JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglas’s take on President Kennedy’s assassination. Douglas painstakingly lays out the case for an intricate CIA conspiracy to kill the president because he was breaking faith with the Cold War.
Were I prone to believe in vast conspiracies I might believe this book, but one of the side benefits of living in Metro DC is understanding what a small, company town this really is. Those people who work “for the government” are our neighbors. Indeed, according to one of my neighbors who has lived right down the street from our house for more than 50 years, at least three former neighbors worked for the agency. One of the most infamous of CIA turncoat spies passed secrets at what is now our neighborhood 7-11. And all the neighbors know this stuff. Neighbors talk.
It is a theological truth that it is not good for human beings to be alone. We crave each others’ company because we want to share our stories and be heard. Secrets get told, witness the current fallout from CIA torture cases of the past eight years. I’m guessing that stuff was not supposed to get out.
Now Douglas spins a wonderfully rich and richly documented tale, but there are just too many ordinary human beings involved in it for me to believe that such a thing could happen and remain secret for 50 years.
I think Ted Kennedy’s famous eulogy of his brother, Robert, holds a clue to our tendency to cling to conspiracies. He said then, “My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”
We tend to idealize and enlarge those we want to see as heroic, and we tend also to enlarge their deaths. The sad, lonely and confused figure of an Oswald or Sirhan seem still somehow simply too small to sweep the Kennedy brothers off the stage of history. We want a vast conspiracy.
The end of Ted Kennedy’s words about Robert hold a final clue, to use, again, the language of conspiracy.
“Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Although I agree that few of us dream compelling dreams of a future otherwise, I don’t think either of the Kennedys was right about the first part. Most of us see things as we wish to see them whether or not that is how things actually are. For to do so is to come face to face with how things actually are, and to be confronted with our own complicity in constructing that reality.
So it’s not the CIA conspiracy story that I found compelling in JFK and the Unspeakable. It’s the unspeakable itself, and our participation in it. If there was a vast conspiracy to kill Kennedy, it was far more vast than Douglas imagines. In encompasses all of us.
Douglas’ title comes from Thomas Merton’s Cold War reflections on the unspeakable. Douglas quotes Merton saying, “One of the awful facts of our age is the evidence that [the world] is stricken indeed, stricken to the very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable.”
As Merton suggests, what was and remains unspoken is our collective ability to live with the reality of nuclear weapons and treat the situation as so normal, now, that we rarely give it any thought at all. The evil that Paul named as powers and principalities in the present darkness, Merton called unspeakable because to name it aloud would be to confess our own complicity in it. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons are most often mentioned as part of the specter of terrorists and nuclear terrorism. While that is certainly a clear and present danger toward which we are properly directing some of our vast military/intelligence resources, the fact remains that the United States is the only entity that has ever used weapons of mass destruction. Our six decades of silence about that self-evident truth indicates just how unspeakable these weapons truly are. To speak of that, in more than passing terms that praise the act as the end of a terrible war, would be to call into question our own too easy participation in holocausts.
Did the CIA kill Kennedy? I doubt it. Was Oswald a pawn in a vast conspiracy? Absolutely. He was a pawn in our own vast conspiracy of empire and of silence. Was Kennedy breaking that silence by calling deeply into question the military-industrial complex and the foundational national myth of redemptive violence? Again, I doubt it. He was a committed Cold Warrior. Had he lived, perhaps he would have withdrawn Americans troops before the full-scale disaster of Vietnam. That we will never know. Perhaps he would have opened relations with Cuba and pursued détente with the Soviet Union as well. Again, we will never know.
But what we do know is that even now, a half century on, we are still bound by the unspeakable. Perhaps that is why we reach out to conspiracy theories. They allow us to ignore our own participation in the violence that marks our age.
Though Ted Kennedy was certainly a flawed and broken human being, his consistent opposition to American military misadventures over the last 30 years suggests that he, too, dreamed things that have not come to pass and dared to name, from time to time, that which remains unspeakable.

Can We Talk?

Like many Americans, I have aging parents who increasingly need health care. Fortunately, they have Medicare and Medicare supplemental insurance so the costs of their care are not driving them from their home.
As I walk down this well trod path I cannot help but wonder why so many younger Americans are forced into bankruptcy because of health care costs. In the wealthiest country in the world, it is unfathomable that anyone should go broke because they get sick.
As a parent who is lucky enough to have decent insurance, I have often wondered what I would do if I had to pay the full cost -- often several hundred dollars -- of antibiotics when my children got simple ear infections. If I lived closer to the economic edge, what bills would I skip? What meals would I skip? How sick would I have to get before seeking care for myself?
Our present system, which condemns thousands of citizens to economic disaster due to illness and some even to premature death, is morally indefensible.
In that context, to reduce the current national "debate" to name-calling and fear-mongering is beneath contempt.

As a person of faith, the moral bottom line for me is simple: No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

The current system falls woefully short. The way to a better system is not clear, but there are numerous proven options around the world and some fundamental building blocks including not using preexisting conditions to deny coverage and making coverage portable with regard to employment and relocation.
An honest national debate would be looking at options and leading us toward clear decisions about what will work best for America. It is complex, to be sure, but it is not impossible. The Japanese, Canadians, Europeans, Brits and many others make national health insurance programs work. Some are public, some are private, some are hybrid systems, but all of them work better and keep people healthier than our system.
It is far past time for this national conversation and the reforms that should result. Where is the leadership with the courage to make it happen?
UPDATE: the Facebook status on health care that inspired this brief reflection has gone viral today and created a kind of virtual town hall meeting. Wow. No guns and no screaming! And, from what I've seen, a whole lot of good back and forth about various systems and the world views behind them. Maybe we can still have civil conversation, and, who would've thunk it -- on the internet.

Two Poets Walk Into a ... Mess

So Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar are both picked up by the police. Sounds like the set up to a “guy walks into a bar” joke, but it turns out to be true. Oh, to be sure, it was not that Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar player made famous by his music with the Beatles, but it was that Bob Dylan, made famous by, well, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowing in the Wind, Tangled Up in Blue and hundreds of other seminal songs.
His recent encounter with the police in New Jersey is late-night comic gold. Stopped in a neighborhood where he was walking around in the hours before a show with Willie Nelson, the local cops asked him who he was and what he was doing there. He answered with his name and the explanation that he was on tour.
And the punch line? The cops did not know who he was. If I’ve ever heard an indictment of American education that is it. It’s hard to fathom not having a clue about the identity of the guy whose song gave Rolling Stone magazine its name and claimed the top spot on that magazine’s ranking of the best songs of all time, the guy whose name turns up 21 million hits on a Google search, most of which are for the Bob Dylan, the guy named to “most influential Americans of the 20th century” lists ranging from Time Magazine to National Public Radio. After all, the guy’s birth name, Robert Allen Zimmerman, turns up more than 40,000 hits on a search, and nobody has called him that in 50 years.
Ravi Shankar, on the other hand, is an English professor, so it’s not surprising that the New York City police who pulled him over did not know who he is. Since it was a Friday night in Manhattan, it’s probably not even too surprising that they made him undergo field sobriety tests. Despite being in town to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Drunkenboat.com, the online journal he helped to found, he passed the sobriety test. But that’s when his story turns strange and ugly.
In Dylan’s case, the police took him to the hotel he told them he was staying in and tour officials vouched for him. Everyone was polite and that was that except for all the jokes at the expense of the young officers.
But the New York cops found an outstanding warrant for a Ravi Shankar, and, noting that “it’s always a good day when you bag a sand-nigger,” they rousted the English prof off to jail apparently too dense to see that the warrant was for a 5’10” 140-pound Caucasian while they had in their custody a 6’2” 200- pound Indian-American. When Shankar finally saw a copy of the warrant, some 90 minutes into his nightmare, and pointed out the differences, the officer said simply, “take it up with the judge.”
Shankar spent 30 hours in jail before getting to see that judge, and getting to go home and see his wife and child. You can read his account of the ordeal in the Hartford Courant and listen to him describe it on NPR’s Tell Me More. You will not read or hear the anger of a man picked up for “driving while brown,” but rather a kind of bemused disappointment of an American come face to face with the reality of racism.
Despite his brown skin, Shankar is in the privileged position to tell his story to a national audience. Countless less privileged men and women suffer such degradations and are silenced by circumstance.
I’d like to hope that these cases are but the death throes of white privilege, as the nation slogs slowly but inevitably toward that date when there will be no racial majority population in the land. Frederick Douglas swore that power would never concede anything without a fight. With privilege comes power, and white privilege will not concede without a fight either. Ravi Shankar endured one battle in that long twilight struggle.
But, as Mr. Dylan put it almost 50 years ago, the times, they are a changing.

Packing Heat for Health Care Reform

Rose Berger, who works at Sojourners, attended a Capitol Hill health care reform rally today "packing" a water pistol, to rather hilarious results. Read about it here. What a great way to cool off the hot heads who are getting a bit carried away with the debate these days. Way to go, Rose!

Medicare for All

Back from two weeks at camp. Being tuned out for two weeks was pleasant, and I am just now catching up to the craziness of the health care town hall meetings. People showing up to prove that their second amendment guns have first amendment rights -- strange and a bit scary. Also, a bit ironic coming in the same week that saw Squeeky Fromme paroled. I would not want to be a Secret Service agent these days.
Despite the vitriolic level of public discourse, it seems to me that a public option in the health insurance field is not hard to imagine. Seniors in the U.S. have had access to one for more than 40 years, and numerous scholarly studies indicate that 80-90 percent of seniors are happy with the system. That compares with studies showing that about 70 percent of Americans are satisfied with their private insurance. Similarly, the Veterans Administration health care insurance system routinely outpaces private insurance in ratings of patient satisfaction.
So, if there is already a proven public option out there, and one that works in conjunction with private Medicare supplemental insurance coverage, why not simply make Medicare available as one option for all Americans regardless of age?
Personally, I would not have the choice, because I am bound by virtue of employment to the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church and the health care benefits that it negotiates on behalf of minister members and families. But for the 50 million Americans who currently have no health care coverage and thus are marginalized in the health care delivery system, why not open Medicare?
Clearly, some basic level of access to health care is a fundamental human right in a society as wealthy as ours. Everywhere Jesus went, healing happened, so concern for health is incumbent upon the church. Thus, in our context, concern for health care insurance reform is also part of our calling. People of good will and faith can certainly disagree on the most effective and efficient path, but the end must be universal access and insurance.
As for me, I say, "Medicare for All." It's so simple it fits on a bumper sticker.

Tortured State of Affairs

My friend Ray McGovern wrote a piece this week on torture and the church. He is responding to survey data showing that Americans who attend church regularly are more likely than non-church goers to support the use of torture, and laying blame on the shoulders of church leadership that has failed to speak out clearly on the issue.
In particular, Ray chides local pastors for failing to speak out, even as he cites several denominational statements calling for clear abolition of torture and an accounting of what happened during the Bush years that led us down this dark path.
I wonder if I've made myself clear on this during the past five years or so. I don't speak often about the war or torture because, at my church, it is so much preaching to the choir.
Well, I'm off for two weeks as pastor-in-residence at the camp of the Presbytery of the James. I'll have some time to ponder -- broken up in mid stream by a couple of days at the Christian Peace Witness leadership planning retreat.
See you in a couple of weeks.

Empathy for the Devil

The hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court were, by most accounts, a fairly dull affair with a noticeable lack of fireworks over hot-button issues.
I confess to a lack of strong feelings about it. Assuming, fairly safely it seems, that she is confirmed, I hope that Justice Sotomayor has a long and distinguished career on the court.
Indeed, I hope that she turns out a well as two previous ground breakers -- Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O'Connor. The odds are probably in her favor because those who break such ground are exceptions to existing expectations. Thus they are, by definition, exceptional and tend to have gifts that enable them to exceed the culture's expectations.
Witnessing that ought to have been interesting, but apparently not so much.
I don't have any legal expertise. Why I don't know about the law fills lots of law books. But I found the focus on empathy during the hearings to be interesting. Empathy seems to be in disrepute, at least for judges and justices. Noting again my complete lack of legal training, experience or understanding, I would not pretend to offer a legal theory that accounts for empathy or a lack thereof. Still, I found the dismissal of it fascinating.
Perhaps that is because Jesus seems so interested in it. In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, where Jesus warns against judging others lest we be judged, he also says this: "be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate" (Luke 6:36, Jerusalem Bible).
Compassion -- from Latin roots meaning "suffer with" -- shares at the very least an etymological allusion to the Greek pathos or passion.
Thus as we are warned against judging we are commanded to be compassionate or empathetic. Perhaps the reverse would also be true: those who judge must not be empathetic.
If that is the case, then the widespread distrust of empathy among judges might be said to have some Biblical warrant, even if it means that our judging is left to those who can't or won't or shouldn't follow Jesus.
Hm ... is it God or the devil who is in the details?

On War, Fishing, and Manipulation in the PC(USA)

My friend and colleague, Ray Bagnuolo, wrote this in response to a pastoral letter from Carmen Fowlwer, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. While Ray's reflections are considerably longer than most anything I ever post here they are worth the read especially as we prepare to move forward into the "legislative season" in the life of the church. Indeed, moments before Ray's letter came across the virtual transom I had sent out a plea for editorial help in crafting the theological rationale for a pair of proposed overtures to the 2010 General Assembly.

by Ray Bagnuolo, Minister of Word and Sacrament
White Plains, New York
July 15, 2009

I have read and sometimes supported commentaries and positions taken by leaders of the Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC) on their website Laymanonline.org. This, however, is not one of those times.

Over the years, our exchanges in response to articles and editorials have exhibited strong disagreements, yet the “footprint” of these interactions indicated genuine attempts at honest and respectful discussions. With those experiences in mind, the tone of The Rev. Carmen Fowler’s recent pastoral letter: ‘War,’ ‘Go Fish,’ ‘Manipulation in the PCUSA’ was strikingly different. The bellum references describing the work of which others and I had been a part in seeking ratification of Amendment 08-B was a misrepresentation as much as it was disappointing.

I am not suggesting that that those seeking full welcoming for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) persons in our church and the PLC are always in harmony. Personally, our disagreements are real. I am an openly gay Minister of Word and Sacrament, ordained as such in 2005. I have served on the board of That All May Freely Serve and currently serve as a board member of More Light Presbyterians (MLP). I have stood alongside those seeking to delete G-6.0106b, witnessing and advocating at General Assemblies, as well as participating in workshops and panel discussions in regional venues. And, in doing so, I have stood respectfully alongside those with whom we disagreed.

The idea of our actions “playing” anyone, as Rev. Fowler suggested we did of the presbyteries who changed their historical positions in supporting the ratification Amendment 08-B, is as false as it is insulting to the presbyteries who carefully discerned the choices they made in prayer, community, and, as always, in the presence of God. This use of ridicule and fear undermines and transforms honest efforts at unity and justice in our church. A church that always has and always will made up of all God’s family, including sisters and brothers who are LGBT.

In fact, throughout the struggle, we (God’s family) have often found ourselves assembled together, from worshipping to witnessing – trying to navigate close quarters with the pronounced differences we share. Has it been easy? No, but I believe we have mostly done our best to be faithful, respectful, and honest. While the rhetoric at times has been strident, I have never felt at “war,” as if I were “gaming,” or attempting to “manipulate” groups or church members who sought to prevent full inclusion. I have never believed the solution to our very real struggle was in domination or deception.

Nor have I believed that the answers we sought were in the strictest of interpretations of the Bible. Still, such differences in interpretation never meant that I wished to diminish or demean those who came to God from a more literal belief in the written Word. I don’t think that most people who are moving with the Spirit in welcoming LGBT folk are doing so because they are shifting their way of holding the Bible in their hearts. I believe their hearts are changing because they cannot see the Bible being used any longer in any way to hurt others, many of whom are members of their families; people who are faithful in their beliefs and practices.

In the several months leading up to the final vote of the presbyteries on the ratification of Amendment 08-B, individuals and groups worked together, reaching out to members of presbyteries across the country. The work of MLP and others was rooted in embracing the guidance of the 218th General Assembly to dialogue with one another, as baptized members of the same family and Body of Christ. We were intentional in listening to each other, as we invited God, Spirit, and Jesus into our midst. Judgment was never a part of the process.

Groups in favor of ratification of Amendment 08-B worked together to undertake the massive challenge of reaching out to the majority of presbyteries in the United States. Thousands of conversations were had. Often they were not easy, and more often they were amazing. There were numerous talks with folks opposed to ordaining LGBT individuals that poignantly touched at the heart and the pain of our struggle. You may not be surprised to know that those visits often ended in prayer, praying for God’s help in the healing we so desperately needed and continue to seek. In every case, we did our best to practice the loving-kindess that reflects the unified church we were hoping to become. There was no game of “Go Fish” or of any other kind. It was Spirit-filled, real, and much more difficult to do than criticize its outcomes.

As for manipulation of the presbyteries, which connotes intentional deception and secrecy – there was none. I’ve actually never met a “tricked presbytery.” It occurs to me that such a thing is oxymoronic. At any rate, we were open and transparent with the leadership within each region about our organizing efforts. We sought out information about those who might be able to help us and who might be more inclined to consider having conversations with us. We spoke to supporters, those undecided, and those in opposition; we asked all groups to vote in favor of ratification. We wanted the amendment to pass, but we knew that ultimately it would be in God’s time.

In the process, the privilege of being in conversation with so many of our sisters and brothers across this country was a humbling and precious gift. It was quickly apparent that we are “one” more than all our differences might ever suggest. If you talk openly to hundreds of people, one-to-one about God and this church as many of us did, you will discover just how much God is with us all. All. We are a connectional church, indeed, and the outreach made that wonderfully and abundantly clear: clear that the Spirit was at work with all of us, and clear that we should not give up on one another. Clear that we need to remove G-6.0106b and work together from there. Clear, to me, as always, that his amendment has been a dividing line for too long and more and more are coming to understand that.

As for the outreach and the language of progress that was sometimes used. I agree. I never really liked the description of a “presbytery flipping” when describing a change in a presbytery’s past voting record. The language referred to the vote, never the individuals, churches, or presbyteries they represented. I am equally uncomfortable with the use of the word “target,” in any form. We know how important the use of language is, and in some ways, we fell short of a better way of expressing ourselves. We all can improve in seeking ways to describe who we are and how we go about being faithful in the midst of reunion.

The broadening sense that ratification would soon be in reach was electric and continues to be so. We are intrinsically pulled together in this incredible shift toward a unified and healed church. Yes, God is doing a new thing in our midst, and it has been a long time in the making. It’s important to remember that the LGBT community has been at the center of marginalization and exclusion by the PC(USA) for near forty years. Those opposing our full inclusion are not the ones who have been the oppressed. LGBT sisters and brothers and those who support them intimately understand what it is like to left outside of the church, essentially shunned by fear. And the church has paid an enormous price in many ways, but especially in inadvertently becoming complicit in supporting the broader social disease of hate crimes toward LGBT folk by its institutional positions. Still, in spite of it all and in formation for those who will follow us, our efforts are driven knowing that our church’s present and future is critically dependent upon our unity and healing, and that ours is a special role in that transformation. It is obvious that a growing number of members of the PC(USA) are in agreement that:

Amendment G-6.0106b, for whatever else it might be said to do, has been the cause of our disunity, not the truth that we are all God’s family.

As with quoting Scripture, these and other comments quickly raise arguments and rebuttals to support one position or the other, one belief or the other, one way of being faithful or the other. In fact, our exegetical analyses of Scripture alongside the “nature and nurture” arguments have spawned institutional structures to ensure their survival more than ours as a people. The debates, papers, books, and articles have become comfortable for many and totally inaccessible for others, establishing new dominions that push God’s family further into the chasm of the arguments and the resultant chaos and stultification. The debates roar on, and while they do, the lives of our sisters and brothers who are LGBT and those who embrace them are forced into a marginalized, misrepresented, and maligned status within the church. There can be no such classification in God’s family, and, in spite or distant echoes of debates, that truth is rising up in response from a growing majority of Christians.

We are getting to know one another. We are “personing” the argument, as my friend The Rev. Dr. Janie Spahr would say, taking our Christian and loving lives to the people. More of us who are LGBT are becoming visible, in and out of our church community. Leaders within the church and those seeking leadership roles are openly stating how they identify themselves, often accepting great risk in the process. Friends and supporters are speaking out more, filled with love the Spirit of Love. As we come to know more of our family who identify as LGBT, we are leaving the stereotypes and the debates behind. In its place, we are lifting up the mysterious ways of the Love of God expressed in the equally mysterious gifts of our gender identities and sexuality. I thank the distant echoes of those balanced, never-ending debates for tiring out more and more faithful who have been conditioned to believe there would come an answer from such places. Instead, large numbers of faithful members of this church across the PC(USA) have made up their minds based on their personal and communal faith and the witness of those who are LGBT, their families, supporters, and friends. And, I don’t believe I am the first to recognize this. It’s been going on now for some time. We are further along in this process of coming together than many suggest. Perhaps the accusation of manipulation by some is an attempt to protect their institution by more deeply hiding this truth.

The strong response to changing the Constitution of the PC(USA) has been muted over the several years. There are many reasons for this, but one of them, I believe, is that faithful were hoping that the work of The Theological Task Force on the Peace Unity and Purity of the Church would produce a solution that would eliminate the need for constitutional change. It was with this in mind, that I believe many who voted “No” for deletion of G-6.0106b over the years were actually voting “Yes” for the continuing work of the task force, hoping it would produce “the answer." While the task force did accomplish important work, it clearly did not end the exclusion of LGBT folk from the full work and worship of the PC(USA). As a result, when the time of our most recent effort of ratification came about, those who had given the task force a chance voted in favor of constitutional change. Along with the continuing number of members welcoming the LGBT community, we witnessed a dramatic shift that will soon complete its course.

The outreach of groups and individuals seeking full inclusion for the LGBT community in the PC(USA) will be as it always has been: faithful. In the post-B world, our family will be faced with the hard work of unifying and healing. This marginalized community of baptized LGBT members will stand as we have before, with all our sisters and brothers to carry the gospel message and the witness of our lives to those who have felt unwelcome and displaced by our constitutional dysfunction: G-6.0106b.

This has never been a war, a game, or about propaganda or deception. It has and will continue to be the story of faithful people in love with God and all of God’s family.

We will eventually replace the arguments of fear with the Love of God, which has been given to us so that we might embrace one another as God embraces all God’s family.

We who have been and will continue to be part of the outreach and movement for change acknowledge our role in such a call and promise to continue to love each other into family. We are grateful to the many who join with us in believing that whatever is next for us in the PC(USA) is directly beyond the infection of G-6.0106b.

Let us pray and work together, so that whatever we do, nothing we do ever separates others from the God who created us as a family. All of us included.

Italian Graffiti

Complexion Complex

It is not necessarily surprising that this should happen in the year 2009, but it is mind boggling that someone would say that allowing 60 African-American kids into the pool threatens to "change the complexion" of a club -- and in the city of brotherly love no less.
Meanwhile, here in the Old Dominion, as the "staycation" continues, I took my daughter and her friend Tasnim (whose name accurately suggests that her family is not native to these parts) to the public swimming pool. I was walking behind them across the parking lot and it occurred to me that within my lifetime a little girl with skin the beautiful shade of Tasnim's would not have been able to walk so free of care to a public pool in Virginia to swim with all the pale-skin kids. Of course, the pool here today was full of a rainbow of folks enjoying the clear blue sky and not giving a second thought to the complexities of complexion.
Why does this remain so difficult for so many?

Gotta Love the Web

I'm still enjoying some away time but managed to post a brief diary on Daily Kos. Oddly enough, it wound up here on This Week.
The net is an amazing place. You never know where you might turn up, nor under which name.
If you follow the links back you'll see that my extremely brief bit on McNamara was basically a news blast to the Kos community that wound up generating a huge comment response simply because it was the first diary posted noting McNamara's death.
As to McNamara, he was a fascinating character who lived fully into his own complete name: Robert Strange McNamara.

Gone Fishin'

Off to see the parents, sibs and cousins for a week. Hope you have a sparkling 4th of July. Here's a good Independence Day pic from our Philly get away back in May.

Dear Mr. President

I sent this letter to the White House today.
June 25, 2009

The Honorable Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

I write as a supporter and as a friend in Christ with an invitation that I make with deep reservations.

I readily confess that back in January, as news of the church vetting process circulated in the metro area, I told friends I was extremely glad that we would never be considered, and that I would hate to try to cope with all of the security and media attention that is a part of your every day.

Nevertheless, your recent statements suggesting that your religious commitments lead you to oppose marriage equality for gays and lesbians prompt me to invite you to join us for worship at Clarendon Presbyterian some Sunday morning.

If you and your family were to join us, you would hear these words of invitation: “welcome to Clarendon Presbyterian Church. We are a congregation that tries, in our common life, to live out the love and the justice of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we welcome everyone – and we mean everyone – to this house of prayer for all God’s children.”

If you and your family were to join us, you would find yourself sitting in the midst of a small collection of people ranging widely in age, coming from all over the place, gay and straight, families and singles, mostly of European descent but some Latinos, Asians and Pacific islanders.

You would hear the lively word of the living God preached with passion and compassion, and you would see, in your mind’s eye, Jesus extending his healing touch to those left behind and marginalized by the dominant religious and secular culture.

But, as we Christians believe that truth is incarnate and understood best in relationship, what you would see and hear is far less important than who you would meet. We both know that you are highly unlikely to set foot in the place (or even to read this letter), so let me introduce your staff to Mike and Clark, who have been members here for more than 10 years. They sing in the choir. Mike is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Clark served our country in the Army. Clark grew up in my native Alabama, and Mike grew up in Tennessee. They met in the most old-fashioned way, more than 15 years ago, at a church function. Their parents regularly worship with us when they come up to visit. They are in the midst of a home improvement project, as settled, committed, loving and boringly domestic as any straight married couple, and yet they are denied, because of their sexuality, more than 200 legal benefits that accrue without question to those of us who are married.

You might also meet Heather and Lisa, a young couple whom I was fortunate enough to make, in Lisa’s words, “unlawfully wedded wives” in a beautiful worship service this spring. They travel about 25 miles to worship with us because there are simply not that many houses of worship where they feel welcome.

On the day of their wedding, right after Heather’s and Lisa’s fathers had walked them down the aisle, I said to the gathered community, “Jesus said ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.’ To God belong our hearts, our love, our promises, our faithfulness. Caesar does not recognize what we do here, but God does and God blesses it richly.”

After the service, one of Lisa’s brothers told me that his daughter – about the same age as Malia – asked her dad if the wedding was going to be on the news. I laughed and said, “thank God, no – we don’t need that today.” But he stopped me and said, “it should be, then people would see how ordinary this really is.”

I have the same reservations in inviting your to worship with us. We certainly do not need the hassles that would bring. But, Mr. President, for the sake of your own wholeness, you need to come and see.

As Dr. King so often said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Now is the time to bend it just a little further, and here at Clarendon, we are about the work of bending it. Come and see.

Grace and Peace,

Rev. Dr. David Ensign, Ph.D.
Pastor

Angels and Demons?

Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh, cry or scream. And then, there's this: a church exorcising the homosexual demons.
It never occurred to me that demons might have sexual preference ....
When will people learn to love the amazing variations of creation, and stop condemning difference?

A Light Read to Begin the Summer

Just finished Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato. O'Brien is among the best writers to emerge from the American experience in Vietnam, and this was his masterpiece. Strange and dreamy, it struck me as the Vietnam answer to Saving Private Ryan. Although both stories focus down on the platoon level, everything perceived as good and right about Private Ryan's war is stripped away in Private Cacciato's.
O'Brien captures the war's futility in just a few sentences toward the end of the novel:

The end was coming. He could feel. Already he anticipated the textures of things familiar: decency, cleanliness, high literacy and low mortality, the pursuit of learning in heated schools, science, art, industry bearing fruit through smokestacks. Wasn't this the purpose? The goal? Some vision of virtue? Weren't these the valued things? Wasn't freedom worth pursuing? If civilization had meaning, weren't these the reasons? Hadn't wars been fought for these very promises? Even in Vietnam -- wasn't the intent to restrain forces of incivility? The intent. Wasn't it to impede tyranny, aggression, repression? To promote some vision of goodness? Oh, something had gone terribly wrong. But the aims, the purposes, the ends -- weren't these fully virtuous and proper? Wasn't self-determination a proper aim of civilized man? Wasn't political freedom a part of justice? Wasn't military aggression, unrestrained, a threat to civilization and order? Oh, yes -- something had gone wrong. Facts, circumstances, understandings. But had the error been wrong intention, wrong purpose?

Those are the questions that arise in reflection upon American military misadventures since the "great war" of the "greatest generation." But, as events that apparently no American experts foresaw unfold in the streets of Iran, one wonders if we haven't used entirely ineffective means to pursue the intentions and purposes that we always claim guide our actions in places such as Vietnam ... or Iraq.
As always, it will take the great writers of the American experience in Iraq to bring us to deeper and fuller understanding. Unfortunately, by that point we will doubtless be already engaged in another misbegotten misadventure. Sigh.
I think I'll go back to a good, light murder mystery for these early summer days.

Standing on History ...

Always good to find yourself standing with Lincoln ... or, at least, standing where he stood.

Freedom Summer

Images of freedom. At the top, Michael Kinnemon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches (and dean at Lexington Theological Seminary when I was a student there many years ago -- and a fine hoops player, too), speaking at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture witness in front of the White House last week calling for a full investigation of the instances of torture during the terror war. In the middle, a desk in Freedom Hall in Philadelphia on which the Declaration of Independence was signed a few years back (and which we visited a few weeks ago).
Bottom: the foundations of my family life and marriage shutter once again as my daughter leads the More Light Presbyterians contingent in the DC Metro Pride Parade along with the Rev. Rusty Lynn.

Tortured Faith

The photo barrage will continue soon, but first this brief interruption for some text blogging.
I was back in front of the White House today for another witness, joining friends from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture to call on the Obama Administration to create a truth commission to investigate the use of torture by American forces in various aspects of the terror war.
There are all kinds of good reasons to participate in NRCAT's call, but for me one reason stands out: people who go to church are more likely to support the use of torture than those who do not.
The church has utterly failed on this crucial moral and theological issue. We have failed to teach clearly that torture violates the teachings that flow forth from the creation story. If all of us are created in the image of God, then torture of any creature debases the Creator.
Now the Obama Administration, saying it wants to look forward and not back, wants to compound the failing of the church -- or, at least, to take advantage of it by avoiding a politically costly investigation.
Truth commissions in other countries -- countries who have faced far more difficult and divisive challenges than do we -- have led to authentic reconciliation and allowed countries to move forward honestly. If we do not move forward honestly we will have failed to learn our own history.
It is only a matter of time until we repeat it.

Getting Self Reflective on Our Last Day in Italy

Confused I Was by This

Indecent and Out of Order

This sign, in the entrance to a church in Venice, cracked me up.
It also reminds me that tomorrow Clarendon hosts the third annual NoVA Pride Interfaith Worship sponsored by People of Faith for Equality in Virginia. The service is all about marriage equality -- no doubt seen as indecent and out of order by some. Ah well, come out anyway. It promises to be a great evening.

Flowers in Florence

Venezia

Among the Knockers of Florence

Campo di’ Fiori -- plaza of flowers

Reflections of Venice

Young Woman and Fire in Roma

Sunset on the Arno from the Gold Bridge

Ciao for Now

Heading to Italy with the eldest this week to celebrate his turning 18 and graduating and heading of to Mary Wash in the fall. No blogging. No tweeting. No e-mail till after Memorial Day! Lots of Italian food, fine wine, maybe a rented Vespa, and much good time with a very good kid.

Random Thoughts on a Rainy Day

Completely random queries that came to mind on another rainy day in DC.
Why do baseball players continue to cheat on such a grand scale?
Why do athletes get so many second chances? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Why should same sex marriages undermine straight marriage?
Why has it rained for nine straight days? And when should we start building the ark?
Do actors sometimes confuse themselves for the characters they play?
Is it ever too late for justice?
Will the Caps beat the Pens?
Will the Nationals ever get better?
Will the Racistskins ever change their name?
Who will stop the rain?

Clergy Call

Spent the morning at the Human Rights Campaign's Clergy Call. Here's an AP article on the event.

By BRIAN WESTLEY, The Associated Press
2009-05-04 WASHINGTON -
The U.S. Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop is among hundreds of clergy members urging Congress to support gay rights, including the passage of an expanded hate crimes bill that would give gay victims of violence new federal protections.
V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and more than 300 clergy of various faiths will spend Tuesday on Capitol Hill lobbying lawmakers to push through a bill that broadens the definition of hate crimes to include those motivated by a person's sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. The legislation was passed by the House last week.
Clergy also will push for legislation providing protections against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
"They're not here to grind political axes," said Harry Knox of the Human Rights Campaign, which is sponsoring the event. "They're here out of a pastoral concern for real people in their congregations who have to deal with the ramifications of hate violence and employment discrimination."
It is the second time the lobbying effort known as Clergy Call has been held on Capitol Hill; the first event was held two years ago.
This year's event comes amid significant victories for the gay-rights movement, including the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Iowa and Vermont.
On Tuesday, the District of Columbia city council is expected to hold a final vote on legislation recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The vote will place the issue before Congress, which has final say over the city's laws.
Robinson, who delivered the invocation during a kickoff concert at the Lincoln Memorial for President Barack Obama's inauguration, said that despite recent momentum, an uphill struggle continues for gay rights supporters in the religious community. He said that's because their message is often overshadowed by many on the religious right.
"Religion in general still presents the greatest obstacles we face in full equality," he said Monday during a speech at the Calvary Baptist Church in downtown D.C. "Ninety-five percent of the oppression that we know in our lives comes from the religious community."
Robinson's 2003 consecration has divided the Episcopal Church in the United States and abroad. Last year, theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province.
Robinson said he continues to deal with threats. On Monday, he spoke of a scare earlier this year in which a man was arrested while driving with a sawed-off shotgun, a map to his home, and photographs of the bishop and his partner taken from the Internet.
Still, he spoke of the importance of clergy members who are reaching out to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
"We actually are the bridge between the LGBT equality movement and those institutions which are afraid of it," he said.
Knox, the director of the Human Rights Campaign's religion and faith program, said Tuesday's daylong lobbying effort will include 325 clergy members from various denominations - including Christians, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims.

Bishop Robinson's remarks were powerful, intelligent and grounded in his own rich story, but the word that spoke most powerfully to me was a Basque saying he quoted: if no one feeds the shepherd, the shepherd will eat the sheep.
Not having had a real day off in three weeks, I decided that the best way to spend the afternoon was a wonderful Mexican lunch (quatro de Mayo?) in Chinatown with my beloved and then a long afternoon nap.
Tomorrow I'll be on the Hill speaking with my representatives about hate crimes legislation.
But first, gotta listen to Neil Young's Ohio on this, the 39th anniversary of the the Kent State shootings. The four dead in Ohio would all be about 60 years old now. I wonder what they might have accomplished had they not been murdered in the midst of exercising their constitutional right to assemble and speak out against an immoral war. Rest in peace Jeff, Sandy, Allison and Bill.

John Deer at Christian Peace Witness for Iraq

Standing in front of the White House, long-time peace activist John Deer reads a letter from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

“In the name of Jesus, Stop the War!”

From the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship:
Three hundred Christians worship and witness together, twenty arrested in an act of nonviolent direct action in front of the White House, as President Obama held his “100 Days” press conference inside.
As more than three hundred Christians worshipped together at National City Christian Church in Washington on Wednesday night, they heard a rousing call from Tony Campolo to put an end to the war in Iraq. Campolo shared the story of the fourth century Monk Telemachus who was martyred when he entered the Coliseum in Rome during the fights of the gladiators and demanded “In the name of Christ, Stop.” After he was killed, a hush fell over the crowd and the Coliseum slowly emptied. The tradition of Gladiators fighting for sport had come to an end. Campolo suggested that,similarly, Christians who take the Bible seriously must be prepared to take great personal risks as they demand, “In the name of Jesus, stop the war.”
Others were also there to inspire the crowd, who had come from all over the country to worship and witness together on the evening that marked President Obama’s first 100 days in office. Elizabeth MacAlister, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Kathy Kelly, Sr. Diana Ortiz, Noah Baker Merrill and by video presentation, Najlaa Al-Nashi from Direct Aid Iraq all spoke strong words of criticism for the Iraq War, and implored President Obama and the U.S. Congress to bring the war to an end.
There was a light rain falling as the worshippers left the Sanctuary at National City Church and processed to Lafayette Park in front of the White House carrying candles and baskets of bread. There in the park, Rick Ufford-Chase called on all of those assembled, and on our President and Congress, to lead with apology, repentance for our actions, and a commitment to make amends to the people of Iraq for the spiral of violence unleashed by the U.S.’s “pre-emptive strike” in March of 2003. Fr. John Dear read a letter from Archbishop Desmond Tutu expressing his gratitude to Christian Peace Witness for Iraq for their continuing insistence that the war in Iraq must end.
After attempting to present a loaf of bread for President Obama, the group formed a large circle in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, and sang together for over an hour. Eventually, twenty of those standing in the “arrestable space” on the sidewalk in front of the White House were arrested and put into police vans. Eleven of those arrested, including Presbyterian Pastor Tim Simpson and his son Stephen, were released just after midnight. Nine others, including Kathy Kelly, were held over night until they saw a judge the following day.
Presbyterian Pastor Clay Thomas, Associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Sarasota, FL and a member of the public policy advocacy team for Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, said that the conversations that CPWI supporters had with their legislators the following morning were a significant step forward in advancing CPWI’s effort to end the war. “In fact,” said Thomas, “we were given a 90 minute meeting with representatives from the Obama Administrations National Security Council and the Public Liaison for the religious affairs office.”
“In each of those meetings with government representatives,” said Rick Ufford-Chase, former moderator of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), “CPWI’s message was that “we must see a plan that indicates how we will remove all U.S. military personal and bases from Iraq, support reconstruction of Iraqi communities devastated by the war, resettle five million Iraqis displaced by the violence, and establish a commission of inquiry regarding our nation’s use of torture. Those moves, taken in concert with one another, will send a clear message to the rest of the world that we are truly interested in the things that will make for a just peace and a lasting security for all people.”

Brothers Frantzich Singing at the White House

A great cloud of witnesses singing in support of 25 faithful followers of the Prince of Peace as they were arrested in front of the White House last night during the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

Christian Peace Witness for Iraq

This was the end of yesterday's sermon. It is an invitation to this week's Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

Writing in 1962, Thomas Merton said, “the task is to work for the total abolition of war.”
Merton was right then, and he is right now. Indeed, if anything, the task is more urgent now than it was in 1962.
Merton was not naïve. He understood that the task that he named as the abolition of war involved work on multiple levels on multiple issues starting at the level of our own hearts.
He ended his great essay on the roots of war with these words:
“It is absurd to hope for a solid peace based on fictions and illusions! So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men [and women] and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
I have been praying for peace, marching for peace, organizing for peace, working for peace, donating for peace, witnessing for peace, singing for peace, petitioning for peace and every other act for peace I have been able to imagine since I was in high school. I have a passion for peace.
As I read Merton, I am reminded that a passion for peace, like any passion, involves suffering and death. I am further reminded that my work for peace is work for the death of injustice, tyranny and greed in my own heart.
Such heart work is done best in community. That is why I really hope that some of you can join me and hundreds of others this Wednesday evening at 7:00 at National City Christian Church as we worship and witness for peace in our own hearts and in the heart of our nation.
As Martin King said in 1967, some five years into another endless war, “Now let us begin … let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the [children] of God.”
Grace and love can change the world.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Why witness now? Why go to the White House when the current occupant has pledged to end this war?
Well, to begin with, President Obama has promised an end, but actions speak louder than words and even his words, if put into action, will leave 50,000 American troops in Iraq in 18 months. Christian colleagues in Iraq remind us that real peace and security in Iraq for Iraqis will not be possible until the American occupation ends.
So we go to the White House to press the president not only to live up to his pledge to end the war, but also to end it now.
In addition, Wednesday's worship and action are a Christian peace witness FOR Iraq and for Iraqis. So we will be pressuring the White House Wednesday and lobbying Congress later to support an Iraqi-lead international effort to rebuild Iraq and care for the five million people displaced by the war.
With the economic crisis overshadowing everything (except perhaps swine flu), it is important to remind people that the occupation of Iraq is not over, that Iraqi people continue to suffer and that American lives are still being lost. Perhaps, if nothing else at all, the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq this year is a service of remembrance.

Why I Love My Church

I was at an evangelism conference last fall when someone brought up an interesting factoid: 75 percent of pastors would not worship at the church they currently serve.
I found that rather depressing, and I also thought that aside from the obvious vocational/professional/decent-and-orderly concerns I would certainly worship at the church I serve.
This weekend I am reminded of why.
I spent about six hours today helping rehab the Arlington home of a 90-year-old woman. We worked with a crew from The Falls Church Episcopal. I don't know what the church from which they splintered a few years back would have made of the Clarendon crew: four gay men, a lesbian, a straight married couple, a straight single woman, another straight man and his 18-year-old son. I don't think the homeowner cared a bit. She was just thrilled that her extremely run-down home now has a new kitchen, new floors in the living room and hallway, repaired plaster and windows, a refurbished and refloored bathroom and painted bedrooms.
Friday evening, about a dozen of us gathered at church to watch the award-winning documentary For the Bible Tells Me So. As the movie's web site says,

Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families -- including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson -- we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. Informed by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard's Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO offers healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

It is a beautiful and powerful film, and our wonderfully diverse group thoroughly enjoyed it.
Tomorrow morning we will gather in worship in the morning, and tomorrow afternoon our spring CALL group, a life-direction lab that we conduct in cooperation with the Center for Pastoral Counseling, will hit its stride.
Praising God, learning justice, discerning call, serving the least of these -- all in one weekend. Yes, I would be part of this community even if they didn't pay me. (Not that I object to being paid, mind you!)

Seeking Light: Updated

Hold National Capital Presbytery in the light today. We meet this afternoon and evening to vote on the proposed amendment to change our Book of Order (church constitution) to remove its current implied ban (G-6.0106b) on ordaining partnered gay or lesbian church officers (deacons, elders and ministers). I anticipate that the vote here will support the change. At the same time, I also anticipate what poet (and Presbyterian) Ann Weems might call a "meeting at which very little meeting takes place." I hope that my guess on the vote is accurate but that my prediction on the tenor of the meeting is wrong.
Presbytery met, and did as good a job as possible at creating space and time for Bible study and conversation. The parliamentary part of the meeting was not crafted with as much care and some chaos ensued. In a more closely divided body I suspect there would have been considerable anger, but patience prevailed. A "no action" motion from the Bills and Overtures Committee was defeated, and the Presbytery voted 222-102 to affirm the motion to amend G-6.106b to remove the language about fidelity and chastity.
At the same time, however, the vote nationally moved a bit closer to defeat of the amendment. While more than two dozen presbyteries have switched their votes from the most recent (2001) time the issue came before them, it is all but certain that this amendment will not prevail in the necessary 87 presbyteries. No doubt, we will be voting on this again.

Blue Jean Bonus Babies

Did you see George Will's column in Thursday's Post? He used the space for a rant about blue jeans.
Among other declarations about the demon denim, he wrote, "Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill").
Cheryl read it and thought that surely it was sartorial satire, but the punch line was missing.
I tested Will's opinion with the three octogenarian women with whom I have lunch most Thursdays. They are mature enough not to need advice from a whippersnapper such as Will. Of course, two of them were wearing jeans to lunch.
We decided that perhaps Will has worn a tie so long that it cut off the blood flow to his brain.
Our brain-dead theory got us to thinking about the well-dressed men (and it was mostly men) who brought Wall Street tumbling down and cut deeply into the retirement savings of many of our nation's elderly. Perhaps we would be better off if the masters of the universe, who seem to worry more about bonuses and Brooks Brothers than they do about their fiduciary responsibilities with other people's money, were replaced by some good ol' boys and girls in jeans and flannel shirts.

Spirituality for Mii

I'm breathing out the deep sigh of relief that hits pastors post-Easter, and breathing in some spiritual practices for the coming 40 days.
We got Cheryl and Wii Fit for her birthday last week. It's a total hoot, with all kinds of silly games that, if you follow the instructions, actually give you a good workout. The games include some yoga movements -- most of which cannot actually be done in our basement without crashing fingers into the ceiling. But the ones that can be done feel surprisingly good. I've long thought that yoga would be good for me because I am among the least flexible people ever. I suppose I make up in "closed-bodyness" for my open-mindedness! In any case, stretching and breathing deeply is a lot more invigorating than I would have guessed.
Alas, my Wii Mii is a rather squat fellow because the sweet voice of the Wii tells me that I need to loose weight. No surprise in that, but did my doppelganger have to get so rotund so quickly?
Ah, well, perhaps by Pentecost he will have slimmed down a bit.
In the meanwhile, I'm stretching body and spirit in a 40-day journey with Sister Joan Chittister. I'm following a little book that is one of Augsburg Press's 40 Day Journey With ... series.
I began this morning, and, perhaps not surprisingly, the first reading concerns the nature of spirituality. Sr. Joan writes, "Spirituality is about the hunger in the human heart. It seeks not only a way to exist, but a reason to exist that is beyond the biological or the institutional or event the traditional."
Those words leaped out at me this morning because I'd just read Michael Gerson's column in the Post, in which he responds to neuroscientist Andrew Newburg's new book, How God Changes Your Brain.
Gerson writes,

Using brain imaging studies of Franciscan nuns and Buddhist practitioners, and Sikhs and Sufis -- along with everyday people new to meditation -- Newberg asserts that traditional spiritual practices such as prayer and breath control can alter the neural connections of the brain, leading to "long-lasting states of unity, peacefulness and love."

In other words, some combination of my reflections with Sr. Joan and Wii Fit breathing my lead me to be more loving. Hm ... time will tell.
The more challenging part of Newberg's findings, as Gerson reports them, comes with the insight that the kind of God one imagines determines the part of one's brain that is strengthened through religious practice. In other words, if one imagines a God of love, the part of one's brain where empathy resides. On the other hand, if one imagines a God of wrath the part of the brain where aggression resides is strengthened.
As Gerson puts it, "The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not."
As for me, I'm holding fast to the God of love I know through Jesus. No other god is worthy of my time -- especially if such a god is going to get inside my head and rot my brain!

Going Dark

I know that Lent extends through Holy Week, but keeping to a devotional practice that includes time for writing through Holy Week just isn't working for me. So, who am I kidding, other than myself. I'm just going dark till after Easter. Journey well through the remains of this week and enjoy and grace-filled Easter.

Holy %@!%*!

Clearly it is almost Holy Week. It's not the calendar that tells me, but rather the busyness that makes Holy Week the least worshipful, contemplative, spiritually filling time of the year for church professionals. This will not be a blog post; it barely qualifies as a Facebook status or a tweet.
Early in Lent it was easy to keep to the commitment of a daily discipline, but when Easter and a major peace witness come so close together ... well, time runs out.
Next week will be ... better?

Should we? Can we? Will we?

Plan to join us April 29. The worship will be powerful and beautiful, as will be the witness at Lafayette Park. Please share this with your networks.

Praying With Our Feet

After the Selma march in 1965, Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, "For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying."
Yesterday morning at the intersection of Rt. 123 and Braddock Road, love and hate crossed paths as People of Faith for Equality Virginia stood in peaceful vigil while the hate-filled folks from Westboro Baptist showered the morning rush hour traffic with their message that "God hates America" and "God hates fags" and, well, God hates just about everything that they don't like.
I was asked by a reporter what I thought about their Biblical interpretation. I said, "we interpret scripture according to the rule of love, but they seemed to have missed that part." Indeed, yesterday morning, "God is love" was more than enough theology for the day.
We were praying with our feet, as we stood in the blustery cold alongside George Mason students whose Pride coalition had invited us to join them.
I had a brief conversation with one of the kids, Carl -- or Carly, as this transvestite-for-a-day-of-solidarity introduced herself. Carly spoke of growing up in the Roman Catholic church and leaving it behind because the church has so little tolerance for so many friends.
I thought about Carly reading the prayer invitation for today, which includes Jesus sending forth his disciples and telling them that where they are not received and the good news not welcomed to shake the dust of such towns off their feet and move on.
I wonder if much of the church hasn't become those dusty towns whose exclusive orthodoxies are being shaken off and left behind by an entire generation.
Yesterday I prayed with my feet. Today I will pray for Carl and his friends, but I'll pray even more fervently for the church that we might hear in the voice of Carl and Carly a generation longing to hear good news. And, I'll pray for the Westboro Baptist people -- children of the same loving God -- that they might feel that love even in their hardened hearts.
Indeed, seeing the young people of Westboro (and their tiny band included several teenagers) was incredibly sad. To be raised in the context of so much hate and narrow-mindedness is tragic.
I often leave public demonstrations renewed and refreshed. They feed my soul and are, for me, deeply spiritual times of prayer. Yesterday, though, seeing the kids of Westboro, was soul searing.
Monday being my day off, I went home and spent a few hours watching Milk, which I'd not yet seen.
It is a film of deep and beautiful hope. Though the tragedy of his murder and the sadness of a life cut short on the cusp of dramatic cultural shifts deepened my funk for a while yesterday, I am rejoicing today that Rt. 123 and Braddock Rd. was, for a brief while in the early hours of Monday morning, the intersection of love and hope.

Pray Without Ceasing

The invitations of the past two days seemed quite similar to one another, to me. They seemed to say to me, in Paul's words, "pray without ceasing."
One of my favorite simple praise songs is Lord I Offer You This Day. It is not great art, but I find it meditative to play and sing. I also find the message to be a powerful prayer. Lord, I offer you this day. Make this day my prayer. I have been given this time. I return it as gratitude.
Or, perhaps, as Rabbi Heschel said when asked if he shouldn't rather be praying than marching with Dr. King, "our feet were praying."
So today was a prayer. It began with scurrying around to get kids to school, then some catching up on e-mail and the news.
Then I spent two hours on the phone with colleagues across the country working to frame next month's Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. I honestly believe that when the history of the war in Iraq is written, the chapters on the peace movement will be drawn to the unique, worshipful witness of CPWI. Our work, including the sometimes interminable planning work, is prayer.
Then I biked up to church to finish work for Sunday's worship, to gather some wedding materials for a couple of women I'll help hitch next month, to put together some information about CALL and discernment, fix our church web site, and to help my colleagues as People of Faith for Equality Virginia plan a faithful response to the hate-filled presence next week of people from Westboro Baptist "church" next week at George Mason University.
Through all of this work, I felt grounded in prayer. Then I rode home, poured a glass of red wine, and sat on the front porch watching neighborhood kids play and listening to the birds. Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, indeed.

Honor and Glory .... and Peace

Over the years, I have noticed that when I am committed -- for whatever period -- to a reflective discipline -- whatever form it takes -- the invitations of the discipline will regularly address something that just happens in the day.
Today we are invited to read Philippians 4:4-7 ("Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.") The invitation continues: "What are you afraid of? Make a list. ..."
We live in fearful times. Headlines in the Post today reflect the global economic crisis and the war on terror.
Not in those headlines, but also reflective of fearfulness, the hate-filled people of the Westboro Baptist "church" will be in neighboring Fairfax next week, and I spent several hours yesterday and a few more today huddled with the Northern Virginia board of People of Faith for Equality Virginia developing plans for a peaceful presence to counter their message of hate with one of love.
After all, perfect love casts out all fear.
My attention was drawn away from all this midday as I took on the role of dutiful child to attend the funeral of the husband of one of my mother's roommates from her college years. Mom asked me to represent the family, and so I did.
I never met the man remembered today. He was an Air Force colonel who was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery following a service in the old chapel at Ft. Myer. It was quite the spectacle: the Air Force hymn, a full honor guard, brass band, horse-drawn caisson, 21-gun salute, taps on the bugle, Amazing Grace on bagpipes with a piper in full regalia for a son of the old sod.
My eldest is reading Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and shared a passage with me. Hemingway's narrator, the ambulance driver Lt. Henry, reflects on words "slapped up by billposters over other proclamations" and says of them:

"Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates."

Every time I visit Arlington National -- and all the more so with the pomp and circumstance of an officer's funeral -- I am struck by the homage paid to glory, honor and courage, and by the extent to which the site produces its own mythology.
The chapel serves to sacralize that mythology, and its stained glass windows -- created by the same studios that made the ones at Clarendon -- tell stories of military triumph on a Biblical scale, literally.
There is no space there for gentleness. There is no space there for peace.
My friend Art Laffin, a Catholic Worker in DC, speaking this week on the 29th anniversary of the assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero, paraphrased words that Romero spoke in a homily the day before his murder. Romero aimed his words at national guard troops who were "disappearing" Romero's people. Art updated Romero every so slightly:
"Brothers and sisters, you belong to God's global family, the human family. You kill and torture your own bothers and sisters. In the face of an order to kill and torture that is given by a man, the law of God prevails that says: 'Love one another' and 'do not kill.' No one is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin. Therefore, in the name of the victims of war, torture and military occupation, in the name of God: 'Cease the warmaking, cease the torture, cease the killing, cease the repression!'"
The language of Romero and that of Laffin -- faithful Catholics -- has no place amidst the language of honor, glory and courage. Which is sad and, come to think of it, a bit odd: after all, what could take more courage than standing up nonviolently to the Central American violence of the mid-1980s? What could be more honorable than giving one's life for others? What could glorify God more than such a faithful witness?
Art Laffin's remarks ended with this prayer. It is my prayer for this day:
Let us pray and work for an immediate end to US warmaking and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Let us pray and work for the immediate closing of Guantanamo where some 45 prisoners are presently on a hunger-strike, 25 of whom are on a critical list.
Let us pray and work for the immediate closing of Bagram US Air Base in Afghanistan where over 600 prisoners are being held without any rights and subject to brutal treatment and coercive interrogation.
Let us pray and work for an end to all US military intervention everywhere.
Let us pray and work for an end to US military assistance and training to countries that repress and kill, including Israel and Colombia.
Let us pray and work for the immediate disarmament and abolition of all nuclear weapons and every other kind of weapon, on earth and in space.
Let us pray and work for the creation of the Beloved Community, where all life and creation is revered as sacred.

Weighty Matters

Engaging in a spiritual discipline or practice for a season ought to bring with it some deeper awareness -- of self and of God. Perhaps that is being so for me this Lent, though I'm far from certain.
On the other hand, going to the doctor and standing on the well-calibrated scale absolutely brings about some certainty and awareness. In this case, awareness that I have been eating too much and exercising too little.
Oh, to be sure, I was dimly aware of this but it is easy to lie to one's self about such things even when you employ a house-hold scale as a truth-telling device. They are far too easy to recalibrate or to pretend about.
Why this reflection today, other than the obvious doctor's appointment first thing this morning?
Today's invitation is to read Matthew 3, which includes the story of Jesus' baptism, and to recall with thanksgiving our own baptism as a moment of cleansing, forgiveness and renewal.
Like a scale, water seeks its level. In baptism, we find a level place with God, and though our lives are so often out of balance, we can return to that still place of rest and balance. Remembering that we have been there and can return empowers us to live again out of that place.
If, as we've been suggesting throughout this season, we have an embodied faith, perhaps living again out of the place is also a step toward re-balancing that which is out of balance with bodies -- whether it's diet, exercise, addiction or disease that has disturbed the equilibrium.
As with so much, it is a matter of practice, of decision, of living moment by moment, of letting go and dying to old habits and paths of destruction, and rising up to something new. It is, despite the chill in the air, springtime. Time for rising and renewing.

Every Rung Goes Higher, Higher

The invitation yesterday began with reading the wonderful story of Jacob's angelic dream (Gen. 28: 10-22). The prayer exercise was beautiful, too. But I could never add to this.