Well, to begin with, nobody is asking me to do so and most who know me would be horrified at the though, but the scenario crossed my mind during a conversation yesterday about the possibility that Jesus was serious when he said that thing about loving enemies.
So, to begin again, I have neither the political profile to raise the $20 million it would cost to run a campaign, nor is that $20 million just lying around the house. But that's not why I won't run.
Sure, I have no experience in elected office, nor have I ever sought an office. Moreover, I haven’t spent years laboring away in the process for either major party, nor have I spent time serving on the staff of any office holder. But that's not why I won't run.
On top of those very good reasons, there’s no groundswell of public support clamoring for my participation in the process.
But none of that has stopped plenty of millionaires from ponying up for the experience. (Oh, right – I don’t have the millions.)
But even if I had the millions to create a campaign, I’d never run because I could never be taken seriously.
It’s not that I’m a pastor. There have been dozens of clergy persons who have been elected to the House and Senate over the years including the Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Robert Drinan, who was elected to Congress in 1970 as an outspoken critic of the war in Vietnam , the Rev. John Danforth, an Episcopal priest who served in the Senate for 20 years, and the Rev. William Hudnut III, a Presbyterian pastor who served in Congress in the early 70s and then was four-term mayor of Indianapolis. We Presbyterians are particular attached to the public witness of the Rev. John Witherspoon, who was the only active clergy person to sign the Declaration of Independence.
But even if I did not have clergy baggage to carry, I’d never run because I could never be taken seriously.
I do have some relevant experience, having spent 10 years working for the Council of State Governments, for whom I served as a senior policy manager and editor of numerous state policy publications. I actually am more than reasonably well informed on the issues of the day, and once upon a time wrote extensively on issues ranging from agriculture policy to ethics and campaign finance reform.
But despite having at least a decent understanding of the issues, I’d never run because I could never be taken seriously.
There are dozens of other good reasons why I, like all but about a dozen of 7.8 million* Virginians won’t be seeking the U.S. Senate seat that Jim Webb is vacating at the end of his term in the office. But non of them are the reason I won't run.
I won't run because I’d never be taken seriously. I'd never be taken seriously because if I ran for office I would have to confess that I seek to abolish war.
Imagine a candidate for major public office – or any public office, for that matter – stating that he or she seeks the office in part to pursue the end of war as a legitimate expression of national policy and power. One might get elected in certain small precincts to offices which don’t actually have anything to do with expressions of national policy and power -- mayor of Berkeley, perhaps, or of Woodstock. But gaining admission to the world’s most exclusive club while promising to seek the abolition of war? Impossible.
Even if one had all of the other necessary and desirable attributes that I am clearly lacking, and even if one had all of the money that I am also clearly lacking, not one of the 50 states would send you to the United States Senate.
We are a long, long way from the day when it will be possible to speak of the abolition of war in sophisticated circles and be taken at all seriously.
Of course, there was a time when the same thing would have been said about anyone who dared dream of the abolition of slavery.
Slavery, after all, was once broadly viewed as the perfectly natural order of the world. It was ordained by God and blessed by the Bible, and it had been practiced from the beginning of history. It was human nature. It was, plain and simple, the way things are, the way things had always been, and the way things would always be.
All of which is taken to be unalterably true of war today.
Sure, slavery still exists in the world, but nowhere is it legally practiced. Nowhere is it considered legitimate. War, of course, is not only legal and considered legitimate, it is still broadly celebrated. Our warriors are lionized, and often, as with Sen. Webb, elected to high office. War is the way things are, the way things have always been.
I dare to dream of a future otherwise.
Oh, go ahead and call me naïve. As we say where I grew up, I’ve been called worse by better.
All I know is that the abolitionists of slavery were right and all of those who called them naïve dreamers wound up on the wrong side of history.
The path to the end of slavery was long and difficult, and it included the tumult of war. The path to the end of war will be every bit as long and difficult, but its outlines reach out before us.
Martin Luther King loved to say that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. He borrowed the phrase from an abolitionist. Bending that arc today remains the chief task of those who would create a foundation of justice on which to build a world without war.
*OK, not all of those other 7.8 million people who live in the state are eligible to run. I’d guess that at least a million or two of them are either not 30 years old or haven’t been a U.S. citizen for at least nine years.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
@ # Revolution
My 20-year-old son asked me this week if I'd been following events from Egypt. I said that I'd been reading some of the news reports but that, in truth, I'd followed the news from Tunisia more closely.
We have good friends living in Tunis so we've seen regular updates on Facebook, including photographs our friends took from their front yard of neighbors pushing an SUV down the block. Turns out the vehicle belonged to a member of the hated security forces, and the man knew it would be a target of looters so he'd parked it blocks away from his own home. Of course, our friends' neighbors knew the same thing and they didn't want the thing in flames on their block either.
The path of great events turns on thousands of small moments such as that one, but most of those never make it into official news reports. Thus following the events through the virtual eyes of a friend is far more immediate and, frankly, more fun and interesting. So, I told our son, I know more about what's happened and is happening in Tunisia than in Egypt at the moment.
He's been following the news from Egypt fairly closely, though, and finding these first "internet-driven revolutions" particularly fascinating. In fact, he told me, he's been designing a two-person video game based on the events in Egypt. One of the key powers in the game belongs to the person playing the role of the state: the power to pull the plug on the internet.
Our son's response to these global events struck me as perfectly and profoundly suited to his generation of Americans. There's revolution in the streets? Let's make a video game out of it.
I noted this to him and he chuckled. He's joined me for more than his fair share of demonstrations over the years. In fact, he participated in his first anti-war march in utero in Chicago in the days immediately prior to the first invasion American invasion of Iraq in January, 1991. He's been to prayer vigils, peace witnesses and protest marches often during the ten years of the war on terror.
When asked why there are not mass marches in the street in America today, he notes all of the ones he's been in. And then notes the cold, hard fact that we're still engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq despite the hundreds of thousands of people who have turned out for demonstrations over all of those years.
Protest doesn't work, he says, in a refrain that is repeated a million times over among Americans of all ages these days whenever the spectre of taking it to the streets arises.
At the same time, the majority of Americans do not trust the nation's foundational democratic institutions. Only about a third of Americans place much trust in Congress, according to a Gallup poll last fall. The same poll showed that about 50 percent trust the executive branch. The judiciary fares a bit better, at 66 percent.
If government earns no trust and gets less respect, does business fare better? It depends upon what level of business. Americans don't trust big business any more than they trust Congress, according to Gallup research. Small business is far more trusted. Apparently, master Yoda was wrong: size does matter.
Despite such dismal numbers, even big business and Congress score better than American media. According to a Pew survey, less than 30 percent of Americans trust that news organizations will get the facts straight in reporting the news.
We trust Facebook more than we trust Fox News ... or ABC, CBS, CNN, and so on, at least, according to a Reuters report. But I didn't see that on Facebook, so it might not be true.
So, what's the connection between taking it to the streets -- or not -- and our general mistrust of large organizations and, more to the point, of democratic institutions and news organizations?
While there is certainly a strong case to be made that our relative affluence plays a significant role, the last three years have seen widespread economic anxiety and the financial and housing crises have harmed tens of millions of Americans.
Although there have been in the past year a few large demonstrations in the U.S. from the political Right and Left, the ones here in the seat of power have felt less like transformative political action and more like reality TV, tired political theater or court jesters in action.
In each case, a large crowd showed up for a Saturday event, enjoyed a show, left a large mess on the National Mall, and went home more or less happy. Nothing more than weekend traffic in DC was disrupted. Some ginned up emotions were released. (OK, some real anger resulted from Metro's failure to have enough trains running for the Stewart-Colbert event and tens of thousands -- including yours truly and family -- got stranded on platforms and missed the whole thing.) But nothing was changed, and, in truth, no one came expecting anything to change.
And by the Monday following, it was back to business as usual. Back to your lives, citizens, there is nothing to see here.
But in Tunis and Cairo there is no going back to business as usual. Crowds keep turning out, and not just on Saturdays. One government has already fallen, a second seems likely to go at any moment, and the wave is spreading into other Arab states.
Meanwhile, we continue to be engaged in wars in which the majority has long ago lost confidence and no longer supports, but antiwar demonstrations draw dozens not thousands, and college campuses are as quiet as midwinter snow. In fact, you can tweet up a snowball fight in Washington and draw more people than you can to a demonstration in front of the White House. It must still be true, as Paul Simon sung, that we can gather all the news we need from the weather report.
Millions of American families continue to struggle with unemployment and it may be an entire decade before the jobs picture returns to what it was before the crash. The crash cost retirees, collectively, billions of dollars as pension funds took major stock losses and hits from recession-caused early withdrawals.
One would think that the net effect of all of these losses coupled with record profits on Wall Street would be a lot of anger, but if there's anger out there it's only showing up in foreign media and on blogs.
Clearly, the challenges we face are huge, which brings me back around to the game my son is working on. He said it was pretty simple to design losing scenarios that would occur in the game when choices that the players could make led to unsustainable levels of violence. He was finding it much more difficult to design scenarios for victory.
War is hell. Times are hard. How do we win this game? I don't know, but if you're looking for signs of change that might point toward some answers, don't look here. The revolution will not be televised, but you can follow it on Facebook or Twitter at #revolution.
We have good friends living in Tunis so we've seen regular updates on Facebook, including photographs our friends took from their front yard of neighbors pushing an SUV down the block. Turns out the vehicle belonged to a member of the hated security forces, and the man knew it would be a target of looters so he'd parked it blocks away from his own home. Of course, our friends' neighbors knew the same thing and they didn't want the thing in flames on their block either.
The path of great events turns on thousands of small moments such as that one, but most of those never make it into official news reports. Thus following the events through the virtual eyes of a friend is far more immediate and, frankly, more fun and interesting. So, I told our son, I know more about what's happened and is happening in Tunisia than in Egypt at the moment.
He's been following the news from Egypt fairly closely, though, and finding these first "internet-driven revolutions" particularly fascinating. In fact, he told me, he's been designing a two-person video game based on the events in Egypt. One of the key powers in the game belongs to the person playing the role of the state: the power to pull the plug on the internet.
Our son's response to these global events struck me as perfectly and profoundly suited to his generation of Americans. There's revolution in the streets? Let's make a video game out of it.
I noted this to him and he chuckled. He's joined me for more than his fair share of demonstrations over the years. In fact, he participated in his first anti-war march in utero in Chicago in the days immediately prior to the first invasion American invasion of Iraq in January, 1991. He's been to prayer vigils, peace witnesses and protest marches often during the ten years of the war on terror.
When asked why there are not mass marches in the street in America today, he notes all of the ones he's been in. And then notes the cold, hard fact that we're still engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq despite the hundreds of thousands of people who have turned out for demonstrations over all of those years.
Protest doesn't work, he says, in a refrain that is repeated a million times over among Americans of all ages these days whenever the spectre of taking it to the streets arises.
At the same time, the majority of Americans do not trust the nation's foundational democratic institutions. Only about a third of Americans place much trust in Congress, according to a Gallup poll last fall. The same poll showed that about 50 percent trust the executive branch. The judiciary fares a bit better, at 66 percent.
If government earns no trust and gets less respect, does business fare better? It depends upon what level of business. Americans don't trust big business any more than they trust Congress, according to Gallup research. Small business is far more trusted. Apparently, master Yoda was wrong: size does matter.
Despite such dismal numbers, even big business and Congress score better than American media. According to a Pew survey, less than 30 percent of Americans trust that news organizations will get the facts straight in reporting the news.
We trust Facebook more than we trust Fox News ... or ABC, CBS, CNN, and so on, at least, according to a Reuters report. But I didn't see that on Facebook, so it might not be true.
So, what's the connection between taking it to the streets -- or not -- and our general mistrust of large organizations and, more to the point, of democratic institutions and news organizations?
While there is certainly a strong case to be made that our relative affluence plays a significant role, the last three years have seen widespread economic anxiety and the financial and housing crises have harmed tens of millions of Americans.
Although there have been in the past year a few large demonstrations in the U.S. from the political Right and Left, the ones here in the seat of power have felt less like transformative political action and more like reality TV, tired political theater or court jesters in action.
In each case, a large crowd showed up for a Saturday event, enjoyed a show, left a large mess on the National Mall, and went home more or less happy. Nothing more than weekend traffic in DC was disrupted. Some ginned up emotions were released. (OK, some real anger resulted from Metro's failure to have enough trains running for the Stewart-Colbert event and tens of thousands -- including yours truly and family -- got stranded on platforms and missed the whole thing.) But nothing was changed, and, in truth, no one came expecting anything to change.
And by the Monday following, it was back to business as usual. Back to your lives, citizens, there is nothing to see here.
But in Tunis and Cairo there is no going back to business as usual. Crowds keep turning out, and not just on Saturdays. One government has already fallen, a second seems likely to go at any moment, and the wave is spreading into other Arab states.
Meanwhile, we continue to be engaged in wars in which the majority has long ago lost confidence and no longer supports, but antiwar demonstrations draw dozens not thousands, and college campuses are as quiet as midwinter snow. In fact, you can tweet up a snowball fight in Washington and draw more people than you can to a demonstration in front of the White House. It must still be true, as Paul Simon sung, that we can gather all the news we need from the weather report.
Millions of American families continue to struggle with unemployment and it may be an entire decade before the jobs picture returns to what it was before the crash. The crash cost retirees, collectively, billions of dollars as pension funds took major stock losses and hits from recession-caused early withdrawals.
One would think that the net effect of all of these losses coupled with record profits on Wall Street would be a lot of anger, but if there's anger out there it's only showing up in foreign media and on blogs.
Clearly, the challenges we face are huge, which brings me back around to the game my son is working on. He said it was pretty simple to design losing scenarios that would occur in the game when choices that the players could make led to unsustainable levels of violence. He was finding it much more difficult to design scenarios for victory.
War is hell. Times are hard. How do we win this game? I don't know, but if you're looking for signs of change that might point toward some answers, don't look here. The revolution will not be televised, but you can follow it on Facebook or Twitter at #revolution.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Trouble With Icons
We’ve put “the Dream” back on the shelf for another year, and we can let Martin Luther King, Jr. rest in peace again at least until this August, when the huge, official monument to him will be dedicated along the edge of the Tidal Basin in D.C., facing across the water at the slave holding President Jefferson. I can’t quite imagine that this was what King had in mind when he spoke of the sons of formers slaves and the sons of former slave holders sitting across from one another.
Of course, there’s a great deal that King probably never dreamed of that has happened to his image and memory. That’s what happens when you become an icon.
During this year’s King Day remembrances alone, Dr. King’s memory has been brought to the defense of the Defense Department and to the offense of homophobia.
DoD general counsel Jeh C. Johnson, in a speech last Saturday, said, “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.”
At a King Day event outside of Chicago, David E. Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, laid claim to King’s legacy on behalf of those who oppose equal rights protections for sexual minorities.
"Martin Luther King was first a minister of God," said Smith. As such, Smith argued, King wouldn’t have supported “immorality.”
Reading these stories brought to mind John Calvin’s attacks on iconography. Calvin hated icons, and he called some who defended images of God and of the saints “raving madmen.” “What, indeed, I beg you, did those paltry little images mean? Solely that images are not suited to represent God’s mysteries” (Institutes 1.11.3).
For Calvin, the problem with icons was that they could not begin to represent mysteries that are fundamentally beyond human comprehension. No icon adequately represents the mysteries of God. For Calvin, only Jesus the Christ could suffice, and him known through scripture alone.
For those of us steeped in the tradition of Calvin, the problem with icons is their silence. Mary, the bearer of God, stares silently at us from her image. She ponders things silently in her heart, even now. This question would probably be perceived far differently by those who have learned to listen to the language of icons. To the Orthodox faithful, Mary speaks.
Dr. King has become our American icon, if not an American Idol. His image is being carved in stone, at this very moment. One imagines quite easily that by this time next year there will be public gatherings on King Day at the King Memorial, and it is not difficult to imagine all kinds of words being put into the mouth of stone in the face that will stare out silently over Washington.Ironically, King has become an icon precisely because of his speech. Though he is remembered too often for a single speech, he made thousands of speeches in his preaching life, and many, if not most, of them were recorded. The icon still speaks in a language that most of us still understand not yet a half century removed.
Some things have not changed much. During this 50th anniversary year of Dwight Eisenhower’s famous farewell address decrying the power of the military-industrial complex, the United States remains precisely what King called it in April of 1967: “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”
In that same speech – indeed, in almost the same breath – King noted that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded him carried with it responsibilities that superseded the security of any one nation, even his own. Moreover, he went on, his calling to Christian ministry demanded concern even for those deemed enemies of his nation.
“To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?”
How difficult is it, honestly, to substitute Iraqi, Afghani, Talibani and even bin Laden, for Vietcong, Castro and Mao? In this case, the man seems to speak before the silence of the icon, no matter what words lawyers for the Defense Department would put in the stone mouth.
But, with the same commitment to honesty, we must acknowledge that a half century presents a context foreign in many ways to the one King addressed. It is easy enough to say that King, who knew well that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” would have championed the cause of sexual minorities. After all, King’s close advisor, Bayard Rustin, architect of the March on Washington, was a gay man. After all, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, spoke eloquently on behalf of gays and lesbians. It seems obvious that King would have embraced the cause as well. It seems. But that is all, because the man was silent on the subject and the icon does not speak.
That is the problem with icons. It’s what always bothered me about the once ubiquitous W.W.J.D. bracelets. What would Jesus do? Who knows? He’s not here to do it. W.W.M.S. What would Martin say? Who knows? He’s not here to say it.
For good Reformed Protestants, though, those must be the wrong questions, because we do not speak – or hear – the language of icons. Thus we cannot be faithful, as we understand faithfulness, by lifting up an icon … and bringing it down on an opponent’s head. That is to say, invoking King to win an argument is no more helpful than citing scripture in the same context. It’s really not that different than following Godwin’s Law – reductio ad Hitlerum in any on-line discussion – but with a nicer conversation killer.
The far more difficult path comes in trying to learn the art of listening for the voice of the saint in the icon, and then living out his wisdom in a context that would be foreign to him. That is to say, if you believe, as I do, that King – following Jesus – would extend love, welcome, and embrace to his GLBT neighbor, then go and do likewise. If you believe that King – following Jesus – would oppose the ongoing wars of our nation, then go and do likewise.
In the meanwhile, let the icon rest in peace … at least until August.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Reflections on the Rampage
Every time someone commits a rampage killing my mind turns back to the Friday after Easter, 2000. We lived in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and our sons were in elementary school. With our infant daughter in tow, we picked the boys up after school and were advised to go directly home because there were police reports of a shooting in the area.
At home just a few minutes later the phone rang, and it was the senior pastor at the church where I was an associate pastor. He informed me that he was at the home of church members whose 34-year-old son had been arrested following a shooting spree that left five people dead and another grievously wounded. Over the course of the next several hours the story unfolded.
Richard Baumhammers, who had grown up in the church, graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School, and Kent State University (my alma mater) and gone on to finish law school, had gone on a shooting rampage targeting victims by their race, religion or ethnicity. Killed in the shootings were Anita Gordon, Baumhammers' 63-year-old neighbor; Ji-Ye Sun, 34, of Churchill; Anil Thukar, 31, of Bihar, India; Thao Q. Pham, 27, of Castle Shannon; and Garry Lee, 22, of Aliquippa. Sandip Patel, 32, of Plum, paralyzed by his wounds, died of complications from pneumonia Feb. 3, 2007.
In the church world, the Sunday after Easter is widely known as "low Sunday," and less affectionately known as "associate pastor Sunday." Clearly the sermon that I had written was not going to preach on that particular Sunday in that particular church.
I don't remember much about that Sunday at this point. We sang "A Balm in Gilead," and I may have called the sermon that. I quoted a scene from Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir, Night, in which one prisoner turns to another, after witnessing the execution of a child, and asks, "where is your God now?" There was a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on hand. It turned out that he was Jewish, and the Night reference was what struck him.
I recall reading his article in Monday's paper and thinking, of all the things I said, he quotes me quoting someone else? A preacher's ego would ask that question, expecting that his precious words would be remembered forever. I don't recall a single thing that I said at this point and I am certain no one else does either.
Which is a long way of getting to a provisional point: none of the back and forth of pundits and politicians and preachers in the aftermath of last week's tragic shooting in Arizona amounts to a hill of beans. None of it will be remembered ten months from now, much less ten years from now. The calls for civility will fade, the arguments about guns will continue and rarely be marked by civility, and someone else will pull the trigger in a crowded store or classroom or workplace.
And we will be searching again for some meaning to make of the violence. We are trapped in a cycle, and there is no simple way out.
But the dead will still be dead, the families still devastated, and, chances are quite good, the young man who caused all of this destruction will be no better understood than he is today. Given that he committed these killings in Arizona, where there have been 24 executions since 1976, rather than Pennsylvania, where there have been three, there's a reasonable chance that he will be dead, too.
I'll never meet Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old accused of firing 31 rounds from a single magazine of his Glock into the crowd last weekend in Tuscon. I did, however, spend a number of hours with Richard Baumhammers.
For about a year after he went on the rampage, I served as Richard's "religious adviser" while he was confined at the Allegheny County jail awaiting trial on five counts of murder. I did not see him until after he had spent several months in a secure mental health facility where they got his medications straight, so when I first met him he was perfectly lucid. He was, in fact, quite lawyerly as he laid out a perfectly rational argument for his actions.
Perfectly rational, that is, if you believed, as he clearly did, that the government was poisoning him, that the barista at the Starbucks was telling him to "kill a Jew," that the traffic pulling onto Banksville Road as he drove down it in the early morning was not merely behind him but was, in fact, following him, that his phone lines were tapped and his e-mail hacked and his right wing political agenda at risk of government takeover.
He described each of these "events" and more as he explained how he decided to do what he did. Government agents, disguised as businessmen and women in plain clothes, walked past him on the sidewalk in downtown Pittsburgh, and from secret compartments in their jackets they shot invisible poison darts into him to weaken him. His mail was filled with government messages imploring him to shoot black people. Government agents at Starbucks told him to kill Jews.
At first he planned only to develop a web site to garner support for his political agenda: returning America to its rightful leaders, white people, and getting rid of "third worlders," immigrants, blacks and Jews. If I remember correctly, there was some gold standard economics involved as well. He hoped to use the web site to launch a political career. Looking back now, I think he imagined himself as a Glenn Beck figure, though that was before Beck rose to prominence.
I don't recall how many times I met Richard, or how many hours I spent talking with him -- probably fewer than ten. I do recall how completely real and reasonable all of this seemed to him, and how crazy it sounded as I listened and watched an obviously intelligent man tell it. In his memory, those "events" were just a real as I was sitting across from him in the jail. I'd guess that they still are, and that his memory of them is more real to him than any memory he might still have of me. I have no qualifications to make any mental health diagnosis, but I know crazy when I see it.
Knowing him raised questions that continue to haunt me, and that come back to me each time someone in America goes on a killing spree:
Last year a judge in Pennsylvania indefinitely delayed the execution of Richard Baumhammers. The judge noted that he was "loathe" to enter the order, but that the law left him no choice. He said, "Part of our problem (with the criminal justice system) is that there seems to be no finality to it."
A bigger part of the problem in such a case is that there is no justice in it, either. Killing Richard Baumhammers will not bring back those that he killed, and, to a great extent, it will simply finish the one thing that Richard himself chickened out on nearly 11 years ago: his own death.
I am quite certain that he intended to commit "suicide by cop." He told me that when he imagined the killings that he committed, (and he had a more or less "reasonable" plan for that afternoon) that he imagined getting out of his Jeep, aiming his weapon over the heads of the police who would inevitably stop him and firing. But when the actual moment arrived he was too scared to do it, so he left the gun on the seat of his truck and surrendered quietly. To die now by lethal injection would simply be the fulfillment of Richard's one desire that made real sense: to put an end to an incredibly sad and meaningless life.
If justice involves balance how does it apply to someone who is fundamentally unbalanced? Where does one life taken for another leave the rest of us, in whose names, the life of someone like Richard Baumhammers or Jared Lee Loughner is taken?
Looking back across a decade so violent that an act like Richard's would probably not even make the front page of out-of-town papers today unless someone otherwise famous is involved, I'm left feeling that we are no closer to most of the changes that could be made to lessen the likelihood of such tragedies.
We remain in love with our guns and enthralled to a theology of redemptive violence. You do not have to read far down the comment threads in any post about the Arizona shootings to find someone suggesting that if only more people in that crowd had been carrying their own Glocks then everything would have turned out just fine. The same threads will also carry variations on "fry the fiend" as if the death sentence carried out somehow redeems us all. Violence will either save us or redeem us, and justice will flow from the barrel of our guns. Whatever comfort such justice provides is surely cold.
Intervention holds little that feels warmer. The stigma that surrounds serious mental illness remains a huge barrier to help for those who suffer such illnesses and to support for their families. I don't know what stories will be uncovered about the mental health history of Jared Lee Loughner, but I do know that Richard Baumhammers' mental illness was well known to his family. He had been in treatment and for years had prescriptions for antipsychotic medications that he was not taking in the spring of 2000 because he did not like the way they made him feel, he did not trust the doctors, and he did not think that he was sick. None of it was simple. None of it was easy. And there was precious little in the way of community support. Even though Richard had been in treatment, it was clear to me that the shame his family felt about his illness had consigned it to a deep dark closet where it lurked like a monster waiting to get out.
The politics of both of those unchanged realities remain incredibly difficult terrain. Public support for mental health services is, like everything else in local, state or federal budgets, constrained by current fiscal realities, and such support never tops the priorities list even when public coffers are flush. As for guns, any utterance of the phrase "gun control" immediately sends the American body politic into two separate, walled compounds between which no discourse is possible, and worthy efforts to reduce gun violence outside the construct of "gun control" are in their infancy.
We all want to make sense out of these spasms of violence. We'd like to be able to place blame, and thus make ourselves feel more secure in the hope that, if blame can be fixed then we can get to the root of the problem and solve it. But meaning itself is one of the victims of violence. In the absence of deep understanding we grasp for easy explanations, and find what comfort we can in them so that we can move beyond this moment and live our lives.
Perhaps what we need most is to not move on, to dwell in the darkness and pain long enough that we come to real understandings that lead to authentic healing. Perhaps we need to remain right here, with the seriously mentally ill until we can find compassion, with the victims of gun violence until we can find solidarity with their suffering, with our political opponents until we can see ourselves in their passion. It is far too soon to move on when we have not yet learned enough to recognize the present moment for what it is.
Richard Baumhammers remains on death row in Pennsylvania, confined to a 6.5- by 13-foot cell for 22 hours each day. We are all in that same cell.
At home just a few minutes later the phone rang, and it was the senior pastor at the church where I was an associate pastor. He informed me that he was at the home of church members whose 34-year-old son had been arrested following a shooting spree that left five people dead and another grievously wounded. Over the course of the next several hours the story unfolded.
Richard Baumhammers, who had grown up in the church, graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School, and Kent State University (my alma mater) and gone on to finish law school, had gone on a shooting rampage targeting victims by their race, religion or ethnicity. Killed in the shootings were Anita Gordon, Baumhammers' 63-year-old neighbor; Ji-Ye Sun, 34, of Churchill; Anil Thukar, 31, of Bihar, India; Thao Q. Pham, 27, of Castle Shannon; and Garry Lee, 22, of Aliquippa. Sandip Patel, 32, of Plum, paralyzed by his wounds, died of complications from pneumonia Feb. 3, 2007.
In the church world, the Sunday after Easter is widely known as "low Sunday," and less affectionately known as "associate pastor Sunday." Clearly the sermon that I had written was not going to preach on that particular Sunday in that particular church.
I don't remember much about that Sunday at this point. We sang "A Balm in Gilead," and I may have called the sermon that. I quoted a scene from Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir, Night, in which one prisoner turns to another, after witnessing the execution of a child, and asks, "where is your God now?" There was a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on hand. It turned out that he was Jewish, and the Night reference was what struck him.
I recall reading his article in Monday's paper and thinking, of all the things I said, he quotes me quoting someone else? A preacher's ego would ask that question, expecting that his precious words would be remembered forever. I don't recall a single thing that I said at this point and I am certain no one else does either.
Which is a long way of getting to a provisional point: none of the back and forth of pundits and politicians and preachers in the aftermath of last week's tragic shooting in Arizona amounts to a hill of beans. None of it will be remembered ten months from now, much less ten years from now. The calls for civility will fade, the arguments about guns will continue and rarely be marked by civility, and someone else will pull the trigger in a crowded store or classroom or workplace.
And we will be searching again for some meaning to make of the violence. We are trapped in a cycle, and there is no simple way out.
But the dead will still be dead, the families still devastated, and, chances are quite good, the young man who caused all of this destruction will be no better understood than he is today. Given that he committed these killings in Arizona, where there have been 24 executions since 1976, rather than Pennsylvania, where there have been three, there's a reasonable chance that he will be dead, too.
I'll never meet Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old accused of firing 31 rounds from a single magazine of his Glock into the crowd last weekend in Tuscon. I did, however, spend a number of hours with Richard Baumhammers.
For about a year after he went on the rampage, I served as Richard's "religious adviser" while he was confined at the Allegheny County jail awaiting trial on five counts of murder. I did not see him until after he had spent several months in a secure mental health facility where they got his medications straight, so when I first met him he was perfectly lucid. He was, in fact, quite lawyerly as he laid out a perfectly rational argument for his actions.
Perfectly rational, that is, if you believed, as he clearly did, that the government was poisoning him, that the barista at the Starbucks was telling him to "kill a Jew," that the traffic pulling onto Banksville Road as he drove down it in the early morning was not merely behind him but was, in fact, following him, that his phone lines were tapped and his e-mail hacked and his right wing political agenda at risk of government takeover.
He described each of these "events" and more as he explained how he decided to do what he did. Government agents, disguised as businessmen and women in plain clothes, walked past him on the sidewalk in downtown Pittsburgh, and from secret compartments in their jackets they shot invisible poison darts into him to weaken him. His mail was filled with government messages imploring him to shoot black people. Government agents at Starbucks told him to kill Jews.
At first he planned only to develop a web site to garner support for his political agenda: returning America to its rightful leaders, white people, and getting rid of "third worlders," immigrants, blacks and Jews. If I remember correctly, there was some gold standard economics involved as well. He hoped to use the web site to launch a political career. Looking back now, I think he imagined himself as a Glenn Beck figure, though that was before Beck rose to prominence.
I don't recall how many times I met Richard, or how many hours I spent talking with him -- probably fewer than ten. I do recall how completely real and reasonable all of this seemed to him, and how crazy it sounded as I listened and watched an obviously intelligent man tell it. In his memory, those "events" were just a real as I was sitting across from him in the jail. I'd guess that they still are, and that his memory of them is more real to him than any memory he might still have of me. I have no qualifications to make any mental health diagnosis, but I know crazy when I see it.
Knowing him raised questions that continue to haunt me, and that come back to me each time someone in America goes on a killing spree:
What does in mean to be "responsible" when you cannot be rational?
How does society hold someone accountable when they have done horrible things, but when they are also clearly seriously, desperately ill and their ability to make rational decisions is so clearly impaired by their illness?
What is the meaning of "justice" in such cases?
What role in the decision-making process of a mentally ill person does the cultural context play?
Last year a judge in Pennsylvania indefinitely delayed the execution of Richard Baumhammers. The judge noted that he was "loathe" to enter the order, but that the law left him no choice. He said, "Part of our problem (with the criminal justice system) is that there seems to be no finality to it."
A bigger part of the problem in such a case is that there is no justice in it, either. Killing Richard Baumhammers will not bring back those that he killed, and, to a great extent, it will simply finish the one thing that Richard himself chickened out on nearly 11 years ago: his own death.
I am quite certain that he intended to commit "suicide by cop." He told me that when he imagined the killings that he committed, (and he had a more or less "reasonable" plan for that afternoon) that he imagined getting out of his Jeep, aiming his weapon over the heads of the police who would inevitably stop him and firing. But when the actual moment arrived he was too scared to do it, so he left the gun on the seat of his truck and surrendered quietly. To die now by lethal injection would simply be the fulfillment of Richard's one desire that made real sense: to put an end to an incredibly sad and meaningless life.
If justice involves balance how does it apply to someone who is fundamentally unbalanced? Where does one life taken for another leave the rest of us, in whose names, the life of someone like Richard Baumhammers or Jared Lee Loughner is taken?
Looking back across a decade so violent that an act like Richard's would probably not even make the front page of out-of-town papers today unless someone otherwise famous is involved, I'm left feeling that we are no closer to most of the changes that could be made to lessen the likelihood of such tragedies.
We remain in love with our guns and enthralled to a theology of redemptive violence. You do not have to read far down the comment threads in any post about the Arizona shootings to find someone suggesting that if only more people in that crowd had been carrying their own Glocks then everything would have turned out just fine. The same threads will also carry variations on "fry the fiend" as if the death sentence carried out somehow redeems us all. Violence will either save us or redeem us, and justice will flow from the barrel of our guns. Whatever comfort such justice provides is surely cold.
Intervention holds little that feels warmer. The stigma that surrounds serious mental illness remains a huge barrier to help for those who suffer such illnesses and to support for their families. I don't know what stories will be uncovered about the mental health history of Jared Lee Loughner, but I do know that Richard Baumhammers' mental illness was well known to his family. He had been in treatment and for years had prescriptions for antipsychotic medications that he was not taking in the spring of 2000 because he did not like the way they made him feel, he did not trust the doctors, and he did not think that he was sick. None of it was simple. None of it was easy. And there was precious little in the way of community support. Even though Richard had been in treatment, it was clear to me that the shame his family felt about his illness had consigned it to a deep dark closet where it lurked like a monster waiting to get out.
The politics of both of those unchanged realities remain incredibly difficult terrain. Public support for mental health services is, like everything else in local, state or federal budgets, constrained by current fiscal realities, and such support never tops the priorities list even when public coffers are flush. As for guns, any utterance of the phrase "gun control" immediately sends the American body politic into two separate, walled compounds between which no discourse is possible, and worthy efforts to reduce gun violence outside the construct of "gun control" are in their infancy.
We all want to make sense out of these spasms of violence. We'd like to be able to place blame, and thus make ourselves feel more secure in the hope that, if blame can be fixed then we can get to the root of the problem and solve it. But meaning itself is one of the victims of violence. In the absence of deep understanding we grasp for easy explanations, and find what comfort we can in them so that we can move beyond this moment and live our lives.
Perhaps what we need most is to not move on, to dwell in the darkness and pain long enough that we come to real understandings that lead to authentic healing. Perhaps we need to remain right here, with the seriously mentally ill until we can find compassion, with the victims of gun violence until we can find solidarity with their suffering, with our political opponents until we can see ourselves in their passion. It is far too soon to move on when we have not yet learned enough to recognize the present moment for what it is.
Richard Baumhammers remains on death row in Pennsylvania, confined to a 6.5- by 13-foot cell for 22 hours each day. We are all in that same cell.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Beauty Close to Home
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few thousand from my front yard last month. Enjoy.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Epiphanies
Here's a poem for today ...
These things are not the same --
hope and longing
listening for the sound of green shoots
pushing up through frozen soil
remembering my sons
as I watch two little boys with their dad at the Target
wanting to shoot hoops on aging knees
when I catch a stale breeze
while walking past a gym doorway.
I'm trying to remember what the old school looked like
back before the new one.
When they say, "I want my country back"
is this what they feel?
These things are not the same --
hope and longing
listening for the sound of green shoots
pushing up through frozen soil
remembering my sons
as I watch two little boys with their dad at the Target
wanting to shoot hoops on aging knees
when I catch a stale breeze
while walking past a gym doorway.
I'm trying to remember what the old school looked like
back before the new one.
When they say, "I want my country back"
is this what they feel?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Happy Christmas
Friends,
In the age of Facebooks and blogs and other social media to call someone “friend” means, what, precisely? An encounter – a chance – that brings a click of a virtual “button” that creates an ephemeral connection across wires and waves of electricity, and leaves a name in a list of hundreds or thousands of other names and changes nothing, really? Is that what it means to be “friends”?
For some of us, that will suffice, and nothing more is needed. For others, “social network” describes but a small part of relationship, and “friend” points to some deeper way of relating across time and distance. To address an utterly open note to “friends” likely names addressees of both extremes and various places along a continuum of friendship.
Wherever you place yourself in relation to we happy few Lederle/Ensigns, may this holiday note find you enjoying a grace-filled season of light and hope, joy and peace. What else are friends for, other than holding one another together in light and hope, joy and peace, no matter the season or circumstance, and it takes friends like you for the living of these days.
2010. Wow. Snowpacalypse … record heat wave … an earthquake. In metro DC, 2010 merits at least an “I survived …” t-shirt. Throw in the lunar eclipse on a beautiful clear winter solstice night and we’re verging on a year of Biblical proportions in our little corner of the world.
Oddly enough, while all of these actually newsworthy things were going on all around us, the Lederle-Ensign household enjoyed no particularly newsworthy moments. It remains true that, like Lake Woebegone, the men here are good looking, the women are strong and, of course, all of the children are above average! And, it’s been, all things considered, a quiet year here in our Lake Woebegone.
The very strong Mom and the good-looking Dad remain happily, gainfully employed, and certainly aware that such is not to be taken for granted in these or any days. The above average kids remain more or less happily engaged in also above average schools, although the kids are only marginally aware that such is also not to be taken for granted. The great blessing of childhood remains being blissfully unaware that such things as decent schools are rare and precious. The journey into adulthood is the growing awareness, and the journey into responsible adulthood is the deepening commitment to make such simple things less rare. The deepest joy of parenting is watching children grow into just such living, and that joy has been the highlight of this year for us.
The closest to newsworthy any of our lives got this year was probably the big news that Hannah became a middle schooler, and that Mom and Dad have officially completed the raising of elementary school children! As with most middle schoolers, Hannah is expanding her horizons considerably. She has started running at school, and joined Dad and Bud in completing a 5-mile Turkey Trot run on Thanksgiving morning. She also ran a 5k with her Girls on the Run group at school. She continues to play her flute, and made the Arlington County 6th grade honors band. The biggest news, though, in Hannah’s life is that her best, best, best friend in the all the world, Josie, is coming home from Tunisia in a few months and will be stateside for an entire school year. We look forward to endless middle school girl sleepovers. Please keep us in your prayers!
Speaking of your prayers, Martin is going to be driving in the new year. Actually, we are looking forward to that a bit. Can you say, “little sister taxi”? Of course, that would mean that Martin can find time between school, orchestra rehearsals, mandolin playing, drawing, and swim team … oh, and girlfriend. Apparently Mom and Dad are not the only ones who find Martin adorable with his long, curly locks, ready grin and exceptionally quick wit. He is half way through his junior year, and has decided that the good looks and quick wit alone may not get him where he wants to go, so he has become a much more focused student this fall. Part of that focus will be a 10-day Spanish immersion experience in Costa Rica in mid-January … which, apart from the language studying part, sounds pretty heavenly just about now. Martin is beginning to think about what comes next, and it’s a whole lot of fun to listen and watch as he ponders and sorts.
Bud, who outside of the family has finally grown into his given name – Dylan – is, as his sister says, “an interesting boy.” More accurately, he has grown from an interesting boy into an interesting young man. He’s on track to graduate from Mary Washington in the spring of 2012 – a full year ahead of his class – and he’s busy making grad school and Peace Corps plans. He and three friends share an on campus apartment in a brand new MW facility that is waaaaayyyy nicer than anything his parents ever lived in through all of our school – full kitchen, marble countertops, oven, microwave, dishwasher, 2 baths. Oh, and each of the guys has a girlfriend who lives in the same building. He is living the good life, and has the good sense and grace to recognize it. He continues to enjoy the academic side of school as well, and is holding down an on campus tech support job and playing on the school’s club ultimate Frisbee team.
It is altogether fitting that the descriptions of our kids’ lives grow longer, richer and fuller year by year, and it is probably no surprise that the descriptions of our own grow increasingly familiar. Cheryl continues to love her work as an education outreach specialist at the Library of Congress and I still love serving the little congregation at Clarendon. She’s been at the library for more than seven years now, and I’ve been at Clarendon for seven and a half. She keeps teaching and I keep preaching, and as often as time and weather permit we’ll sit on our front porch at the end of the day, sip a glass of good wine, watch the sunset, and drink to the rich simplicity of our lives.
There is much to be said for living in the same house long enough to plant a tree and watch it grow taller than the house, though I never thought that I’d be the one saying it. On the other hand, each of us plants seeds everywhere we go, whether we intend to or not. At our best, we tend to them and something beautiful grows. We gave our older kids and our older nieces Kiva dollars to make microloans, and the cards carry this reminder: it is not naïve to believe that you cannot change the world; it is naïve to believe that you don’t. The only question is, will you be intentional about the changes that you make?
It is through the compassion and love of friends that we find the power to make the changes that we want to make in the world. Thank you for being such friends.
Peace,
David, Cheryl, Bud, Martin and Hannah. Christmas, 2010.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Build Me an Ark
In times of despair and hopelessness folks turn to all kinds of things, but building an ark? Well, not exactly, I suppose, but some Biblical literalists with more money than good sense are planning an ark-based theme park in Kentucky. They have raised a small fraction of their expected costs and are seeking financial aid from the cash-strapped commonwealth of Kentucky.
What is it with ark builders and funding? We regularly drive across I-68 in the panhandle of Maryland, and alongside that road you can find the steel-beamed skeleton of an ark that has been rusting there for years. That project began, so the story goes, with a dream back in 1974.
The historical contexts are certainly not identical, but 1974 was, like today, a time of political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and seemingly endless war. In such moments, curling up in an ark while all of the messiness of the world gets washed away can seem like a fine idea.
I've never had dreams of an ark, but reading this morning that the Unabomber's land -- 1.4 "secluded" acres in western Montana -- is on the market did give me pause to consider the prospects of "getting away from it all."
Alas, I am not a Biblical literalist nor a member of any sect of withdrawal. I still hear Isaiah's call to repair the breach and restore the city's streets to live in, and I hear in that the call to serve where I am with what I've got. Still, a boat would be nice.
What is it with ark builders and funding? We regularly drive across I-68 in the panhandle of Maryland, and alongside that road you can find the steel-beamed skeleton of an ark that has been rusting there for years. That project began, so the story goes, with a dream back in 1974.
The historical contexts are certainly not identical, but 1974 was, like today, a time of political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and seemingly endless war. In such moments, curling up in an ark while all of the messiness of the world gets washed away can seem like a fine idea.
I've never had dreams of an ark, but reading this morning that the Unabomber's land -- 1.4 "secluded" acres in western Montana -- is on the market did give me pause to consider the prospects of "getting away from it all."
Alas, I am not a Biblical literalist nor a member of any sect of withdrawal. I still hear Isaiah's call to repair the breach and restore the city's streets to live in, and I hear in that the call to serve where I am with what I've got. Still, a boat would be nice.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Giving Thanks
I don't often post stuff from Sunday mornings on this blog, but this just seems appropriate to this holiday week. I offer it here with the invitation to try is: sit down with pen and paper or keyboard and screen, set a timer for 10 minutes, and just write what you are thankful for. Here's my list, which was offered as a prayer/meditation yesterday morning at Clarendon.
Thanks. How many things can I be thankful for in 10 minutes, while sitting at Busboys sipping mocha?
To begin with: coffee and toast and a friendly waiter in a warm, bright space on a cold, sunny morning. Then, of course, the sunshine, always, because I don’t like the gray.
Thanksgiving interrupted by sneezing brings me to give thanks for generally good health.
Fresh butter … and the cows and the farmers and the land. If thanks for the cows, then thanks, of course, for the rest of the creatures. Surely, then, for the way that creation sustains us with abundant food.
The cooing baby behind me. Thanks for her. And, first of all, of course, thanks for my babies now well on the way to grown up. Thanks so much for their mom, my love.
Ooops. A few crumbs fall. I’m thankful they do not fall in the keyboard of the laptop. So, almost at once, thanks for living in this time of incredible invention and innovation, and thanks for my parents who taught me the good manners – among so many other things – that ensure that I have a napkin in my lap so my jeans don’t get smeared with jelly. Thanks for blue jeans.
That leads down two threads:
Thanks for Levi Strauss, and for his cousin Claude Levi Strauss, the French structuralist philosopher and sociologist of the 20th century whose work was foundational for the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida whose work sparked my own philosophical imagination so many years ago and back in dissertation days.
But more than that, just thanks for blue jeans, and for the gift of a life that allows me to live, mostly, in jeans. Thanks so much for a congregation that allows me to be myself, in my blue jeans, and not to have to pretend that I am something other than what I am. That is to say, thanks for being a people who really get it, and understand that “reverend” is a noun that names a position in the church not an adjective describing the one who holds the position.
Thanks for each of you. Whether you are here for the first time this morning or if you’ve been part of this community for half century or more, thanks for you. Thanks for your faithfulness, your compassion, your kindness to each other and to all of my family, your love, your imagination, your joy, your intelligence, your passion, your generosity with time, talents and treasure, your creativity, your willingness to be honest and to hold me accountable to the best of what we are and who I am and what we can be together, your patience with my inattention to details, and your attention to them, your grace, your willingness to take risks and to bless me when I do so in the public square.
Thanks for that public square and the myriad opportunities it holds for us to serve our sisters and brothers, to witness to justice and peace, to speak truth to power.
Thanks for the gift of voices, and thanks for the courage to use them. Thanks for breath. For the laughter that causes us to lose our breath. Thanks for song, and music, and rhythm and dance.
Thanks for the Lord of the Dance, the one in whom we live and breathe and move and have our being, the one in whom all things come to be, the one to whom we offer this simple word: thanks.
Thanks. How many things can I be thankful for in 10 minutes, while sitting at Busboys sipping mocha?
To begin with: coffee and toast and a friendly waiter in a warm, bright space on a cold, sunny morning. Then, of course, the sunshine, always, because I don’t like the gray.
Thanksgiving interrupted by sneezing brings me to give thanks for generally good health.
Fresh butter … and the cows and the farmers and the land. If thanks for the cows, then thanks, of course, for the rest of the creatures. Surely, then, for the way that creation sustains us with abundant food.
The cooing baby behind me. Thanks for her. And, first of all, of course, thanks for my babies now well on the way to grown up. Thanks so much for their mom, my love.
Ooops. A few crumbs fall. I’m thankful they do not fall in the keyboard of the laptop. So, almost at once, thanks for living in this time of incredible invention and innovation, and thanks for my parents who taught me the good manners – among so many other things – that ensure that I have a napkin in my lap so my jeans don’t get smeared with jelly. Thanks for blue jeans.
That leads down two threads:
Thanks for Levi Strauss, and for his cousin Claude Levi Strauss, the French structuralist philosopher and sociologist of the 20th century whose work was foundational for the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida whose work sparked my own philosophical imagination so many years ago and back in dissertation days.
But more than that, just thanks for blue jeans, and for the gift of a life that allows me to live, mostly, in jeans. Thanks so much for a congregation that allows me to be myself, in my blue jeans, and not to have to pretend that I am something other than what I am. That is to say, thanks for being a people who really get it, and understand that “reverend” is a noun that names a position in the church not an adjective describing the one who holds the position.
Thanks for each of you. Whether you are here for the first time this morning or if you’ve been part of this community for half century or more, thanks for you. Thanks for your faithfulness, your compassion, your kindness to each other and to all of my family, your love, your imagination, your joy, your intelligence, your passion, your generosity with time, talents and treasure, your creativity, your willingness to be honest and to hold me accountable to the best of what we are and who I am and what we can be together, your patience with my inattention to details, and your attention to them, your grace, your willingness to take risks and to bless me when I do so in the public square.
Thanks for that public square and the myriad opportunities it holds for us to serve our sisters and brothers, to witness to justice and peace, to speak truth to power.
Thanks for the gift of voices, and thanks for the courage to use them. Thanks for breath. For the laughter that causes us to lose our breath. Thanks for song, and music, and rhythm and dance.
Thanks for the Lord of the Dance, the one in whom we live and breathe and move and have our being, the one in whom all things come to be, the one to whom we offer this simple word: thanks.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Chasing Tales
I had lunch today with a group of Presbyterian clergy colleagues. It's a group of good folks that gets together once a month, and I always enjoy breaking bread with them. Today the gathering included three retired pastors and four of us still "laboring in the vineyards." We tend to be more liberal than conservative, but we do come from a different points on the theological spectrum and have a fairly broad variety of church experience.
Still, we can be counted on to wind up most months talking about the crisis of the church in our time. To be sure, we don't usually talk about it in all caps: The Crisis of the Church In Our Time. It's usually more shop talk: combining two worship services for the summer in one congregation; replacing a long-time church musician in another; a sabbatical plan of one colleague; another colleague moving on to a new call.
But in all of those stories the context of crisis bubbles up, and every tale of church life becomes, at some point, a tale about what church is these days and what it isn't.
I'd love to lie and say that we have come up with answers to those questions, but we simply part with hugs and best wishes and head back to our posts to keep on doing what we do.
For me, this afternoon, it's putting the finishing touches on the annual stewardship mailing to the congregation I serve, and then heading off to a Presbytery meeting.
The letter will say, among a lot of other stuff, that the way we spend our time is, of course, the way we spend our lives. But more to the point, the way we spend our money is the way make judgments about what is and is not important in those lives.
I spend so much of my time tending to the institution of the church. I suppose it is indisputably the case that for the past 15 years or so that is the way I have spent my life. Outside of the care and feeding of our children, and the housing of us all, the church has also been the chief beneficiary of our spending, as well.
I wonder about these choices all the time, and never more so than following conversations about the crisis of the church in our time, my time. I told the congregation at Clarendon a few weeks ago that I do not want to spend my time writing funeral dirges for a dying church. I did not mean this congregation, but rather the entire enterprise of church in North America.
Nevertheless, when I look at my calendar and my check ledger it's clear that I cannot tell my own story apart from the story of the church.
None of this is the least bit surprising considering my vocation, but it does mean that I only really have access to the insider's point of view. Crises require more than that limited perspective. And while good church stories are required, they are not enough for the day.
But that's all I'm going to get today, because now it's time to go to that Presbytery meeting. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. What's yours?
Still, we can be counted on to wind up most months talking about the crisis of the church in our time. To be sure, we don't usually talk about it in all caps: The Crisis of the Church In Our Time. It's usually more shop talk: combining two worship services for the summer in one congregation; replacing a long-time church musician in another; a sabbatical plan of one colleague; another colleague moving on to a new call.
But in all of those stories the context of crisis bubbles up, and every tale of church life becomes, at some point, a tale about what church is these days and what it isn't.
I'd love to lie and say that we have come up with answers to those questions, but we simply part with hugs and best wishes and head back to our posts to keep on doing what we do.
For me, this afternoon, it's putting the finishing touches on the annual stewardship mailing to the congregation I serve, and then heading off to a Presbytery meeting.
The letter will say, among a lot of other stuff, that the way we spend our time is, of course, the way we spend our lives. But more to the point, the way we spend our money is the way make judgments about what is and is not important in those lives.
I spend so much of my time tending to the institution of the church. I suppose it is indisputably the case that for the past 15 years or so that is the way I have spent my life. Outside of the care and feeding of our children, and the housing of us all, the church has also been the chief beneficiary of our spending, as well.
I wonder about these choices all the time, and never more so than following conversations about the crisis of the church in our time, my time. I told the congregation at Clarendon a few weeks ago that I do not want to spend my time writing funeral dirges for a dying church. I did not mean this congregation, but rather the entire enterprise of church in North America.
Nevertheless, when I look at my calendar and my check ledger it's clear that I cannot tell my own story apart from the story of the church.
None of this is the least bit surprising considering my vocation, but it does mean that I only really have access to the insider's point of view. Crises require more than that limited perspective. And while good church stories are required, they are not enough for the day.
But that's all I'm going to get today, because now it's time to go to that Presbytery meeting. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. What's yours?
Friday, November 12, 2010
Things I Never Thought I'd Hear a Quaker Say
OK, this is not a long list because, well, this is not a category I've ever given a lot of thought to until this morning when I heard a J.E. McNeil, a Quaker attorney who has served for more than a decade as director of the Center on Conscience and War, was speaking about the legal strategy for creating selective conscientious objection in the U.S. Military, and she said,
"The Second Amendment is my favorite amendment to the Constitution."
That's just not something I ever thought I'd hear a Quaker say.
She went on to explain that the thing about Constitutionally protected rights is that just as we are given a positive right to engage in the protected activity we are given the right not to, as well. Therefore, just as I have a right to bear arms, I also have a Constitutionally protected right not to bear arms.
Indeed, as McNeil explained, Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights explicitly contained that provision in the Second Amendment, but the Congress rejected it because they feared it would interfere with the well-regulated militia. (Incidentally, this small bit of history gives the lie to the contemporary position that the Framers intended the right to bear arms as an individual one, but that's a story for another day ... and another Supreme Court, alas.)
Madison was willing to make the compromise because he believed that the right of conscientious objection would be subsequently enshrined in the law, but more than 200 years later U.S. law still contains no such provisions.
Our troops are called upon to protect our freedoms, we are told so often, including the freedom of conscience, but they have no such freedom of conscience themselves once they sign up. It really shouldn't take a Quaker to point out the irony, and to do so by way of the Second Amendment, well that deserves an irony medal.
"The Second Amendment is my favorite amendment to the Constitution."
That's just not something I ever thought I'd hear a Quaker say.
She went on to explain that the thing about Constitutionally protected rights is that just as we are given a positive right to engage in the protected activity we are given the right not to, as well. Therefore, just as I have a right to bear arms, I also have a Constitutionally protected right not to bear arms.
Indeed, as McNeil explained, Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights explicitly contained that provision in the Second Amendment, but the Congress rejected it because they feared it would interfere with the well-regulated militia. (Incidentally, this small bit of history gives the lie to the contemporary position that the Framers intended the right to bear arms as an individual one, but that's a story for another day ... and another Supreme Court, alas.)
Madison was willing to make the compromise because he believed that the right of conscientious objection would be subsequently enshrined in the law, but more than 200 years later U.S. law still contains no such provisions.
Our troops are called upon to protect our freedoms, we are told so often, including the freedom of conscience, but they have no such freedom of conscience themselves once they sign up. It really shouldn't take a Quaker to point out the irony, and to do so by way of the Second Amendment, well that deserves an irony medal.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Two Americas, at Least
In the speech that famously launched him on his way to the White House, then Sen. Barack Obama proclaimed to the 2004 Democratic National Convention that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America."
Oh that it were so, or, at least, so clear and simple. But it seems like there are more Americas than most of us can count, and maybe that's why our political life is overly simplistic and our religious life so often bombastic. We all want God to bless our America, but there is always already another America out there wanting to claim that blessing exclusively for itself.
This is not new, of course, but I was reminded of it this morning by some old remarks from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) that are being replayed now that he would like the job of chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Shimkus, whose committee has oversight on such things, argued that we don't need to worry about global climate change because God promised Noah never to destroy the earth again.
Shimkus made his case about 18 months ago when he quoted Genesis 8 and concluded, "I believe that is the infallible word of god, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation... The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."
To no one's surprise, secular progressives are once again mocking Shimkus. (See especially the comments to Juan Cole's posting about Shimkus.)
Meanwhile, from reading Politico this week it seems that conservatives would be quite happy with Shimkus chairing the committee.
So on climate change there is a God-fearing America that denies climate change entirely and another America that enjoys mocking the God-fearing part. But while all this goes on as political theater, the green jobs are going to China and the economy is going to hell in a hand basket -- if you believe in hell or hand baskets.
Somehow I get the feeling that the Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank as our own deep cultural divisions keep us from finding common ground on which to solve real problems. Of course, if the global economy slips from recession to depression no one will be laughing.
I just wish that Mr. Shimkus had done some serious Bible study somewhere along the line. A little Breuggemann could go a long way.
Oh that it were so, or, at least, so clear and simple. But it seems like there are more Americas than most of us can count, and maybe that's why our political life is overly simplistic and our religious life so often bombastic. We all want God to bless our America, but there is always already another America out there wanting to claim that blessing exclusively for itself.
This is not new, of course, but I was reminded of it this morning by some old remarks from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) that are being replayed now that he would like the job of chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Shimkus, whose committee has oversight on such things, argued that we don't need to worry about global climate change because God promised Noah never to destroy the earth again.
Shimkus made his case about 18 months ago when he quoted Genesis 8 and concluded, "I believe that is the infallible word of god, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation... The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."
To no one's surprise, secular progressives are once again mocking Shimkus. (See especially the comments to Juan Cole's posting about Shimkus.)
Meanwhile, from reading Politico this week it seems that conservatives would be quite happy with Shimkus chairing the committee.
So on climate change there is a God-fearing America that denies climate change entirely and another America that enjoys mocking the God-fearing part. But while all this goes on as political theater, the green jobs are going to China and the economy is going to hell in a hand basket -- if you believe in hell or hand baskets.
Somehow I get the feeling that the Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank as our own deep cultural divisions keep us from finding common ground on which to solve real problems. Of course, if the global economy slips from recession to depression no one will be laughing.
I just wish that Mr. Shimkus had done some serious Bible study somewhere along the line. A little Breuggemann could go a long way.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Vote for Jesus ... Not Likely
A word of hope for today, from the psalmist:
The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble ...
for the needy shall not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
I wonder if such hope will ever again be part of the political narrative of the nation. Seriously. FDR named "freedom from want," one of the Four Freedoms. LBJ declared War on Poverty in 1964.
But somewhere along the line in my adult lifetime the poor ceased to be a public concern. Politicians, Democrats and Republicans, pledge their undying allegiance to the middle class, but seldom mention anyone else.
As part of the great, if shrinking, American middle class I surely appreciate their concern and support. Seriously -- I'm glad the president's health care reform will allow me to keep my kids insured until they turn 26. That is a great help to millions of middle-class Americans. I'm glad the president made access to college loans easier for us, too. And we did our darnedest to spend the tax cuts lavished our way in recent years. Bully for us and the rest of our class!
The ironic thing, though, is that even as our politicians -- in their rhetoric and attention -- have left the poor behind, those same politicians (in their rhetoric, at least) have more and more embraced God-talk -- except, of course, for the things that Jesus actually said in the Gospels. For example,
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry."
He'd never get elected, that's for sure.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Red State Blues
Been crazy busy for the past couple of weeks, but election day brings a nice break with kids home from school and baking cookies with me. I felt like an all-American mom from the 50s, and my son offered me the jumper he wore to school as Hester Prynne last week to wear under an apron so I'd look the part as well.
Election day 2010 is a depressing circumstance, although by some measures it should not be so. For example, the "Rally to Restore Sanity" over the weekend drew a quarter of a million generally liberal people to the Mall, dwarfing the August gather that joined the neo-John Bircher Glenn Beck. Moreover, the man so many of us worked so hard to elect with such hope and fanfare two years ago has actually delivered on many of his promises: including tax breaks for the middle class; financial system reform; health care reform; the fair pay act; student loan reform; troop drawdown in Iraq; consumer credit protections.
It would seem that progressives would be celebrating two years of significant, well, progress, on many of the issues that concern us. Instead, we have a dispirited electorate marked mainly by inchoate anger directed, by the universal law of elections, at the majority party even while voters says they can't stand the other party.
The Nation's Marc Cooper offers this observation:
I don't disagree with any of that, but I'm not sure it leads anywhere either. As a description it strikes me as accurate, but it doesn't do much by way of explanation and offers nothing by way of alternative.
There are so many problems with our system it's hard to know where to start. The overwhelming power of money in American politics is corrosive and corrupting on all sides, and the Supreme Court is not helping.
But I wonder if some of the problems are not more basic and even more bipartisan. Take, for example, redistricting. I live in a district whose Congressman, Jim Moran, will hold the seat until he decides to leave it or until he dies. There is nothing unusual in that. More than 90 percent of incumbents who seek reelection win. I think it's true that a representative is more likely to die in office than to lose an election. There are lots of good reasons for this. To begin with, you have to have a lot of support to win in the first place, so there's a broad base to seek reelection. Moreover, incumbents have huge name recognition advantages over most opponents. They also have, almost always, the support of their party and rarely face any primary opposition.
Nothing will or should change any of those basic truths, but as I think about my representative here in the 8th District, for whom I cast another vote this afternoon, I also think about the guy who represents Virginia's 7th District, Eric Cantor. It's a cold hard fact that Northern Virginia is far more liberal than the rest of the state, and certainly more so than Rep. Cantor's carefully drawn stretch of mostly rural countryside that stretches from the Richmond suburbs almost to I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley.
The problem does not lie in conservative parts of states vs. liberal parts. The problem arises when districts are drawn such that no opposition point of view could ever be elected absent a scandal so ridiculous that the people vote out a bum that a party would never remove.
For example, I lived in Dan Rostenkowski's Chicago district when he was indicted on mail fraud charges that eventually led to a 17-month prison sentence. Rostenkowski, who chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, was renominated by the Democratic Party, and with no one else to turn to the voters elected Michael Flanagan, a conservative Republican in the 1994 election. Flanagan's election did not indicate any embrace of conservative positions. Voters were simply fed up with Rostenkowski. In fact, Flanagan served a single two-year term and was turned out in 1996 when Rod Blagojevich was elected.
In a competitively drawn district I can't imagine that Rostenkowski would have ever been nominated again. Moreover, perhaps in a competitively drawn district he would never have risen to such absolute power in the first place. That is not to say he would never have become the powerful chair of a powerful committee, but it is to say that the arrogance of that power would be checked by the political necessity of communicating beyond a completely safe base of support.
It is impossible to hold leaders accountable when their reelection is a given. And when their base is carefully drawn to represent only one political perspective -- whether it's liberal Democrat like me or conservative Republican -- there is never any real contest of ideas much less any necessity of building broad-based coalitions who can work for solutions to specific problems.
Without opposition, political leaders can afford to be arrogant and ignorant of anything but their most narrowly held beliefs -- a dangerous and dispiriting combination. When the system all but guarantees the election and reelection of such politicians it is no wonder so many are so turned off.
When the system as a whole is held captive to incredibly powerful moneyed interests, election day is nothing but the blues whether you're in the Red or Blue tonight.
Election day 2010 is a depressing circumstance, although by some measures it should not be so. For example, the "Rally to Restore Sanity" over the weekend drew a quarter of a million generally liberal people to the Mall, dwarfing the August gather that joined the neo-John Bircher Glenn Beck. Moreover, the man so many of us worked so hard to elect with such hope and fanfare two years ago has actually delivered on many of his promises: including tax breaks for the middle class; financial system reform; health care reform; the fair pay act; student loan reform; troop drawdown in Iraq; consumer credit protections.
It would seem that progressives would be celebrating two years of significant, well, progress, on many of the issues that concern us. Instead, we have a dispirited electorate marked mainly by inchoate anger directed, by the universal law of elections, at the majority party even while voters says they can't stand the other party.
The Nation's Marc Cooper offers this observation:
This weekend, I am feeling just as strongly that the Dems are doomed on Tuesday. As I did say in the linked post above about the Stewart Rally, I think it was a massive (250,000 strong) manifestation of a Democratic constituency that has no effective leadership, no convincing message, and no ability to counter the crap propaganda coming from the Right. This is a closing weekend marked by an absolute vacuum.
I also fear it is the beginning of a prolonged period of political stasis if not outright decline. I can tell you from my position at a major university, that most young people have already lost faith in the political system and for the most part are ignoring this election.
That is, perhaps, not the wisest thing to do. But I understand the apathy and disillusionment. Democrats have controlled Congress for four years (and some important measures have been taken) but they have, nevertheless, failed to demonstrate any capacity to lead and inspire.
I don't disagree with any of that, but I'm not sure it leads anywhere either. As a description it strikes me as accurate, but it doesn't do much by way of explanation and offers nothing by way of alternative.
There are so many problems with our system it's hard to know where to start. The overwhelming power of money in American politics is corrosive and corrupting on all sides, and the Supreme Court is not helping.
But I wonder if some of the problems are not more basic and even more bipartisan. Take, for example, redistricting. I live in a district whose Congressman, Jim Moran, will hold the seat until he decides to leave it or until he dies. There is nothing unusual in that. More than 90 percent of incumbents who seek reelection win. I think it's true that a representative is more likely to die in office than to lose an election. There are lots of good reasons for this. To begin with, you have to have a lot of support to win in the first place, so there's a broad base to seek reelection. Moreover, incumbents have huge name recognition advantages over most opponents. They also have, almost always, the support of their party and rarely face any primary opposition.
Nothing will or should change any of those basic truths, but as I think about my representative here in the 8th District, for whom I cast another vote this afternoon, I also think about the guy who represents Virginia's 7th District, Eric Cantor. It's a cold hard fact that Northern Virginia is far more liberal than the rest of the state, and certainly more so than Rep. Cantor's carefully drawn stretch of mostly rural countryside that stretches from the Richmond suburbs almost to I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley.
The problem does not lie in conservative parts of states vs. liberal parts. The problem arises when districts are drawn such that no opposition point of view could ever be elected absent a scandal so ridiculous that the people vote out a bum that a party would never remove.
For example, I lived in Dan Rostenkowski's Chicago district when he was indicted on mail fraud charges that eventually led to a 17-month prison sentence. Rostenkowski, who chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, was renominated by the Democratic Party, and with no one else to turn to the voters elected Michael Flanagan, a conservative Republican in the 1994 election. Flanagan's election did not indicate any embrace of conservative positions. Voters were simply fed up with Rostenkowski. In fact, Flanagan served a single two-year term and was turned out in 1996 when Rod Blagojevich was elected.
In a competitively drawn district I can't imagine that Rostenkowski would have ever been nominated again. Moreover, perhaps in a competitively drawn district he would never have risen to such absolute power in the first place. That is not to say he would never have become the powerful chair of a powerful committee, but it is to say that the arrogance of that power would be checked by the political necessity of communicating beyond a completely safe base of support.
It is impossible to hold leaders accountable when their reelection is a given. And when their base is carefully drawn to represent only one political perspective -- whether it's liberal Democrat like me or conservative Republican -- there is never any real contest of ideas much less any necessity of building broad-based coalitions who can work for solutions to specific problems.
Without opposition, political leaders can afford to be arrogant and ignorant of anything but their most narrowly held beliefs -- a dangerous and dispiriting combination. When the system all but guarantees the election and reelection of such politicians it is no wonder so many are so turned off.
When the system as a whole is held captive to incredibly powerful moneyed interests, election day is nothing but the blues whether you're in the Red or Blue tonight.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
This Is What Democracy Looks Like, Pt. 2: Send In the Clowns
Citing President Eisenhower’s famous farewell warning about the emerging power of the military-industrial complex, I noted yesterday, Andrew Bacevich writes about the threat that imperial power poses for American democracy.
Citing the same passage, Quaker activist Chuck Fager, in his booklet Study War Some More, pays special attention to President Eisenhower’s specific inclusion of the spiritual influence of the vast permanent armaments industry among the “grave implications” of the “unwarranted influence” of “the military-industrial complex.”
Fager writes:
Such was surely the tenor of the Glen Beck rally in August. Beck famously wanted a military jet flyover to begin his rally, but got instead, a “miracle flyover” of Canadian geese. The military refused his request because the Lincoln Memorial sits under restricted airspace, so, Beck said, God provided the flyover, presumably to help restore honor to America.
In the opening invocation, the Rev. Paul Jehles employed John Winthrop’s city on a hill imagery in inviting God to forgive America and restore the honor lost to her for, among other things, the sin of same-gender marriage. Theologically speaking, it went downhill from there.
Immediately following Pastor Jehles’ prayer, Mr. Beck asked the gathered congregation, “what is it that today America truly believes in?” The answer, offered up to a resounding ovation: the military.
Although the One Nation’s rally was a decidedly more secular affair, the honor of the nation’s military was still front and center from the opening rendition of the Star Spangled Banner to the inclusion of numerous veterans on the program and a classic form of American civil religion was on display. While there was some safe criticism of the war in Iraq and more guarded critique of Afghanistan, no one raised any significant concerns about militarism itself, much less about the empire that depends upon it.
The old guard of African-American Christian civil rights leadership, in the persons of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, was present, and the Rev. Sharpton provided the Old Testament lesson for the day as he lifted up the story of Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones.
Ezekiel, he said, began the restoration in the valley by connecting the bones together. “If we can get connected,” the Rev. Sharpton said, “blacks connected to whites, Latinos connected to Asians, straights connected to gays, immigrants and all of us who are naturally born here – if we can connect these bones we can make America breathe and make America live as one nation under God.”
As spirited as the aging African-American religious leaders remain, there is a tiredness about the near 70-year-old Jackson these days, and while Sharpton is more than a dozen years younger he is hardly a fresh voice. The theology implicit in the language of Beck’s rally is classic imperial theology, asking, quite literally, for God to bless America. Such theology goes back at least to Constantine. There is nothing new in it at all. At the same time, it is difficult to listen to the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson and imagine that God is doing a new thing there either. Neither spoke out passionately against empire itself.
Sending in the clowns may be the best bet we have even when it comes to what might pass for a contemporary American theological imagination – at least as it’s being articulated in this particular political season.
Indeed, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart just might be rising to the level of prophets in our midst. In an interview with Sojourners several years ago Jim Wallis likened Stewart to the Hebrew prophets who used “humor, satire, and truth-telling to get their message across.”
While Stewart rejected the comparison, saying he has a lot more in common with Borscht Belt social directors than with the prophets, I would say his most Biblical spiritual practice can be found in the hospitality he practices each evening on The Daily Show. Down to his regular gesture of waiting for his guest to be seated before him, Stewart offers a simple generosity of spirit that contrasts sharply with most of the serious talking heads on TV these days. More pointedly, Stewart rarely interrupts or talks over his guests and never engages In shouting matches with them. He offers conversational space even to those with whom he clearly disagrees. While he calls himself a non-observant Jew, I’d argue that he practices the foundational Jewish commitment to hospitality and welcome of strangers on a national platform every night.
Colbert, on the other hand, is an observant Roman Catholic. Both the blowhard conservative character he plays on his show and the man behind the character claim their faith. While the character goes on at hysterical length about the evils of big government, Colbert manages to bring the social justice ethic of Catholic social teaching to the fore in very public forums.
His resent congressional testimony, offered mostly in character, provides a classic case study. After mostly mocking himself and the members of congress holding the hearings on migrant farm laborers, Colbert breaks character to explain his presence before the committee: “I like talking about people who don't have any power...I feel the need to speak for those who can't speak for themselves....We ask them to come and work, and then we ask them to leave again. They suffer, and have no rights."
In the midst of this explanation he quotes Matthew 25, saying: “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, and these seem like the least of my brothers.”
Some voices from Capitol Hill and the mainstream media decried Colbert’s testimony. On the other hand, prior to his appearance before the House committee it would take a dedicated news hound to find news stories about the conditions of migrant workers in America. The least of these simply don’t merit much attention from the press.
From the perspective of Matthew 25 that constitutes a spiritual crisis in the land.
Which brings us back ‘round to President Eisenhower. Most peace activists know well both the phrase, “military-industrial complex” and its source in President Eisenhower’s farewell speech. Many of us are also familiar with his observation that,
I confess to not knowing the source of that second quote. Until tracking it down on the internet recently I had assumed it came in the farewell speech because it sounds as if it would be at home in the company of his warnings about the military-industrial complex that came in his the president’s last official remarks. Not only was I wrong about that, but I was off by two full presidential terms. President Eisenhower actually made his remarks about theft from the hungry and naked – echoing Matthew 25 – in his first official remarks to the nation as president, April 16, 1953, in a speech called “The Chance for Peace.”
I’m not sure what Glenn Beck would make of such remarks coming from the president of the United States. The cynic in me would say, “well, if such remarks came from a president named Obama then Beck would call him a socialist who wants to bring about the downfall of the nation.” Alas, the realist in me knows that Mr. Beck can rest easy: the president named Obama is not about to utter any of the words that came from either end of President Eisenhower’s time in the White House.
It’s time to send in the clowns.
(Hm, the links don't seem to be working in this post. My apologies for some technical glitches.)
Citing the same passage, Quaker activist Chuck Fager, in his booklet Study War Some More, pays special attention to President Eisenhower’s specific inclusion of the spiritual influence of the vast permanent armaments industry among the “grave implications” of the “unwarranted influence” of “the military-industrial complex.”
Fager writes:
[M]uch of American religion, especially Christianity, has adopted the conviction that the United States is God’s chosen instrument to exercise the role of the planetary “sword-bearing” magistrate, charged to “rid the world of evil-doers,” as [President Bush] declared in 2001. Thus these churches, some of the largest in the country, not only support but actively advocate for the projection of American military might around the world, regardless of the cost in blood and treasure, to Americans, but especially to foreigners. This is, they are sure, God’s work.
Such was surely the tenor of the Glen Beck rally in August. Beck famously wanted a military jet flyover to begin his rally, but got instead, a “miracle flyover” of Canadian geese. The military refused his request because the Lincoln Memorial sits under restricted airspace, so, Beck said, God provided the flyover, presumably to help restore honor to America.
In the opening invocation, the Rev. Paul Jehles employed John Winthrop’s city on a hill imagery in inviting God to forgive America and restore the honor lost to her for, among other things, the sin of same-gender marriage. Theologically speaking, it went downhill from there.
Immediately following Pastor Jehles’ prayer, Mr. Beck asked the gathered congregation, “what is it that today America truly believes in?” The answer, offered up to a resounding ovation: the military.
Although the One Nation’s rally was a decidedly more secular affair, the honor of the nation’s military was still front and center from the opening rendition of the Star Spangled Banner to the inclusion of numerous veterans on the program and a classic form of American civil religion was on display. While there was some safe criticism of the war in Iraq and more guarded critique of Afghanistan, no one raised any significant concerns about militarism itself, much less about the empire that depends upon it.
The old guard of African-American Christian civil rights leadership, in the persons of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, was present, and the Rev. Sharpton provided the Old Testament lesson for the day as he lifted up the story of Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones.
Ezekiel, he said, began the restoration in the valley by connecting the bones together. “If we can get connected,” the Rev. Sharpton said, “blacks connected to whites, Latinos connected to Asians, straights connected to gays, immigrants and all of us who are naturally born here – if we can connect these bones we can make America breathe and make America live as one nation under God.”
As spirited as the aging African-American religious leaders remain, there is a tiredness about the near 70-year-old Jackson these days, and while Sharpton is more than a dozen years younger he is hardly a fresh voice. The theology implicit in the language of Beck’s rally is classic imperial theology, asking, quite literally, for God to bless America. Such theology goes back at least to Constantine. There is nothing new in it at all. At the same time, it is difficult to listen to the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson and imagine that God is doing a new thing there either. Neither spoke out passionately against empire itself.
Sending in the clowns may be the best bet we have even when it comes to what might pass for a contemporary American theological imagination – at least as it’s being articulated in this particular political season.
Indeed, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart just might be rising to the level of prophets in our midst. In an interview with Sojourners several years ago Jim Wallis likened Stewart to the Hebrew prophets who used “humor, satire, and truth-telling to get their message across.”
While Stewart rejected the comparison, saying he has a lot more in common with Borscht Belt social directors than with the prophets, I would say his most Biblical spiritual practice can be found in the hospitality he practices each evening on The Daily Show. Down to his regular gesture of waiting for his guest to be seated before him, Stewart offers a simple generosity of spirit that contrasts sharply with most of the serious talking heads on TV these days. More pointedly, Stewart rarely interrupts or talks over his guests and never engages In shouting matches with them. He offers conversational space even to those with whom he clearly disagrees. While he calls himself a non-observant Jew, I’d argue that he practices the foundational Jewish commitment to hospitality and welcome of strangers on a national platform every night.
Colbert, on the other hand, is an observant Roman Catholic. Both the blowhard conservative character he plays on his show and the man behind the character claim their faith. While the character goes on at hysterical length about the evils of big government, Colbert manages to bring the social justice ethic of Catholic social teaching to the fore in very public forums.
His resent congressional testimony, offered mostly in character, provides a classic case study. After mostly mocking himself and the members of congress holding the hearings on migrant farm laborers, Colbert breaks character to explain his presence before the committee: “I like talking about people who don't have any power...I feel the need to speak for those who can't speak for themselves....We ask them to come and work, and then we ask them to leave again. They suffer, and have no rights."
In the midst of this explanation he quotes Matthew 25, saying: “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, and these seem like the least of my brothers.”
Some voices from Capitol Hill and the mainstream media decried Colbert’s testimony. On the other hand, prior to his appearance before the House committee it would take a dedicated news hound to find news stories about the conditions of migrant workers in America. The least of these simply don’t merit much attention from the press.
From the perspective of Matthew 25 that constitutes a spiritual crisis in the land.
Which brings us back ‘round to President Eisenhower. Most peace activists know well both the phrase, “military-industrial complex” and its source in President Eisenhower’s farewell speech. Many of us are also familiar with his observation that,
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
I confess to not knowing the source of that second quote. Until tracking it down on the internet recently I had assumed it came in the farewell speech because it sounds as if it would be at home in the company of his warnings about the military-industrial complex that came in his the president’s last official remarks. Not only was I wrong about that, but I was off by two full presidential terms. President Eisenhower actually made his remarks about theft from the hungry and naked – echoing Matthew 25 – in his first official remarks to the nation as president, April 16, 1953, in a speech called “The Chance for Peace.”
I’m not sure what Glenn Beck would make of such remarks coming from the president of the United States. The cynic in me would say, “well, if such remarks came from a president named Obama then Beck would call him a socialist who wants to bring about the downfall of the nation.” Alas, the realist in me knows that Mr. Beck can rest easy: the president named Obama is not about to utter any of the words that came from either end of President Eisenhower’s time in the White House.
It’s time to send in the clowns.
(Hm, the links don't seem to be working in this post. My apologies for some technical glitches.)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
This Is What Democracy Looks Like?
Two wars. The Great Recession. Mid-term elections. The Tea Party. The Obama presidency. It is the perfect storm, and, if nothing else, it pumps money into the local economy as march and rally season descends upon DC as surely as Ringling Brothers brings the elephants to Capitol Hill each spring.
We got a jump start this year with Glen Beck’s “God-bless-America” gathering in August. I’ll confess to skipping that one when discretion proved the better part of avoiding the crowds on yet another in a record-breaking steamy string of 90-plus degree summer afternoons. I gave some thought to going down to the Mall that day, but the crowd of mostly middle-aged and older white folks teaming at the Metro stop dissuaded me.
On the one hand, the left one I suppose, I did make it down to the One Nation rally earlier this month. One could analyze the political content of the spoken messages and of the various messengers, but a few pictures are worth thousands of words. The pictures show the wildly diverse crowd that simply looks more like America than crowd Mr. Beck attracted in August.
Maybe it was the weather. Liberals are known to be wimpy. Just ask any conservative.
On the other hand, speaking out for the rights of immigrants, gays and lesbians, working class folks and union members seems more likely to draw a diverse crowd than does “taking back our country” – which too often seems like code for taking it back from immigrants, gays and lesbians, working class folks and union members.
It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up for Jon Stewart and the Comedy Central crew in a couple of weeks. My guess is that gathering will be much less diverse than the One Nation rally, which would underscore the fact that while we are one nation we remain many peoples.
That simple truth is why the rhythmic chant, “this is what democracy looks like” remains my favorite rally staple. Yet these days, even that song sounds more like a lament for something lost than a declaration of something hoped for.
I just finished J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year, a novel that calls every notion of authority into question, including, notably, the authority of democracy itself. One of the novel’s narrative voices offers multiple “strong opinions,” including this little gem:
We do not choose our rulers by the toss of a coin – tossing coins is associated with the low-status activity of gambling – but who would dare to claim that the world would be in a worse state than it is if rulers had from the beginning of time been chosen by the method of the coin?
At about the same time Coetzee was writing those words, Cornel West offered these in Democracy Matters: “Let us not be deceived: the great dramatic battle of the twenty-first century is the dismantling of empire and the deepening of democracy.”
If so, the battle has not yet been joined in any significant way in the United States, that is to say, in the empire itself. And the hour is growing late.
As Andrew Bacevich persuasively argues in Washington Rules, the huge and expanding national security state the props up and projects the American empire around the world fundamentally threatens democracy at home. Citing President Eisenhower’s famous farewell warning about the emerging power of the military-industrial complex, Bacevich writes,
Initiatives undertaken to ensure national security had given rise to new institutions and habits deeply antithetical to traditional American values.Bacevich traces the continuing rise of those institutions and habits that reached their logical limits in the preemptive war in Iraq and the entire construct of the global war on terror that continues to be played out in Afghanistan, the border regions of Pakistan, and Iraq today with new fronts being hinted at in Yemen and elsewhere.
These new forces had yielded unwelcome consequences that Eisenhower himself, whether as general or as president, had neither intended nor anticipated, threatening American democracy.
The truly curious thing about what passes for democracy in America right now is how widespread the opposition to this is among the vox populi. I would guess that if you could do exit polling from Glen Beck’s rally, the One Nation event, and the Comedy Central court jester-fest, you would find strong sentiment across the board for getting U.S. troops out of both Iraq and Afghanistan. As of last month, according to a CBS/New York Times poll, more than half of Americans think we should not be in Afghanistan at this point, and more than 70 percent believe that Iraq was not worth the cost in lives and dollars.
A coin toss for leadership would give us at least a 50-50 chance of getting out, whereas our purportedly democratic elections provide no chance at ending the ongoing tragedy no matter which party prevails. Getting out now is, as they say, off the table.
Of course, the deep divisions that do exist within the American public touch on far more than just so-called national security concerns. But the fundamental problem, the rot at the core of American democracy, stands firmly in the way of finding real solutions to any pressing issues whether they be hot-button social concerns or widespread economic suffering.
Until we get at the decaying center, all of our rallies – of the right, the left, or the comedic center – will be no more meaningful than when the circus comes to town.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Sorry
I've been privileged to spend this week in the company of some enormously talented musicians gathered for the first Songs of Peace and Justice Conference at the Stony Point Center in New York. I'm sure I'll post some thoughts on the experiences shared in that incredible circle of talent, but for the moment, holed up in a cheap hotel somewhere in southern New Jersey where the rain caught up to me and my motorcycle today, I thought I post a silly little bit that I wrote in response to one prompting at Stony Point.
We were talking about the need for confession for grounding movements, and someone pointed out how uncommon authentic public apology is in our culture. We bandied about a phrase most often heard in the guise of an apology: "I'm sorry that you feel that way." So, here's my take (as part of a 20-minute song-writing exercise):
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
You clearly didn't get what I was trying to say.
It's not my fault that you've had a bad day.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
It's not my fault if the words don't rhyme.
What you clearly didn't offer was abundance of time.
If I used that word that you're forbidden to say,
well I'm sorry that you feel that way.
Now I'm usually known as a sensitive guy.
Some folks say I wouldn't hurt a fly.
So if you're offended then you don't have to stay.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I don't care if you don't like my song.
I may not be right, but I'm so sure you're wrong.
If you cannot communicate with the words I say,
then I'm sorry that you feel that way.
We were talking about the need for confession for grounding movements, and someone pointed out how uncommon authentic public apology is in our culture. We bandied about a phrase most often heard in the guise of an apology: "I'm sorry that you feel that way." So, here's my take (as part of a 20-minute song-writing exercise):
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
You clearly didn't get what I was trying to say.
It's not my fault that you've had a bad day.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
It's not my fault if the words don't rhyme.
What you clearly didn't offer was abundance of time.
If I used that word that you're forbidden to say,
well I'm sorry that you feel that way.
Now I'm usually known as a sensitive guy.
Some folks say I wouldn't hurt a fly.
So if you're offended then you don't have to stay.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I don't care if you don't like my song.
I may not be right, but I'm so sure you're wrong.
If you cannot communicate with the words I say,
then I'm sorry that you feel that way.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Who's Pulling the Strings?
To begin with, I fully confess to being a Michael Jordan fan. I lived in Chicago through the Jordan years, and I'm a hoops junky. He's the best I ever saw, and the fan in me will brook no comparison to Kobe or LeBron or Magic or Larry or Wilt or anyone else.
That is a fan speaking, and not a student of the game. If I put on that hat then the comparisons might shake out differently. But I won't put on that hat any more than I'll put on the t-shirt I have that Michael wore on a Hanes commercial on whose set, through a complicated set of circumstances, I was a gopher. That shirt is preserved in a sealed plastic bag, just like my memories of Jordan in their rose-colored case.
What brings MJ to mind? Well, the comparisons of Jordan to LeBron James over the past several months raise some fascinating non-basketball issues, and on the non-basketball front I'll happily leap in. Jordan and James are remarkably similar in their global marketing and in the way that they each steadfastly avoid making waves that might stand in the way of making sales.
When asked to support the U.S. Senate candidacy of Harvey B. Gantt in 1990, Jordan famously demurred, saying, "Republicans buy shoes, too." Similarly, when James' Cleveland teammates signed a statement condemning the government of China for its role in the genocide in Darfur, James refused to sign. Speculation on the refusal circled around the role of Chine in the manufacture of athletic shoes, particularly those sold under the Nike label, for whom James -- like Jordan before him -- famously shills.
Despite a few such bumps in his road, James has mostly avoided controversy. Until, that is, the summer, and now the fall, of James' discontent or disconnect. His much derided move from Cleveland to Miami, handled with, well, less than grace and style, left James in a place that Jordan never visited: the bottom of the Q ratings and a station among the least popular half dozen athletes in America.
James resides there alongside Michael Vick (of dog-fighting infamy), Kobe Bryant (sexual assault allegations), and Tiger Woods (more sex problems). Add in a pair of brash football players -- Chad Ochocinco and Terrel Owens -- and you round out the list of the half dozen least popular athletes in America.
Notice anything about that list?
Perhaps you're not a sports fan, so these men's faces do not spring immediately to your mind, but if you saw their faces you'd notice that they're all black.
James had the temerity to suggest that race played a factor in the overwhelmingly emotional and negative reaction to his decision to leave Cleveland, and now he's being attacked from almost all sides again for "playing the race card."
Sportswriter Dave Zirin notes on The Nation blog today that superstar quarterbacks Brett Farve, Ben Roethlisberger, and Tom Brady who are white, have not suffered nearly as much negative backlash despite having a well-documented drug addiction (in Farve's case), sexual assault charges (in Roethlisberger's), and an out-of-wedlock child (Brady).
You don't find their names on the bottom of the Q list, and it's naive or disingenuous to suggest that racial attitudes have nothing to do with the different reactions. We simply hold black and white athletes to different standards, and react differently to their problems. Farve, for example, remains one of the most popular athletes in America, ranking just few Q points down the list from Peyton Manning among active professional football players. His story is often told as one of change and redemption. Perhaps that story will emerge as the dominant narrative about Michael Vick, but that remains an as yet unwritten story at this point.
On the other hand, Jordan remains at the top of the list of most-liked athletes, and you rarely find him on the "negative Q score" list despite his own gambling problems and failed marriage.
Which brings me back to the t-shirt, or, at least, to the commercial. You probably never saw it because it was the worst thing imaginable. The idea was to make Jordan fly. (I pulled the ropes on the rigging apparatus, and can therefore say honestly that I made Michael Jordan fly.) It was a horrible concept to begin with because Jordan was one of the most graceful athletes in the world and never needed the likes of me or a set of ropes and pulleys to achieve beautiful flight all on his own.
The commercial shoot dragged on an hour longer than scheduled, and Jordan was impatient to leave. As a superstar he had conveniently forgotten that he had arrived 90 minutes late to begin with, but, never mind that, he wanted to leave when he wanted to leave.
The problem was, he was attached to ropes and dangling in the air like a puppet, unable to get away.
If James wants to get back in the good graces of the public, perhaps he should reattach himself to the ropes that kept Jordan suspended above the fray.
Oh, there's a price to be paid, for sure, but we seem to like our black athletes best when we can pull the strings.
That is a fan speaking, and not a student of the game. If I put on that hat then the comparisons might shake out differently. But I won't put on that hat any more than I'll put on the t-shirt I have that Michael wore on a Hanes commercial on whose set, through a complicated set of circumstances, I was a gopher. That shirt is preserved in a sealed plastic bag, just like my memories of Jordan in their rose-colored case.
What brings MJ to mind? Well, the comparisons of Jordan to LeBron James over the past several months raise some fascinating non-basketball issues, and on the non-basketball front I'll happily leap in. Jordan and James are remarkably similar in their global marketing and in the way that they each steadfastly avoid making waves that might stand in the way of making sales.
When asked to support the U.S. Senate candidacy of Harvey B. Gantt in 1990, Jordan famously demurred, saying, "Republicans buy shoes, too." Similarly, when James' Cleveland teammates signed a statement condemning the government of China for its role in the genocide in Darfur, James refused to sign. Speculation on the refusal circled around the role of Chine in the manufacture of athletic shoes, particularly those sold under the Nike label, for whom James -- like Jordan before him -- famously shills.
Despite a few such bumps in his road, James has mostly avoided controversy. Until, that is, the summer, and now the fall, of James' discontent or disconnect. His much derided move from Cleveland to Miami, handled with, well, less than grace and style, left James in a place that Jordan never visited: the bottom of the Q ratings and a station among the least popular half dozen athletes in America.
James resides there alongside Michael Vick (of dog-fighting infamy), Kobe Bryant (sexual assault allegations), and Tiger Woods (more sex problems). Add in a pair of brash football players -- Chad Ochocinco and Terrel Owens -- and you round out the list of the half dozen least popular athletes in America.
Notice anything about that list?
Perhaps you're not a sports fan, so these men's faces do not spring immediately to your mind, but if you saw their faces you'd notice that they're all black.
James had the temerity to suggest that race played a factor in the overwhelmingly emotional and negative reaction to his decision to leave Cleveland, and now he's being attacked from almost all sides again for "playing the race card."
Sportswriter Dave Zirin notes on The Nation blog today that superstar quarterbacks Brett Farve, Ben Roethlisberger, and Tom Brady who are white, have not suffered nearly as much negative backlash despite having a well-documented drug addiction (in Farve's case), sexual assault charges (in Roethlisberger's), and an out-of-wedlock child (Brady).
You don't find their names on the bottom of the Q list, and it's naive or disingenuous to suggest that racial attitudes have nothing to do with the different reactions. We simply hold black and white athletes to different standards, and react differently to their problems. Farve, for example, remains one of the most popular athletes in America, ranking just few Q points down the list from Peyton Manning among active professional football players. His story is often told as one of change and redemption. Perhaps that story will emerge as the dominant narrative about Michael Vick, but that remains an as yet unwritten story at this point.
On the other hand, Jordan remains at the top of the list of most-liked athletes, and you rarely find him on the "negative Q score" list despite his own gambling problems and failed marriage.
Which brings me back to the t-shirt, or, at least, to the commercial. You probably never saw it because it was the worst thing imaginable. The idea was to make Jordan fly. (I pulled the ropes on the rigging apparatus, and can therefore say honestly that I made Michael Jordan fly.) It was a horrible concept to begin with because Jordan was one of the most graceful athletes in the world and never needed the likes of me or a set of ropes and pulleys to achieve beautiful flight all on his own.
The commercial shoot dragged on an hour longer than scheduled, and Jordan was impatient to leave. As a superstar he had conveniently forgotten that he had arrived 90 minutes late to begin with, but, never mind that, he wanted to leave when he wanted to leave.
The problem was, he was attached to ropes and dangling in the air like a puppet, unable to get away.
If James wants to get back in the good graces of the public, perhaps he should reattach himself to the ropes that kept Jordan suspended above the fray.
Oh, there's a price to be paid, for sure, but we seem to like our black athletes best when we can pull the strings.
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