for the 4th of July

I saw purple mountains once. I will never forget it. We were driving up Interstate 81 through the Shanandoah Valley at dusk on an early spring evening, and the fading sunlight hit the mountains just right and they were deep purple.
So I can truly say, I have seen purple mountains majesty. I’ve seen the amber waves of grain, too, on drives across the Illinois prairie. I have seen the prodigious spires of the Colorado Rockies, and I have looked into the vast depths and stark beauty of the Grand Canyon. I have hiked a mountain in Maine and stood on its bald peak and pondered the beauty of northern forests. I have dipped my toes in the waters to two oceans and strolled lonely beaches at sunset.
I have walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and marveled at the audacity of those who built it, and I have stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and marveled at the audacity of the timeless dream that Martin Luther King articulated on that spot. I have climbed the steps of the Statue of Liberty on the 4th of July, and marveled at the audacity of liberty itself, and of this country conceived in that liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all of us are created equal.
I have seen America, and I love her dearly.
I have also seen mountains in Eastern Kentucky stripped of their peaks, standing naked against the sky, opened like some sprawling tin can so mining companies in distant cities can take the coal and leave not much behind but mountains moved and wealth removed.
I have seen the people in the hollows in the shadows of those stripped mountains, with their satellite dishes pointed toward distant dreams, struggling to make ends meet in an economy that has left them behind without a second thought.
I have seen the children playing in open fire hydrants in the July heat of Chicago’s West Side, blissfully ignorant of the social and economic and political forces that have conspired to leave them with inadequate housing, “underperforming” schools and crime-ridden streets.
I have seen the homeless on the front porches of Manhattan churches – dirty, disheveled, dispirited seeking sanctuary at the doors to the sanctuary.
I have seen the highways crisscrossing the land, jammed with July vacationers and heard in my mind Jack Kerouac’s line: “all that road going, all the people dreaming.”
I have seen America. And I love her dearly.
I have seen faithful people trying to make a difference in all of these places: an orthopedic surgeon relocating his practice to an Appalachian clinic; successful business people working to create opportunities in the inner city of Cleveland; teenagers hammering in the hills and in the cities to help where they can with what they’ve got to give; I have stood with the demonstrators joining in the spiritual discipline of political action saying “no” to war, saying “no” to unjust economic practices, and saying “yes” to equal rights and equal access to the wealth of this nation. I have marched with the crowds protesting war, calling for justice and shouting “this is what democracy looks like.” I have walked with faithful people holding audacious hope for the future in spite of the evidence of the present time, and danced with joy with them as the evidence itself changed and we marveled that God might, indeed, be doing a new thing in this country.
I have seen America. And I love her dearly.
I have heard New Yorkers curse as Greg Maddux hurled a shutout in Yankee Stadium. I have heard the crowd explode as Michael Jordan amazed the old Chicago Stadium. I have heard Bob Dylan sing Blowin in the Wind, and I’ve heard the Cleveland Symphony under the baton of John Williams playing the theme from Star Wars as lightning cracked around us and the heavens themselves echoed applause – I kid you not. And I have heard homeless men singing in a church choir, and heard, too, the cry of forgotten children.
I have heard America. And I love her dearly.
Many times, I have played pickup basketball in the crowded parks along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. I’ve played capture the flag with middle schoolers running around under a Kentucky moon. I’ve jumped off a cliff into a lake in West Virginia as my youth group looked on and said, “well, if David’s gonna jump, I’m gonna jump, too.” And they did – into cold, clear water that was like a joyous baptismal font. And no matter that I was run out of town by the leaders of the church whose young people jumped off a cliff after me – I see signs all around that our nation is moving, too slowly but moving still, to ever broader understandings of who is included when we say “all men are created equal”; and our church is moving as well, all too slowly, but still moving, to ever broader understanding of who is included when we say that God calls “women and men to all ministries of the church.” More and more, all means all – regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or any other distinction all are created equal and all are called to serve. I see this, and I believe that God is doing a new thing.
I have worshipped across this country: sitting in silence in a Quaker meeting in Sante Fe; praying at a Temple service in Kentucky; receiving communion – against the Pope’s wishes – at a Roman Catholic wedding service in Chicago; I have sung praises to our God with teenagers on a mountain top in Colorado and on a rooftop in Manhattan; I have sung with my Jewish brothers and sisters; prayed with Imams; and worshipped with several thousand of my closest Presbyterian friends. I have barely tasted the rich religious diversity of this nation, but it makes me think that God might just be doing a new thing in this country.
I have seen and heard and felt and tasted and prayed with and for America. And I love her dearly.
It does not strike me as wrong, as inappropriate, as unfaithful to my calling to be a voice of progressive Christian faith to say, also, that I love my country.
If you drive past our house this week, you will see the American flag flying out front. I went right out and bought it after I heard that conservatives, in their voter registration and get out the vote drives target houses flying American flags because they have decided that only conservatives display the flag. I figure if nothing else, I’ll confuse them!
Since when, I want to know, do conservatives have a corner on patriotism, on love of country? Since when, I want to know, can only conservatives sing O Beautiful for Spacious Skies? Since when, I want to know, can only conservatives pause, this time of year, and speak of God and country?
I am not here to sing a naïve love song to this country. I will continue deep and profound criticism of her present leadership and its direction, of her militarism, her unjust economic practices at home and abroad, her willed-ignorance of international affairs and her abiding racism, sexism and homophobia. Indeed, true patriotism must always arise in the tension between the nation’s founding ideas and its present reality. True patriotism is a lover’s quarrel.
As William Sloan Coffin put it,
How do you love America? Don’t say, “My country, right or wrong.” That’s like saying, “My grandmother, drunk or sober”; it doesn’t get you anywhere. Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t burn it either. Wash it. Make it clean.
How do you love America? With the vision and compassion of Christ, with a transcendent ethic that alone can fulfill “the patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years, her alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears.”
You see, the signal theological insight that we progressive people of faith can give to the nation is both simple and profound – and it strikes me as quintessentially American, too. It’s capture in a passage from Isaiah: “God is about to do a new thing! Behold! Can you not see it?”
Sure, we sing the songs of this nation this week, because that’s what we do on her birthday. But we sing them knowing that the God we worship is not America’s God, but rather the God who spins the whirling planets and holds all of creation – all nations and all peoples – in loving hands.
So I’ll sing the old national songs with gusto this week – because I’ve heard Arlo Guthrie sing This Land is Your Land; I’ve heard Aaron Copland conduct the National Symphony on the steps of the Capitol; and I’ve heard the Beach Boys sing California Girls in the shadow of the Washington Monument on the 4th of July – and all of that incredible mix of music rises like of hymn and fills my heart.
Indeed, when we pause to give thanks for the incredible richness that we enjoy in this nation, how can we keep from singing?

Trees in Autumn

A poem I found a few weeks ago that's been running around my brain for some reason:

In autumn we planted a maple.
Why then? Who knew.
A city boy, all I knew of seasons was shovel and sweat.
But, well-schooled
I researched: fall is planting time.
Thanksgiving marks hope as much as gratitude
that what will be is more than what seems.
Many seasons on, my children's children
play in that maple's shade.
City children, yet rooted still to the soil
and to the turning of the world.

bomb, bomb, bomb ... Iran ... sigh

Well, may that friend of a friend of a friend did say what he was said to have said (sounds like something Dr. Suess might have written.) In any case, he'd have the backing of Sen. Lieberman, whose saber shaking words over the weekend were another trial balloon for extending the war without end across the border into Iran. This balloon floated without the Beach Boys' background music that Sen. McCain gave his attack Iran thoughts. The noise level increases these days much as it did in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, but America's problems won't be solved in Iran either.
I'm reading a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, and ran across this factoid: the United States has spent $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons since the days of the Manhattan Project.
One wonders how the post-war history of the country -- and the world -- might have been different had we spent half that much on something akin to a global Marshall Plan instead of a global empire strategy whose foundation was the massive buildup of weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, it might have looked something like what Oppenheimer himself, the father of the bomb, suggested in his farewell address to the scientists at Los Alamos, when he said:
"But there is another thing: we are not only scientists; we are men, too. We cannot forget our dependence on our fellow men. I mean not only our material dependence, without which no science would be possible, and without which we could not work; I mean also our deep moral dependence, in that the value of science must lie in the world of men, that all our roots lie there. These are the strongest bonds in the world, stronger than those even that bind us to one another, these are the deepest bonds -- that bind us to our fellow men."

Accountability

I always love it when a story begins, "a friend of a friend told me ..."
I love it, but I seldom put much stock in it. So, weigh this one accordingly.
An acquaintance of a friend of a friend of mine (is that distant enough) is, so I'm told, a policy advisor at the White House. Said acquaintance (of friend of friend) says, so I'm told by one who was told, there's a 60 percent probability that the President will authorize strikes at Iran. I'm not sure whether that means opinion inside the White House is 60-40 in favor of an attack on Iran or if it's just the early betting line.
Either way, the story got me thinking again about why holding the current administration accountable is crucial. Whatever the chance that they will attack Iran, it surely seems less likely to happen if they are held accountable for what they've already done in Iraq.
Not only that, but whoever succeeds them will be less likely to engage in imperial actions if the current occupant's imperial ambitions are restrained by the quaint provisions of the Constitution. (And, no, I don't trust a Democrat with unrestrained power any more than I trust a Republican. If Lord Acton doesn't convince, perhaps the lectionary psalm for the week -- 146 -- serves as a good reminder there.)

Don't Stop Beating the Dead Horse

I've heard from a number of folks -- mostly off-line -- concerning my tilting at the windmill of impeachment, and the basic tenor of could be summed up as, "why bother, it will all be over soon." If I believed that the next election would end the nightmare born throughout the Bush years I'd probably agree, but the mere end of this administration will not likely constitute even a small undoing of the damage of the past six and a half years. Novelist Jane Smiley, responding to a New York Times editorial, underscores the long-term damage done:
When those in power exercise it in an unjust manner, they destroy the sense of trust that average citizens have in their own government and their own society and they open the society to the return of revenge as a sentiment and as an act. American history is replete with examples of how long it has taken and how difficult it has been for us as a nation to escape vengeance as a social mechanism–Kansas and Missouri, vigilantes and lynching, gangs and outlaws. Cheney’s specific crimes are reason enough for the New York Times to take impeachment seriously, but his larger crime against the nation has been to roll back the clock and infuse people like me, liberals like me (whom we all know are wimps, right?) with vengeful sentiments and fantasies. We have the crimes, then we have the arrogance–since the 2000 election, Cheney has been adding insult to injury, here and in Iraq. The combination is a potent one–the injuries damage our lives; the insults make us mad (both angry and crazy). The antidote is the exercise of laws, such as Kucinich’s articles of impeachment. I have news for the New York Times–if you assume that this is all going to pass away with another election season, you are dangerously wrong.

Still on the Straight and Narrow

When Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler said that there is a biological basis for same-sex attraction he set off a bit of a firestorm in evangelical circles (see a Time magazine story). For conservatives who have long held that homosexual behavior is a sin -- in other words, a moral choice -- the suggestion that such behavior is grounded in basic human biology causes some consternation. On the one hand, some evangelicals have suggested a kind of genetic "reparative therapy" that brings to mind Nazi eugenics. On the other, some have simply held on to traditional conservative perspectives on the issue. Some have offered a twist on the old line by noting that human behavior is not reducible to genetic determinism, and note the moral dimension involved in choosing not to engage in heterosexaul sexual behavior outside of marriage.
I don't know which way this emerging dimension will move the overall debate. I do know that I'll join the MLP contigent at the Capital Pride parade this Saturday and continue to insist that, no matter its basis in nature, nurture or choice, same-sex sexuality is part of God's good provision for a wonderfully diverse creation. My kids will be there too, because, as for me and my household, we'll serve the God of love and justice.

Get Shorty

OK, I've been on vacation of late and wonderfully disconnected from the e-world. Sabbath time is in such short supply for all of us these days. I have pondered it a bit of late and will share those ponderings down the road, but for now let me just note that Sabbath time may make you crazy. How else can one explain this picture of the newest member of our household -- yet another four-legged beasty? Could it be all of those big brown eyes? I am such a sucker for big brown eyes. So now we have Shorty, a third dog for the pack. One per child. Oy.

A Faith-Based Case for Impeachment

OK, this one is a good bit longer than most, but what the heck ... it was fun to write. Plow through! I hope you enjoy it.
Reading this week about the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell got me to thinking about a claim he made, during the 2004 presidential election campaign, that you could not call yourself a Christian unless you voted for George Bush. I disagreed with his judgment on both political and theological grounds but these day I find myself pondering a similar, if opposite, question: can you call yourself a Christian and not support the impeachment of George Bush?
I was considering the question just the other day over Chinese food with a friend. We talked about our shared distress at the endless war and the dishonesty of the administration that led us into it. We talked about the community organizing that we are involved in with an eclectic, interfaith coalition of congregations in Northern Virginia. We talked about the struggles of women, gays and lesbians in our respective ecclesiastical traditions. Then the cookies came, and my fortune read, “strong and angry words do not win the cause.”
I thought, “well, maybe that’s true in China, but where I come from if you want people to organize you have to find out what makes them angry and then you have to speak truth to power with power.”
Jerry Falwell certainly understood the power of strong and angry words, and no matter that he was consistently on the wrong side of every significant issue from Civil Rights to Iraq, he was consistently influential.
Nowhere was he more wrong than in his unhinged response to September 11, and his bellicose support of the president and his war. While most people did not share his list of 9-11 culprits – gays, the ACLU, People for the American Way and the other usual liberal suspects – his hysteria and war mongering were hardly out of step with the national mood in late 2001.
Fear was the order of the day, and hope was in short supply. Strong and angry words dominated the public discourse. No one was uttering a word about impeachment, much less asking if might be a matter of faith. Such a future was unimaginable at the moment, especially, I imagine, to some like Falwell. But then again, imagination may be way was always most lacking in his own thought.
Today, of course, impeachment is in the air if officially “off the table.” Nevertheless, strong and angry words still seem to be the order of the day. These days they come from different mouths, and the silencing of Falwell’s voice underscores the change I have been considering since attending the World Can’t Wait coalition press conference on Capital Hill a few weeks back. As the coalition presented the case for impeachment of the president and vice president, I was struck by two overwhelming impressions listening to Rocky Anderson, Chris Hedges, Dennis Kucinich, John Nichols, Cindy Sheehan and others:
First, the progressive case for impeachment is undeniably strong; but, second, only those who already believe in it will ever listen to the case because it is made with so much more anger than hope.
The distance from anger to hope cannot be traveled merely by way of critique and analysis; it requires the work of imagination. Ultimately it demands what Walter Brueggemann might call a move “beyond analysis to alternative, and finally [to] the evangelical task of empowering the faithful to alternative forms of citizenship, alternatives that are informed by loyalty and love for country” and shaped, I would argue, by the deepest values of our faith traditions. Such a move is deeply spiritual.
I attended the impeachment press conference representing the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and while the progressive legal and constitutional case for impeachment is clear and compelling there was little said that might be called a spiritual case for impeachment.
Of course, if one conflates “spiritual” and “moral,” then the case is simple. In other words, if all “spiritual” means in this case is living according to conventional middle class morality and abiding by civil law, then clearly there is a strong case to be made for impeachment. It is, in general, morally wrong to break just laws. Even if extraordinary situations might call for breaking just laws in the practice of civil disobedience, it strains credulity to suggest that the present administration – or any administration – could make a claim of civil disobedience. Civil authorities, acting as such, do not have the option of being disobedient to civil law even under the extreme circumstance of wartime. As Justice O’Connor put it, writing for the majority in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, “We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.” When disobedience of civil law rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors the moral case for impeachment is at hand. A “moral majority” might even understand that reasoning.
But what if “spiritual” includes more than what is conventionally moral? What if spiritual has to do also with the wholeness and health of an individual or a community, with shalom? With that broader and deeper understanding, what might the spiritual case for impeachment look like?
If the bill of particulars in the case for impeaching the vice president and president includes misleading Congress and the American people into the war in Iraq, then is there a particularly spiritual case to be made for the value of honesty and can that case lead beyond analysis to alternative?
If the case for impeachment includes violating international law in leading the nation into a war of aggression, then is there a particularly spiritual case to be made for the value of international community and can that case lead beyond analysis to alternative?
If the case for impeachment includes violating the FISA statute prohibiting warrantless wiretapping, then is there a spiritual case to be made for the value of privacy and for the value of limiting the power of the state, and can that case lead beyond analysis to alternative?
If the case for impeachment includes violating the Geneva Conventions barring torture, then is there a spiritual case to be made regarding the treatment of prisoners, and can that case lead beyond analysis to alternative?
Finally, if every case for impeachment can be made successfully, are there spiritual values that ought to guide the way we pursue the process and treat those who are tried and convicted?
Before rushing to construct such a spiritually progressive case for impeachment, one pressing question remains: is there a spiritual value in pursuing impeachment even if, as appears at this point, the prospect of impeachment proceedings in this Congress is exceedingly dim? Given that Speaker Pelosi has not budged from her declaration that “impeachment is off the table,” and given that Congressman Kucinich’s articles of impeachment of the Vice President remains without cosponsors, clearly the odds against impeachment are long. Thus it is incumbent upon spiritual progressives who favor impeachment to make a spiritual case for going forward with a politically divisive strategy that is not likely to succeed in its stated goal. Can such a case be made?
If accountability, responsibility and truth-telling are spiritual values, then the answer must be yes. These values are certainly part of conventional morality; indeed, they are buzzwords of corporate leadership these days. For the general cause of impeachment, it may be enough to make a case for that conventionally moral value of bringing the truth to the bright light of C-SPAN, for determining ultimate responsibility for the laws that may have been broken, and for holding accountable those who broke them. After all, in a nation governed by the rule of law, what better lesson in conventional morality than holding accountable to the law the highest officials in the land? If we fail to meet that fundamental responsibility we fail to meet the most basic measure of civil society: no one is above the law.
Beyond that commonplace, however, responsibility, accountability, and truth-telling are spiritual values and where they are not honored there can be no shalom. Moreover, they are foundational for moving beyond analysis to alternative, for imagining a future otherwise, for holding forth hope that extends beyond our anger at the present situation.
From the moment of their swearing in, the president and vice president have a sworn responsibility to uphold the constitution and to obey the law. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, “Responsibility means … that the totality of life is pledged and that our action becomes a matter of life and death.” For Bonhoeffer, “God and our neighbor, as they confront us in Jesus Christ, are not only the limit, but … they are also the origin of responsible action. Irresponsible action may be defined precisely by saying that it disregards this limit, God and our neighbor. Responsible action derives its unity, and ultimately also its certainty, from the fact that it is limited in this way by God and by our neighbor. It is precisely because it is not its own master, because it is not unlimited and arrogant but creaturely and humble, that it can be sustained by an ultimate joy and confidence and that it can know that it is secure in its origin, its essence and its goal, in Christ.” Of course, within Christian thought, the definition of neighbor and thus the question of borders is always complicated by Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Similar concerns for the return of responsibility to its source in the divine spirit and for non-tribal understandings of neighbor can be found in other religious traditions, and those concerns are broadly pertinent with respect to the prosecution of the so-called global war on terror and the various charges against the administration related to that open-ended, ill-defined conflict.
When actions are irresponsible, when they transgress the limits of law or the lives of neighbors, the best of our spiritual traditions demands an accounting. Indeed, the best of our traditions often provides a means or practice of such accounting. The African-American spirituals were one such practice that was reinvigorated during the Civil Rights struggles in the American south during the 1950s and 60s. The struggle often resulted in jail time for activists, and jails were often filled with the sounds of freedom songs and spirituals. Often the guards would try to shout down the singers or mock them as they sang such hopeful lyrics as, “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days, hallelujah.” But imagine the feeling of the guards at a subsequent verse: “I’m gonna tell God how you treat me one of these days.” This accounting did not change the apparent situation nor the legal relationship of prisoner and guard, but it affected the spiritual context profoundly and bent the arc of the moral universe a bit closer to justice and thus moved the world a step closer to shalom. Such an accounting of the present injustice is equally necessary for the cause of justice and peace.
The truth-telling involved in such an accounting may be the most important spiritual imperative driving the impeachment movement. The structure of law and constitution and the values of conventional morality are impotent in the face of the silence of people of faith and spiritual commitment. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it,
Truth about the way things are … cannot be isolated from the kind of people capable of acknowledging the way things are. For the way things are, the God who creates the way the world is, is revealed by a people trained to be truthful. Holiness and truth are inseparable, which means that no metaphysics is or can be sufficient if a community has lost the skill to recognize lies. Such a skill, moreover, requires constant attention since truth at one time or in one context can so quickly become the lie.
In other words, conventional morality means little outside of a vision of the future otherwise. Only when a community holds a vision of shalom, a vision of the intention of creation itself for peace and wholeness, does the shattering of that shalom compel action. For the strategy of the big lie works perfectly well within a conventionally moral society, but it fails when confronted by a larger truth.
Some will argue that holding high officials accountable to the rule of law has ethical value in and of itself, regardless of considerations that we might consider spiritual. Nevertheless, without some alternative future, ethics in the meanwhile is vanity. In particularly Christian terms, one might say that “ethics without eschatology is desperate and futile.” In other words, without the broader meaning articulated through spiritual narratives we are left to engage in ethical struggles whose bleak prospects seen within the limited perspective of our moment in history can leave us mired in cynicism and despair.
The Biblical reminder that “with God all things are possible,” is more than mere platitude; it is the ground of hope for naming responsibility, holding accountable, and speaking truth to power when none of those actions seem likely to make much difference within the body politic as presently constituted. The spiritual narratives that tell us who we are and how we are related one to another give us the secure identity necessary to pursue the impossible. In other words, we seek to hold officials accountable not because we expect the Constitutional process to work its way out, but because we are so constituted ourselves as those who are called and commanded to enable truth to stand straight in the public square once again. Or, as they say in organizing circles, we are the ones who we’ve been waiting for. Moreover, as ones who trust that the moral arc of the universe, however long, does bend toward justice, we understand that our work of the impossible is but a single part of the larger work of the divine spirit moving toward justice. Our small part in bending the arc, in this case through holding public officials accountable for their responsibility before the law, is enough for the day.
Before the law, then, stand officials who could be charged with various high crimes and misdemeanors. Impeachment activists have named more than a dozen specific charges that could be raised against the president and vice president; four of those resonate particularly from a spiritual progressive perspective.
The president and vice president have been widely accused of misleading Congress and the public in making their case for invading Iraq. The broad movement that arose after disclosure of the “Downing Street memo” has produced numerous accounts of efforts of the administration to create a case for war even when the intelligence did not fit the facts. While the complex details and evidence for those charges should emerge through official investigations and hearings, they raise one simple question: is honesty an important value in public life? The stakes in such a question are clear when framed in terms of cynicism. When public officials twist the evidence to fit the agenda – in any issues, but all the more so in the life and death question of war – they breed and intensify deep public suspicion of government. Moreover, the disconnect between the apocalyptic and often religious language of ultimate concern that is employed by various administration officials concerning the war and the reality of on-going unmet real social needs deepens the cynicism that undermines American democracy.
The value of honesty and the call to accountability for those who have been dishonest about the most significant policy decisions facing the nation are not optional for spiritual progressives who want to offer an alternative politics informed by the deepest values of our spiritual traditions. Indeed, they are central to the alternative. For while critical thought and honest disagreement are good, right and necessary aspects of the spiritual journey and the functioning of a democratic government, cynicism is an unfaithful response to the world and undermines democracy. If for no other reason, the deep cynicism engendered by the words and deeds of the president and vice president warrant their being removed from office. Simply letting the clock run out on their administration is, in itself, a cynical response to the present situation.
The president and vice president have been accused of violating international law in taking the nation to war without the blessing of the United Nations. A decent respect for the opinions of humankind, not to mention the UN charter, suggests that the blessing of the international community is valuable in the decision to go to war. The larger spiritual question though remains: what is the value of international community?
The deepest values of our spiritual traditions encourage kindness, generosity, compassion and community that transcend borders and boundaries of nation, tribe and kin. In his prophetic vision of a future beyond exile, Isaiah proclaimed, “See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you” (Isaiah 55:5). The spiritual vision of shalom, of peace, of community, always transcends borders and calls all people into relationships based on values of generosity and compassion. That vision is fundamentally anti-imperial. While no national or international system or institution will ever perfectly embody these values (just as no human being ever perfectly embodies them), that fact does not obviate the spiritual calling to pursue such relationships and build institutions to support them. Likewise, the treaties that create such institutions and the charters that guide them have a moral force that must be respected. The reality of near-sightedness should not prevent us from pursuing far-sighted visions, for only the visions of a future otherwise can move us beyond analysis to alternative. An end to this administration that does not repudiate its imperial designs will leave the next administration – whichever party prevails – operating within the same paradigm with no alternative vision. Impeachment should not simply end this administration, it should declare an end to its worldview and inaugurate an alternative that reflects our deepest spiritual values.
The president has been accused of violating the FISA statute. While this accusation alone, if borne out by the facts, meets the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, the particular allegation raises an additional question: what is the spiritual value of privacy and of limiting the power of government with respect to privacy? The value of privacy when it comes to religious or spiritual practice seems clear on the face of it. The constitutional principle of separating church from state protects individual religious practice from government intrusion or coercion. The founding impulse of the nation recognized this value, and includes the express protection of the free expression of religion from state interference. By extension, one could posit a spiritual value in a more generalized right to privacy absent a judicially reviewed warrant for the government. In a statement opposing the use of torture, the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), acting at the behest of the 2006 General Assembly, requested that Congress protect “the right of privacy for U.S. citizens against intrusion by government or private entities.”
Beyond the specific violations of the FISA statute, the larger privacy concerns reflected in the Bill of Rights, include the imposition on the people by the government of a single religious world view. An administration that will tap phone lines of its perceived enemies should be stopped. An administration that too often employs religious symbols and language as it defines its enemies should be feared. As Chris Hedges has warned, “A group of religious utopians, with the sympathy and support of tens of millions of Americans, are slowly dismantling democratic institutions to establish a religious tyranny, the springboard to an American fascism.” Impeachment strikes at the head of that movement, and thus opens a public space for the much-needed conversation about building a politics of meaning and compassion.
The president and vice president have been accused of violating the Geneva Conventions barring torture. Compassion lies at the heart of each of the world’s great religious traditions, as does a core commitment to the sacred value of life. Spiritual progressives share a belief that each individual reflects the divine presence, and thus each human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights that include freedom from torture. While administration officials have repeatedly denied condoning torture, they have gone to torturous lengths to find linguistic escape routes from photographic evidence and mounting testimony to the contrary. Using terms such as “extraordinary rendition” and practices such as secret prisons, kidnappings and extradition to countries known to use torture, the administration has systematically denied that fundamental human right to be free from torture. Simply running out the clock on this administration is insufficient repudiation of this ongoing practice that violates our deepest spiritual values. If for no other reason than the strongest possible insistence that this shall not stand, the president and vice president should be impeached.
Finally, having set forth a spiritual progressive case for impeachment, what spiritual values ought to guide the way we pursue the process and treat those who are subject to it? One need not endlessly study the ancient texts of our various traditions on this point. Indeed, Neil Young may have put it best back in the 1970s, when he sang, “Even Richard Nixon has got soul.” Just as the victims of torture have intrinsic value as human beings, George W. Bush and Richard Cheney have intrinsic value as human beings. While anger at their actions may continue to motivate the drive to remove them from office, only a true compassion for them and for their supporters can begin to temper that anger and move the nation toward a path of hope. Thus, even as we hold their actions up to the bright light of truth, we hold George Bush and Dick Cheney also in the light of love, trusting that such love drives out the deep-seated fearfulness that has driven this nation and its leaders so far from its founding vision. As Martin Luther King, Jr. often observed, hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.
Moreover, if we trust that the truth liberates us all, then uncovering the truth of the past six years is necessary for moving into the future not bound by the fear that has so dominated all national discourse through this dark season. Simply waiting out the next 18 months until a new administration takes over is not enough, for until we confront the truth and experience its liberating effect we will continue to be bound by fear no matter who holds the highest offices in the land. Impeachment is not revenge; it is revelation. Revealing the truth can free us from the bondage of fear.
Only on the far side of that fear, manipulated and distorted as it has been since September 11, can we begin to reconstruct national policies that reflect and grow out of the core values of our deepest spiritual commitments. Only policies founded on generosity, hope, compassion, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation, can lead us forth from the long national nightmare of fear and suspicion that has marked the past six years.
I’m not sure I’m at the point of making any Falwellian pronouncements about one’s faith being at stack in the position one takes on impeachment. Lord knows the last thing the world needs is a progressive version of the Rev. Falwell. But surely the question of impeachment touches on the deepest values of our spiritual lives, for they are at stake when we live in a world of fear and hostility.
Freed from that fear to embrace these values and pursue policy alternatives founded on them, we can move from analysis to alternative, from anger to hope, from the present darkness to a future otherwise. Impeachment is not about what they have done, it is about who we can become.

Sacred Cows

So I was noodling around on line, looking for some graphics for a flyer for an event called, "Is Nothing Sacred?" Perhaps I should have Google imaged searched "nothing," but instead I chose "the sacred." I got this sacred cow.

So, what is sacred to you? Is it a game? Is it a place? Is it an idea? Is nothing sacred? What do you think? Oh, and how would you picture it?

Pondering Supernovas

An item in today's paper mentioned a star in our galaxy that might go supernova one of these days. It could provide a great sky show (in the southern hemisphere) or, much less likely, it might spew us with radioactive gamma rays and pretty much wipe out life as we know it.
On the list of things to worry about, this one falls somewhere lower than starched boxers, but it does pose some interesting questions for end-of-time folks. Would Jesus use gamma rays when he comes back to destroy his enemies? Or would it be the antichrist using gamma rays? It couldn't be that "we are star dust, and to star dust we return" could it? Could we get super-hero powers like Spiderman? (OK, so that's not an end-time prophecy, but it would be cool anyway.)

Away Message

Sorry to be dark this past week. We're undergoing some home improvements. Some minor inconveniences in access to computer and major inconveniences in access to time! But a beautifully refinished basement office should be up and running by next week!

Impeach

When Does Impeachment Become a Matter of Faith?

A Call to Action to Spiritual Progressives

When the fundamental spiritual values of the world’s great religious traditions – compassion, generosity, love – are violated repeatedly by the actions of the highest civil authorities, people of faith must defend those values and work to remove those authorities in accordance with civil law.

When an administration engages in torture, under whatever Orwellian term of art it may employ, we who believe in the sanctity of human life and the fundamental equality of every human being must move beyond opposing torture to opposing the administration that enables it.

When the nation’s religious leaders call a war unjust and issue dozens of theological statements[i] opposing it, yet the administration continues to pursue that war, we must press for an end to the administration.

When prisoners languish for more than five years uncharged and untried in tropical prison camps under the administration’s guidance and authority, we must follow the call to do justice by working to end that administration.

When “justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance, for truth stumbles in the public square,” we must speak truth to power and call for Congressional action.

We have been silent for too long. For those who believe in peace, the time to break silence comes when the executive arrogates from the Congress the power to make war; when it does so contrary to just war theory, contrary to international law, contrary to the United Nations charter, and contrary to the will of the international community. For those who believe that “the truth shall set us free,” the time to break silence arises when the president and vice president continuously use false claims to justify going to war.[ii] For those who believe in the sanctity and integrity of each human being, the time to break silence arises when the administration creates secret prisons, authorizes kidnapping and torture, and disregards the Geneva Conventions as “quaint.”[iii]

Therefore, the actions of the president and vice president having risen to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, we call on the Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President and Vice President of the United States in accordance with the Constitution.

At the same time, we call on Congress and the American people to pursue new policies based on a strategy of generosity that recalls one of the great moments in our proud national history: the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe following World War II. Such a strategy at this moment will restore our international standing and rebuild shattered relationships, it will address the life-threatening poverty and hopelessness that are the breeding grounds of international terrorism in parts of the developing world; and it will reflect the best of who we are as a people.

Now is the time for a new national direction. We can wait no longer.

[1] The web site of the National Council of Churches contains links to more than 100 such statements. (See http://www.ncccusa.org/iraq/iraqstatements.html.)

[1] There are dozens of examples of Bush Administration misstatements about the war, and a growing body of literature documents them. For one mainstream media list that includes several of them, see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/28/politics/main646142.shtml.

[1] Attorney General Gonzales called some provisions of the Conventions “quaint” in a memo to the President justifying the setting aside of the Conventions for the war on terrorism (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b79532.html).

Impeachment. Status Confessionis?

At what point does opposition to a regime achieve status confessionis? In other words, when is the integrity of the gospel itself at risk if one fails to speak out against a regime? For the church in Germany during the rise of National Socialism, Barmen represented the recognition that opposition to the Hitler regime was required for the sake of the integrity of the gospel itself. One does not need to fall to the rhetorical depths of comparing the present American administration with Hitler to raise the question, "at what point would outspoken support for impeachment become necessary for the sake of the integrity of the gospel itself?"
When an administration engages in torture, under whatever Orwellian term of art it may employ, at what point must followers of the prince of peace move beyond opposition to torture into outspoken opposition to the administration that enables it? If we follow the Christ who said, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," at what point must we move from opposition to an open-ended war to opposition to those who prosecute it?
At what point does it become a matter of faith to press for impeachment of the president?
Oh, and this is not just a rhetorical question, as I may be asked in the next few days to speak directly to this issue in a very public way.

If Were Up to Me ...

From a bleak news week, there's a sign of hope from the campaign trail -- usually the last place one looks for such signs. But, in the aftermath of the Blacksburg shootings, Obama gets it right. It's the culture of violence. Still, if were up to me ...

• Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
• Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
• Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin
• Maybe it's the President, maybe it's the last one
• Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
• Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
• Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
• Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
• Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
• Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
• Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
• Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
• Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
• Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
• Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
• Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
• Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
• Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
• Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
• Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
• Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
• Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
• Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
• Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the internet
• Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
• Maybe it's taxes, big business
• Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
• Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
• Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
• Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
• Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
• Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
• Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phones
• Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
• Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
• If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.
• 
  
• If It Were Up to Me
• Words and Lyrics by:
• Cheryl Wheeler
• (P) October 1, 1997. Penrod And Higgins Music /Amachrist Music. ACF Music Group

A Balm

Six years ago I preached a sermon to a congregation in Pittsburgh two days after one of its members killed five people in one of the worst rampage killings in that area's history. I dug those words up today after reading the Post's stories about the shootings at Virginia Tech this week.

A Balm in Gilead

I have had the feeling several times this weekend that we were reliving Easter weekend – that we were going through Good Friday all over again, all the while longing for this morning to celebrate resurrection. And so, I want to weave a couple of passages of scripture this morning, beginning with these words, from Mark’s gospel:

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”

News like Friday’s spreads quickly. Friday evening my brother-in-law called from Chicago. He’d heard the news. He was, naturally, shocked to hear that the person being held in connection with the shootings is a member of our church. In the conversation, Cheryl asked him, “so, what would Jesus say if a member of his congregation did this?” “Whoops?” said John.

I smiled at his ever-quick wit, but it occurred to me that, in fact, Jesus had such an experience. Judas was a beloved follower and his betrayal led to Jesus’ suffering and death. So, what did Jesus say? As he hung on the cross in agony, he said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

But what can we say, this morning, that might bring some of the healing that Jesus, even in death, was bringing to the world with his words.

Words. Words. Words. Sometimes they can be enough, but not today – not in the face of this. And yet, words are all we have. We can search the scriptures for words and find some comfort there, but we cannot use them to undo the horrible things that have been done. Indeed, mere words will not prevent such things from happening again.

We were talking with our children Friday evening about the shootings and Martin, our six-year-old, said, “I wish we could just rewind this day and start it over again.”

We held him close and said we wished the same thing. He expressed the wish of everyone in the community, I’m sure. But we can’t go back, so this morning we seek the strength to go forward. And in this moment, many of us seek answers to the simple question, “why?”

The plain and simple truth is, we may never be able to answer that question. In the aftermath of the mass shootings here and in Utah Thursday evening, we are already hearing some of the usual suspects trotted out:

· A media culture saturated in violence. Games, music and so-called entertainment that at the same time glorify and sanitize violence.
· A society awash in guns and state and federal lawmakers too timid and tepid to respond with effective restrictions.
· A culture that stigmatizes mental illness to the extent that families still do not feel comfortable “coming out” and seeking broad-based community support for themselves and their loved ones.

These issues are real and important, but this morning is not the time to speak to them. Today is not the day to say what we stand against, rather, it is time to say what we stand for – to state clearly what we believe about the God we worship this morning.

We believe in the God who created us, who sustains us, and who redeems us.

Such a God is not the author of our pain. God did not will these shootings. Indeed, the first heart broken Friday afternoon was the oft-broken heart of God. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept at the death of a friend. Brothers and sisters, Jesus wept again Friday afternoon. Jesus wept at the Gordon’s home. Jesus wept at the temples. Jesus wept at the Indian grocery store. Jesus wept at the Chinese restaurant. Jesus wept at the karate center. And Jesus wept at the Baumhammers’s home as well.

God reigns over all of history. Yes. God is working still in the world to redeem history. Yes. And we trust that even in the midst of our worst brokenness, God can work again to redeem us and to make us whole.

God created the world and called it “good.” God created human beings and called us “good,” as well. And so you and I, we bear within us the image of God. We are children of God. Richard Baumhammers is a child of God, as well. But he is deeply scarred. And each of us also bears scars. We suffer. We are broken. And in our brokenness, we are capable of horrific acts of terror and evil.

God does not call us to such an end. God does not will us to do such deeds. God does not will our suffering and brokenness. God does not will anyone to suffer a mind so broken that it leads one to lash out in senseless, violent spasms. God did not will Richard Baumhammers to kill five people Friday afternoon.

Where was God, then, in the midst of this violence? In the short story Night, Elie Wiesel’s holocaust memoir, he recounts the hanging of a small child in Auschwitz. The Nazi guards forced the prisoners to line up and watch the execution, and as the child was hanged, one of the prisoners asked, “where is God? Where is God, now?” Wiesel writes, “And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows.’”

God with us. Emmanuel. That is the name we call the God we worship. Even in the midst of our worst suffering, in the middle of our greatest fear, God is with us. There is a balm in Gilead. God is there, hanging on the gallows.

But the story does not end with God hanging on the gallows. We know that God has created us. We know that God is with us. The prophet Isaiah puts is this way: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” We know that God sustains us even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

But the story does not end in the shadows. God redeems us. We are a resurrection people. We are the people of Easter. Hear the word of the Lord from the gospel of Luke:

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

He is risen. Risen indeed.

Right now, on this second Sunday of Easter, it’s extremely difficult for many families in our community to see the bright sun of Easter in the midst of the darkness of last Friday. But the lesson of that weekend 2,000 years ago is this: God is at work in the world, reconciling the world to God’s self through the love of Jesus Christ. God is at work in the world redeeming history. Out of the darkness of Good Friday, God brought forth the light of Easter Sunday. There is a balm in Gilead.

I do not pretend to know why the events of Friday occurred. And I do not know today what may come in the way of redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation in our community. I do not know how God will work with God’s people here to bring light into this darkness.

But I do know God in Jesus Christ. I know the God who loves us and forgives us. I know the God who created us, who sustains us, and who redeems us. I do know, there is a balm in Gilead.

You Can't Murder Murder

Yesterday I posted a quote from Dr. King on love and justice. I put that up first thing in the morning, having looked it up for the local Network of Spiritual Progressives group that met the evening before.
The mass shootings at Virginia Tech had not taken place when I posted the quote. In light of that eruption of violence, the broader context of King's Where Do We Go from Here? is crucial. In that speech, King said:
I'm concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice; I'm concerned about brotherhood; I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.
The broader context of violence in the age of terror will not be transformed unless and until we take these words to heart.
And we will not open our hearts to these words until we open our minds to the reality of violence in our midst -- the culture of violence, to the myth of redemptive violence, to the icons of violence everywhere in our popular culture, to the violence of American foreign policy, to the money spent and made on weapons both large and small at every level of the culture.
John Nichols posted some compelling words today, with an invitation to watch Bowling for Columbine. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the time -- especially just now. (By the way, anyone locally interested in seeing it, let me know. We own a copy.)

Worth Recalling at this point ...

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
-- MLK

more theocrats

Had an interesting conversation today touching on the dangers of theocracy, and then ran across this from Paul Krugman in today's Times. Some of the most compelling current writing on the dangers of the so-called Christian Right comes from Chris Hedges, whose most recent work, American Fascists, recounts the frightening tale of the the rise and power of the Falwells and Robertsons and the next wave. One might surmise that the message is "be afraid, be very afraid." I'd prefer to think otherwise: be organized, be very organized.
Speaking of which, the Network of Spiritual Progressives in Northern Virginia is meeting at Clarendon this Sunday evening at 7:00. Hope to see you there.

The Theological Declaration of Barmen

With thanks, again, to Peg True!
With the Barmen Declaration we move from Reformation Confessions to Contemporary Declarations in The Book of Confessions. This Declaration was written in 1934 by representatives from eighteen German provincial churches – Lutheran, Reformed, and United (Lutheran and Reformed). They met in the industrial city of Barmen-Wuppertal as the First Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church. They were protesting interference in the life of the churches by the Nazi government and the resulting errors they saw in the Nazi-inspired “German Christian” movement. These brave church leaders would not vow their allegiance to Hitler nor would they continue to pastor in churches where Jesus Christ was less important than the current government. So they formed Confessing Churches which kept Christian faith at the center and risked their lives to remain true to their faith.
Authored principally by Karl Barth, the declaration is a clarification or explanation of the meaning of the older confessions and is applied to a concrete evil that threatened Christians in 1934. The action of the delegates at Barmen proved to be so right in their time, and so useful as a warning for Christians at all times, that it is included in our Book of Confessions. Their style of clarifying faith in the face of current problems in church and society served as a model to American Presbyterians in the writing of the Confession of 1967.
Two essential tenets, or beliefs, of the Reformed Faith are discussed in The Barmen Declaration. The first is the sin of idolatry. Reformed Christians believe that every person can know God, for that knowledge is in us. When we choose not to acknowledge God we create idols. In the Barmen Declaration the primary idolatry is giving ultimate loyalty to any idea, person, institution or purpose. Using the litany beginning, “We reject the false doctrine” they name the error of the “German Christians.” They spoke out against the idolatry of “prevailing ideological and political convictions; special leaders vested with ruling powers.
The second belief stated is the Lordship of Jesus Christ, proclaimed to be the “one Word, or revelation, of God, to the church and to the world. They also affirmed that Jesus Christ “is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins.
One of the most memorable figures in the struggle of the Confessing Church against Hitler was Pastor Martin Niemoeller who spent seven years in concentration camps. (Click to see a photo of his cell.) After the war he shared the guilt of the German people with these famous words:
"In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t
Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade
unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a
Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
That’s what the Barmen Declaration says to us today! As Christians we must keep Christ at the center of our lives and be an active member of our society assuring that all people can live together in freedom and peace.

Check it out!

Noah Budin. Metaphor.

It’s not often that one gets to witness firsthand an artist come into full flower. Those who have followed the performing and recording career of Noah Budin have experienced this growth and blossom over the decade since the first seeds were sown in his joyous debut CD, Hallelujah Land, in 1997. With the release of Metaphor this spring we hear an artist in full.

If all language about God is metaphorical, all of Metaphor is about God. Indeed, at their best, Budin’s songs sound like a deep correspondence between the divine and the ones imprinted with the divine image. Yet Budin manages this without ever sounding in any way traditionally “religious.” This is, indeed, music for those who are deeply spiritual without necessarily being religious.

The disc opens with the powerful percussion of “Metaphor.” The liner notes suggest that the title track emerged from a song-writing workshop whose participants were asked to develop metaphors for God, and the song weaves them together to powerful effect. But the more I listened to the song, the more I began to imagine it as a love letter from the creator to a creation that has forgotten how to recognize the divine in its midst. “I am that I am that I am and will be,” perhaps God sings to us, “but you are everything to me.”

If “Metaphor” is the creator singing to creation, the conversation continues in “Blessing,” a gentle prayer for grace to cover the generations as their circles dance to the divine music of creation. Full disclosure: I know several of the generations of the artist’s family including the spirit-filled youngest daughter who served, in part, as the spark for “Haruach.” That personal relationship has, if anything, left me a less patient listener longing for the fullness of the music to emerge from the promise of Hallelujah Land. It does so in the rich arrangements of Metaphor, and certainly in this song of spirit that highlights the keyboard work of Edward Ridley, Jr. and a fine sax riff from Norm Tischler.

Budin has surrounded himself with excellent musicians throughout this recording, and they are nowhere more evident than on “Let it Burn,” which must be the rockingest Hanukkah song ever recorded. I’ll confess, that as a Protestant pastor I don’t have a deep knowledge of the range of comparable holiday songs, but as one who grew up with the rock soundtrack of America in the 1970s, I promise you that Sam Getz’s screaming guitar more than holds its own while Budin’s voice rocks out strong and clear in a song that connects the candles with the fires of justice and promises to let it burn.

While many of the images used in the songs come directly from Budin’s Jewish roots, the music never falls into religious cliché. The beautifully turned “Reason to Believe” draws from a range of human relationships and natural wonders to trace the roots of faith: “It’s the lightning in the sky/your perfect smile your Godly eyes.”

The range of musical styles and influences is almost as wide as the range of faith influences. From the traditional folks roots of the raucous “Carry That Rock,” to the gospel sounds of “Take Me Back,” Metaphor displays a musical virtuosity rare in our genre-driven age. You may ask, “What’s a Jewish singer-songwriter doing joining voices with The Prayer Warriors on a gospel song?” Well, this is the same artist who introduced the world to accapella “Jew-wop” on Hallelujah Land, and under the production hand of his older brother, David, the various musical threads weave together seamlessly.

The disc closes with a final weave: the Jewish experience of slavery and exodus hope with the African-American experience. Borrowing from Rabbi Heschel’s memorable insistence that his “feet were praying” as he marched with Dr. King, the last track, “Every Step a Prayer,” reminds us that “it’s holy ground we walk upon/this journey that we share/in every breath, a miracle/and every step a prayer.”

While I leave the judgment of the miraculous to others, every breath of Metaphor is certainly a prayer, and the totality bears repeated listening.