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Fortnight – Day8: Social Self

~ philipamerson

Fortnight – Day8: Social Self

Today, consider please, the presumed dichotomy between the personal and the social, the individual and community. For too long our politics, religion, economics and charity have been misshapen by this fraudulent binary. At a fundamental level, there is a web of mutuality between one’s self and others. Americans tend to live with a heavy focus on individualism and “individual rights.” This is a good thing — however, if this is the sum total of what is valued or the singular basis for action– it will lead to trouble.

Social Psychologists George Herbert Meade and George Cooley posited decades ago the understanding that every human being is a Social Self. From the beginning, we learn who we are by interacting with others, as if in a looking glass. The language we learn, the games we play, our habits and our pains are fundamentally shaped in social contexts. It was from these insights that H. Richard Niebuhr wrote the ethics classic, “The Responsible Self.” Niebuhr suggested that the reflexive self could act as the responsible self.

In 1947, Mahatma Gandhi gave his grandson a slip of paper listing “the seven blunders that human society commits, and that cause all the violence.” These were:

  • Politics without principles.
  • Wealth without work.
  • Pleasure without conscience.
  • Knowledge without character.
  • Commerce without morality.
  • Science without humanity.
  • Worship without sacrifice.

(see Donella Meadows, Gandhi’s Seven Blunders — And Then Some, Sustainability Institute, August, 18, 1994)

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In the United States this week (10/25/20), a young man, the president’s son-in-law and advisor, stood on the White House lawn in an interview on “Fox and Friends.” He dismissively suggested that in response to the George Floyd “situation,” individuals “in the Black community” were unwilling “to break out of the problems they were complaining about.” He expressed doubt that African Americans “want to be successful.” Upon hearing the interview with Jared Kushner, I thought of Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins.

As abhorrent as Mr. Kushner’s words are, I recognize their ideological fountainhead. It is the reductive belief that only “personal responsibility” is required for the thriving of a community or nation. Individual liberty is the supreme goal and good and personal responsibility is the tool. Fix individuals and everything else will fall in line.

At this juncture, I have sat beside too many persons who worked hard, risked much, withstood adversity and still were crushed by immoral constructs in the social order. A wise front-porch, neighborhood philosopher, named Doris Danner once taught me, “You can build a crocked wall with perfectly straight blocks.” In a pandemic, is “personal responsibility” sufficient? Shouldn’t there be a societal expectation, even a mandate, that everyone wear a mask? Sadly, we are seeing, living with, and many dying from, the results of a mistaken notion of individual freedom as the ultimate and exclusive good.

I recognize Mr. Kushner’s perspective. You see, as an adolescent, my religious understandings were focused on personal salvation. I had to want to have a personal relationship with Jesus and that would fix everything else. Personal salvation was separate from justice. Yes, I was taught that if I was saved, I should be compassionate toward others. It was however, always with the motive that I could see that they were a saved individual, just like me. Whether I would admit it or not, racial segregation, economic or educational discrimination, or poor health care were best overcome if persons were saved and then “wanted to be successful.”

In my individualistic understandings, my paternalistic role was to see that others were “fixed” like me. There was little awareness that others, who saw things differently, might have something to teach me; nor was there the sense that God was at work for the the common good, for the realm of God.

While I prayed the “Lord’s Prayer” in those years; I failed to hear that it was a communal prayer. It was a prayer filed with the corporate words, “our,” “us” and “we;” a prayer about our neighbor and our world.

Jane Addams Helping Hands Memorial, Chicago

Years after receiving the note with the Seven Blunders listed, Arun added an eighth: Rights without responsibilities.

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Dr. Donella Meadows was an environmental scientist and early writer on sustainability who added to the list of social sins. A professor at MIT and McArthur award winner, sadly, she died too young, in 2001. Still her words fall in line with the call of H. Richard Neibuhr that we are to act as a Social Self — a Responsible Self!

“Somehow our public discussion has become dominated by either-or simplicities... This simplistic thinking seems incapable of embracing the idea of BALANCE, which was Gandhi’s central point. He wasn’t calling for work without wealth or humanity without science, he was calling for work AND wealth. Science AND humanity. Commerce AND morality. Pleasure AND conscience.

Life is full of unsolvable problems. Pretending to have solved them by choosing just one or another of profound opposites can generate even more blunders than the ones Gandhi listed. Justice without mercy. Order without freedom. Talking without listening. Individuality without community. Stability without change. Private interest without public interest. Liberty without equality. Or, in every case, vice versa. Listen to our public debates about health care, crime, taxation, regulation. You will hear the Gandhian blunders, the frantic search for a permanent simplicity, the passive violence that leads to active violence. There’s no point in taking sides in these debates. There’s only an opportunity to point out that balance, discovered through love, is what we should be seeking — and what we will always have to be seeking. (Donella Meadows, Sustainability Institute, 1994)

Fortnight – Day7: Curiosity

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Fortnight – Day7: Curiosity

On this the seventh day of the fortnight prior to the 2020 presidential election in the United States, I recall the story Bob Greenleaf* enjoyed telling.  The first time I heard it we were sitting on his sun porch at a retirement community in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.  It was the mid-1980s.  I have discovered he shared this anecdote in several places.

“There was an elderly couple who seldom ventured from their isolated home.  Although comfortable in their reclusive world, one day the man took a day trip into the city.  He returned carrying an old and battered cello with but one string.  The bow had only a few hairs.  That evening the fellow seated himself in a corner and began to saw away on the single open string.  He played only one note and that rather badly.  This went on day after day until one day his wife could stand it no longer and set out for the city to learn more about this object that had captivated her husband.

That evening, upon return, she confronted him. ‘See here, I have gone to the city and found other people playing instruments like yours.  It is called a cello.  Cellos are meant to have four strings and a bow with many strands.  What’s more, cello players move their fingers around playing many notes on each string.  And further, cellos often are played with other instruments, sometimes in small ensembles and sometimes in large orchestras.  Why do you sit here day after day playing that one raspy note?’

He gave his wife a cold look and replied, ‘I would expect that of you, a woman.  Those people you saw are still trying to find the right note, I have found it!'” 

Note the importance of curiosity and imagination; even more, there is the value of “seeing things whole” or “holistically.” There is benefit in other perspectives.  One can have more insight if listening to persons who have heard more notes played; they might have even heard a string quartet or an entire orchestra.  In selecting the one to sit in the White House during the next administration, will the American people select someone who can listen to and learn from others?

Curiosity in leadership will also lead to a valuing of paradox.  Paradox is the rather astonishing and beneficial awareness that in life and in institutions, two things, that appear to be opposites, can both be true at the same time.  There can be sunshine and rain together — and often this leads to a rainbow.

Robert K. GreenleafI still see Bob’s smile as he spoke of the mistake of institutions caught up in one narrow perspective or focus. Whether a corporation, church, or charity, the need for curiosity and seeing things in a wide frame was needed.

In politics, he spoke of the mistake of Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s.  Temperance was collapsed into abstinence. A broader conversation was needed about the cultural and economic realities that existed among impoverished folks during Prohibition.  More awareness of the medical realities surrounding addiction was needed. The irony, of course, is that many leaders then in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) understood this wider vision.  As part of their piety, they held progressive (even radical) views on economics, war, education and gender equality.  Today, these pious women would be dismissed as Socialists.  Their larger set of concerns were lost then, in an effort to do the impossible — legislate against the consumption of alcohol.  

Greenleaf suggested that one day, perhaps in the distant future, the mistake of using single issue, pressure politics to prohibit abortion would become evident.  (That day has not yet arrived.)

It was two decades later, Benedictine sister Joan Chittister observed, “I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, a child educated, a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.” (Interview with Bill Moyers, 2004)

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“When
I die
I’m sure
I will have a
Big Funeral.

Curiosity
seekers…
coming to see
if I
am really
Dead
or just
trying to make
Trouble.”

— Mari Evans

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*Bob is known as the founder of the Servant Leadership movement.  For decades was an executive with American Telephone and Telegraph, involved in leadership development and research.  It was in his later years that he wrote on servant leadership and worked as a consultant with the Ford Foundation and the Lilly Endowment. 

Double rainbow, Maui, January 2020

Fortnight – Day6: Sabbath

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Fortnight Day6: Sabbath

And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
(Wendell Berry)

If the presidential election, nine days hence, is to address the anxieties and despairing so many carry, it will require more than replacing one person with another. It will require more than changing the nameplates on office doors. It will require a transformation in us. It will require Sabbath. While many swamps may need to be drained, the primary swamp needing attention may be within the human heart.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, whether known in a few hours or several weeks, the temptation then will be to continue in the patterns and habits established out of anxiety, grievance and distrust. Sabbath will be required. Walter Brueggemann reminds: “Sabbath is the occasion to reimagine all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity.  Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes.  It is the pause that transforms.” (Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance, p. 44)

Lily Pond, The Huntington Gardens, 2015

I fear many things. I am anxious about much. Mostly, however, I desire to move from patterns of constant anxiety to another way of life. A way where I know the gifts of sabbath. The joy of rest, restoration, re-imagination and resistance. Joan Chittister wrote: “Sabbath is that period for holy leisure when I take time to look at life in fresh, new ways.” She encourages “contemplative leisure.”

Sabbath can serve as the great equalizer — it is a time when we are freed to set competition aside. As a great equalizer we are freed to recall that all share in creation; each other person is neighbor. Again Walter Brueggemann writes: The task is to SEVEN our lives. — On the Sabbath Day these vulnerable neighbors shall be like you.  Sabbath is not simply a pause, but the occasion to re-imagine all of society away from coercion and competition. (Sabbath as Resistance, p. 43)

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A Jewish Sabbath Prayer:  
Days pass, 
Years vanish,  
And we walk sightless among miracles.

Fortnight – Day2: Virtue

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Fortnight – Day2: Virtue

October 21, has been designated Global Ethics Day by the Carnegie Council for International Affairs. It’s a good and timely thing to give attention to virtue as we approach the selection of leaders in our nation. In this fortnight we reflect on virtue or ethics. What is “the best” way forward? What values, principles, intentions should be reflected in our personal and corporate actions? Where do we see evidence of the good, the true and the beautiful?

Virtue is born of our deepest beliefs, values, attitudes and desires. It finds expression and shape in our habits, our learned behaviors as these are repeated over and again until they are taken-for-granted as the “right” way. In this second fortnight post, we focus on the care that needs to be given in challenging what some believe is to be normative. I would ask, where is the virtue of immigrant children who have been separated from parents? What is valued in the denial of climate change? Should wearing a mask be a political statement when others may face harm by a neglect? Can any ethical person, let alone a Christian person, ignore the value of the health and well-being of another?

Aren’t these critical questions for all persons of faith — who is my neighbor? — how shall I therefore live my life? Will deception or lie be seen as normal? Will perpetual shading or spinning of the truth, or “gas lighting” (offering false stories) become appropriate for our leaders?

Aristotle offered four virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. These have become known as the “cardinal virtues.” The church later added the three “theological virtues:” faith, hope and charity (from I Corinthians 13). These became “the seven virtues.” Others have said virtue is evidenced in that which is good, true and beautiful. Okay — nice overview — but how will we therefore live? And what is the test for these seven virtues or this this triad? How will we know the good, the true, the beautiful?

Few ethicists have shaped my thoughts more than Glen Stassen. He spoke of the guidance offered in the Sermon on the Mount where over and again Jesus points to the fruit borne in lives well-lived. In his work Living the Sermon on the Mount he writes: “I am suggesting that even though we do not know all there is to know, and we do not have the certitude of a universal viewpoint, we can see within our own history what kind of ethic comes through, which is truer because of the fruits it bears.” The theme throughout the Sermon on the Mount is “doing,” “producing,” “acting.” Here is joy and deliverance from deceit. (See Living the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 192-199).

Ivan Illich spoke of virtue as the “habitual facility of doing the good thing.” With a sharp and critical eye on our institutions (schools, hospitals, church and our politics), Illich notes a failure to accomplish primary stated purposes. Other values, he suggests, are given preferred over that which is truly the good. The love of neighbor is somewhere lost in the maze of social interaction. Some are excluded. “No category, neither law or custom, language or culture can define in advance who the neighbor might be.” (see David Cayley’s The Rivers North of the Future, p. 30). Illich often points to the parable in Luke’s Gospel spoken of as “The Good Samaritan.” It is the “expert in the law” who says he has kept all the customs and rules who challenges with “And who is my neighbor?” There is a rupturing of traditional categories in the answer Jesus gives. There is a call to conversion, to change.

Theologian Nancy Bedford calls on Christians “To Speak of God from More than One Place.” When leaders are reluctant to speak against White Supremacy or suggest that other nation’s and peoples are to be disrespected, there is an effort to link God’s purposes to my small, small world of my self interest… to my unwillingness to share. There is a signpost along a country road not far from my home. I chuckle each time I pass. It simply reads “Entering-Leaving Gatesville.” A single sign, same message, front and back, all on one post. For many, the reach of virtue, of ethical concern, begins and ends in one place.

The folks of Gatesville are lovely people I suspect. They clearly have a good sense of humor an perspective. This is important. Sadly, when awareness and care for the neighbor is lost, when our beginning and ending is at the edge of our own skin and ego, then we lose an ability to know the gifts we are offered in community, in diversity, in journeying to new understandings.

When thinking about practical virtues of in daily life, I am also helped by folks like Shirley Duncanson, a retired United Methodist pastor in Minnesota. Her posts in “A Pastor’s Heart: Thoughts on Life and Faith” offer clear and practical assistance. Writing on “Recovering Christian Ethics in an Age of COVID-19,” Rev. Duncanson offers cites the work of Barbara Brown Taylor’s pastoral experience in wise counsel: “The only way out of a pandemic is by all of us working together . . . Each of us doing our part . . . Each of us caring for people around us . . . Each of us using the means available to us to protect one another . . . Each of us holding tight, (in our hearts) to one another . . . And all the while, making sure that no one, but no one, is left behind.” (see: https://shirleyhobsonduncanson.com/tag/barbara-brown-taylor/).

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“Love does no wrong to it’s neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:10.

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Poem by Linda Ori, 2004

The Time of Truth

The time is now
Let change begin,
Blend heaven and earth
In an endless spin,
Wherever you're going,
Wherever you've been
Now change your direction
And travel within;

The time is now
To take a good look
Examine your life
And the roads that you took,
From cover to cover
You've written your book
Did you swim in the river
Or sleep by the brook?

The time is now
Get your head on straight
No more indecision
To love or to hate,
Since you are the author
Don't blame it on Fate,
Take control of your future
Before it's too late.

Harvesting Surprise

~ philipamerson ~ 6 Comments

Harvesting Surprise

Each autumn, as harvest-time nears, I re-live a surprise. Now, in early walks on crisp, chilled October mornings, I am reminded anew. I look to see if Jack Frost has spray-painted fresh abstract art on meadows. Recollections of other autumns come: hayrides, jack-o-lanterns, golden, maroon and salmon colored maple leaves gathered and pressed in the pages of an old encyclopedia. Or, I recall watching children “bob for apples” in an old wash tub or remember sweet, steaming cider served by a fireplace.

PublicDomainPictures.net

As I gaze to discover if hoarfrost has tinted a field in a crystalline hue, a rime-like shadow reaches across my consciousness. Perhaps the year was 2011; or thereabouts. A lovely autumn day and I am traveling across the nation’s farm-belt from of a distant meeting to my home, several hundred miles away. It promises to be a leisurely drive.

There being no urgency, I think of long-time friends. They work a large family farm. I will pass nearby. Hospitable folks, these. We exchange annual Christmas greetings. Every few years, some special event might bring us together. Each time — scribbled on a holiday card or spoken in a face-to-face visit — is the same gracious invitation: “Please, come visit; just drop by, anytime; no need to plan ahead.” I would nod, saying I would love to see their place; and, mean it. Still, years passed and the visit was never made. This would be a day I could stop. Surprise them.

PublicDomainPictures.net

This visit was the first of several unforeseen miscues that day! Readers familiar with the ebb and flow of agricultural life already know my error, my blunder. My surprise landed right in the middle of harvest. From sunup to sundown, and sometimes longer, combines whirled, rumbled and slashed. Farm trucks carried grain to the elevator cycling back and forth and back again unloading their bounty. This “surprise” visit was a first unforced error of the day.

When I greeted her on the phone, I should have picked up the overwhelm in her tentative voice. “Yes, so good to hear from you. Today? Well, yes, we would love to see you. The fellas will be gathering in the barn at noon. Can you make it by then? It is quicker if you take the county road over to our place. Come to the house first. You can help me carry over the lunch.”

Slow witted me! It was only as the call ended I realized I had bushwhacked them right in the middle of harvest! I was the city-slicker dropping by announced from the outskirts of hell.

I made it to the farm with a few minutes to spare and immediately offered my apologies. My friend only smiled and said, “It’s okay. You can help carry these things to the car.”

Arriving at the barn a half mile away, we pass the Pioneer Seed signs, the fuel pumps and grain storage elevator. Parking by an old John Deere we walk into a large structure with huge sliding doors at each end. It is full of implements: tractors, planters, harrows and several charts and computers along the western wall next to a small office. I am reminded that farming is an ever more sophisticated business.

We set out the lunch on a long table. Slowly others, family and farm hands, gathered. My friends introduce me as “a preacher friend who came by to pray for us today.” Okay, my turn to be surprised. So, I pray for a good harvest, for safety and well-being of all in our world during this harvest. I kept the prayer short knowing folks were eager to get back in the fields before rain might arrive.

Ample portions of chipped ham sandwiches, potato salad and iced tea are served. Some peanut butter cookies followed. There is teasing, talk about the weather, feeding the barn cats, and a few questions about mutual friends and grandchildren. Knowing the need to return to combines and trucks soon, I am amazed when my friend goes to his small office and returns handing me some papers. “Your going to enjoy this,” he chuckled.

It is a printout from an old dot matrix printer. Here before me were a collection of “jokes.” Reading the blue inked words, were some of the most offensive, racist jokes imaginable. They were about the President of the United States. Surprise hardly captures my emotions. It was closer to horror.

Still, I care for these people. My friend thought I would be amused, but this had burst across a divide in our worlds. I was confused, sad, disgusted, tongue-tied. I knew there was racial animus and bigotry toward Barack Obama, but surely not here. These were my friends, my good Christian friends.

I wish I could tell you of my courageous response, of my righteous witness. As I remember it now I didn’t say much, only mumbling “I don’t find this very funny.” A human hoarfrost was now stretching across our faces, our conversation, challenging the core of our friendship.

Soon, I was off, watching the dust of the combines in my rear view mirror. I was on my way home — back to another world, my natural habitat, an urban setting, on a university campus.

This surprising harvest occurred nearly a decade ago. Each autumn its memory returns and I realize it was a harbinger of much that has unfolded in our nation, especially in the last four years. Without any sense of irony, these are “good Christian folks,” at least in the way the see themselves and are seen by others. Even so they had burst open my easy assumptions.

They had reached out with hospitality to me — at least before I made my raid on their assumptions and routines. Racism is not the exclusive property of country folks. Many, many rural folks do not accept such bigotry; but many do. And yes, racism is alive and well in our cities and suburbs too. Still it seems to wait along the corridors of everyday activities to suddenly startle and divide us.

I have thought much about the culture that shapes these friends and their religious and political perspectives. Through study and conversations with many farmers, I know more of the stresses on those who today seek to make a living following a plow. I better understand the racial and cultural divides that can so easily be manpulated into fearful mistrust and misinformation.

I have learned that agriculture is changing dramatically, at an ever more rapid pace. Industrial-style agriculture is extraordinarily expensive and risky. Debt is high and weather is increasingly unpredictable. It is destined to change. It will ultimately be replaced by models more attune to sustaining the land, water and soils. Efforts to farm with perennial polycultures, like those being researched at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, will hopefully offer new options.

I am sad for my friends who carry the heavy load of racism and fear (and probably economic threat) that limits their ability to see the depths of racism that damage the soul of our nation. I pray they learn — in their church or social gatherings — of the ability to see others as persons of worth and dignity. I am saddened by the urban/rural and cosmopolitan/ localist divides in our nation and world.

I suspect my farm friends think me to be a “latte drinking urban elitist.” Even though, I don’t like latte! And, I am mindful of my own limited vision and fears that shape my understandings.

Richard Longworth’s fine book “Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism” offers compelling insights into the challenges of those who currently farm in America. He notes the phenomenon of vertical integration wherein every element of farm activity, from selecting seeds to spreading fertilizer to selling in a market is controlled by a large agribusiness — and not the farmer. As Longworth puts it, “Why own the farm when you can own the farmer?”

I don’t excuse the racism of my “friends.” Not at all. Nor do I miss the reality that a deep social/cultural divide was already emerging on the day I burst in on them. I fear such racism has only taken up greater residence in the minds of good people who now share their “jokes” on Instagram or Facebook rather than on a dot matrix printouts.

Something else was harvested on that October day a decade ago. My unacceptable silence was surfaced. It is the silence of too many of our churches, too many of our cultural and political leaders. What might I do better to express theology that valued all as Children of a loving God? How might I do better at harvesting respect, hope, love for the neighbor AND the stranger?

Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but it appears a harvest is underway in our society regarding racism. In the midst of the tragic deaths of folks like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd a new awareness seems to be possible. I suspect my farm friends don’t see anti-racism activities in the same hopeful light that I do. I see these as a sign of a potential harvest of hope — a sign that increasing racial justice might some day arrive… a time when the frozen assumptions and categories of our common life are thawed. It is not easy, not for my friends or for so many others caught up in the swirl of human distrust.

As I write a national election is only days away. I pray the current patterns of racism and ugly vitriol encouraged by the current national administration will be rejected and fresh sense of respect and the valuing of our common life can be harvested.

No matter the outcome, I will plan to make another visit to my farm friends — it has been too long since I saw them. Be assured I won’t bushwhack them again during harvest!

Pride Goes Before… COVID19

~ philipamerson ~ 7 Comments

Pride Goes Before…

Of course, first we pray for all of those who are infected with COVID 19, including especially the president and those around him. Sincerely, as a person of faith, my heart and prayers go out to those who have learned and are learning of their real or potential infection with this virus. We pray for Melania Trump, Hope Hicks and others around them.

Second thoughts go to lessons learned as a child. This wisdom is drawn from Proverbs 16:18 (“Pride goeth before destruction“). When did I first hear the expression “Pride goes before the fall”? I suspect it was at some point in elementary school. Over and again in life, this wisdom has been illustrated. This ancient wisdom asks us to live with humble respect for knowledge and the care of others.

Sadly the president is disrespectful of science and the well-being of others. Only a day or so before his infection was discovered, Mr. Trump said “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”

This is a tragic morality tale. I suspect Mr. Trump’s words and behaviors over the past nine months will become a core illustration of the scriptural proverb. Pride does go before the fall. Hubris, in action and/or words, can boomerang back on the head of those too arrogant to accept such a basic human reality.

Now, a proud man, a stubborn man, one who with arrogant pride ridiculed others, illustrates this truth. He who thumbed his nose at medical experts; he who spoke dismissively of others who wore masks; is coming to terms with his overblown hubris. Gallons of hydroxycloriquine can’t fix this. What a strange new test this is for our democracy that is already being severely tested. There is no bunker to protect him from his own pride.

The virus was politicized but the virus wasn’t political. This is not a reality show. Children will be learning this real-life-example of hubris and linking it to this Biblical wisdom for decades to come.

Yes, we pray for our president and for all of his maladies.

No Country for Old Folks

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

No Country for Old Folks

“Take time to grieve.” I have offered such counsel while standing with families and friends at the time of loss. Take time. I have counseled myself when facing crises. Time to pray, time to reflect, to breath deeply; take time to embrace family and friends; time to gain perspective for the journey ahead. It will take months, years perhaps, decades maybe. Time is necessary to better understand the whole of pain and healing.

On Friday last, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. She was 87.

On July 17th, Congressman and Civil Rights leader, John Robert Lewis died. He was 80.

Over the past six months, in the United States’ more than 200,000 folks have died of COVID-19. Of these more than 150,000 were fellow citizens over the age 65.

We have much grief work to do as a nation. We have lost leaders and icons. Many of us have lost loved ones and dear friends to coronavirus.

We have grief work to do!

Cormic McCarthy’s 2005 novel No Country for Old Men, and the movie that followed, comes to mind in this moment. It is a powder keg of a book. Played out on the Southwest Texas border with Mexico. It is a tale that moves all too quickly and violently upending the quiet lives of those caught in the unwelcome drama. Like James Lee Burke’s recent novel A Private Cathedral, McCarthy’s story plumbs the depths of human good and evil and the world of truth and lies.

Our nation’s future appears to reside in the hands of many old men (and a few old women). Some are seeking to rush past the national grief work so needed now. This is needed grief work to celebrate the service of Justice Ginsberg or Congressman Lewis — grief work that remembers the lives of those hundreds of thousands struck down by the coronavirus.

Let this also be added to our grief work: to stand against the corruption and lies offered by those who seek only to hold on to power. Let our grief work be to move our nation beyond the grievance of bigotry; let us move past unproductive racial, religious and cultural divisions. Let our grief work seek compassion for all, young and old. Let our grief work involve prayer, reflection, reaching to friends and family. And, mostly, let our grief work be to join those who will work and protest and vote for a society that values all people.

Beyond a House Divided

~ philipamerson

Beyond a House Divided

Prayers for our nation today — and a resource for hope.

A-House-Divided-Cover-300w.jpg

This week, my friend, Mark Feldmeir’s book,

“A House Divided: Engaging the Issues Through the Politics of Compassion,” will be released. It offers a hopeful way forward in these challenging times.  Mark is pastor of St. Andrews United Methodist Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Regarding racism, Mark offers these axioms:

How we think about racism is largely determined by our own particular race.

Race is the child of racism and not the father.

Colorblindness is a myth that blinds us to the truth about racism.

(https://www.markfeldmeir.com/a-house-divided-engaging-the-…/)

A Prayer for Guidance and Grace:

God of justice, in your wisdom you create all people in your image, without exception.  Through your goodness, open our eyes to see the dignity, beauty and worth of every human being.  Open our minds to understand that all your children are brothers and sisters, in the same human family.  Open our hearts to repent of racial attitudes behaviors, and speech that demean others.  Open our ears to hear the cries of those wounded by racial discrimination, and their passionate appeals for change.  Strengthen our resolve to make amends for past injustices and to right the wrongs of history.  And fill us with courage that we might seek to heal wounds, build bridges, forgive and be forgiven, and establish peace and equality for all in our communities.  Amen.  (A House Divided, page 30)

Prayer for Today, August 31, 2020:

Dear God, calm the fears of our nation. We think especially of the events in Kenosha, Portland, Louisville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and in so many other places.  We pray for our own home towns.  [Silent prayer]  Show us the way to greater justice for all as we seek understanding.  Even as we go about our lives in this restricted world of COVID 19, awaken us to, and remind us of, the gifts and value of our neighbors.  [Silent reflection]. Make of us, who are your church and who live outside the church, advocates for non-violence and renewal. [Silent prayer]  Amen.

When Wrong about Antiracism, Say So!

~ philipamerson ~ 5 Comments

When Wrong about Antiracism, Say So

I was wrong.  As soon as I spoke, I regretted it.  It was a video class, called “Anchor Point,” taught by Dr. Rob Fuquay at St. Lukes United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.  Rob interviewed me for the class via video.   I spoke of research done on white racism over the years.  As the class was ending, I was asked what I might say to the African American members of the class.  My too quick response was, “First, have patience with us.  Second, keep pushing us.”

I was wrong. If I could have a “do over” I would have said to African American Christians, “Keep teaching us and encouraging us all to join in what John Lewis called “Good Trouble.”

By sundown on that Sunday, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake had been shot in the back seven times!  I was wrong to suggest that patience in the face of the racial violence our nation endures should be anywhere in the realm of a reasonable response.  Perhaps I was tired, like most of us are, tired of the horrific words and actions of bigotry, discrimination and deadly violence. 

Fifty years ago, James Baldwin wrote “I will flatly say that the bulk of this country’s white population impresses me, and has so impressed me for a very long time, as being beyond any conceivable hope of moral rehabilitation. They have been white, if I may so put it, too long.” (New York Times, February 2, 1969)  Robert P. Smith’s book “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” published only this summer, draws on Baldwin’s perception.

Early in that video interview I had spoken of Robert Smith’s research on White racism.  Earlier I had offered stories of antiracist actions by congregations.  Earlier I had talked of our racist complicity and our deeply embedded racist-worlds-taken-for-granted behaviors.  But to the question “What would I say to my African American sisters and brothers?” my response was pathetic and unhelpful.  The call is not to patience.  The call is for more than an apology.  The response is to vigilance against the sin of racism and a pledge to actively engage in antiracist work. 

In this moment, in these circumstances, patience is NOT a virtue.  If my words in any way were heard as a call to be passive or patient in the face of active racial hatred, let me be clear — that was not what I meant — and what I said, well, it was wrong.

 

 

 

A Democracy Smothered to Death

~ philipamerson ~ 4 Comments

Democracy Smothered to Death

There are multiple reasons to ignore the Republican National Presidential Convention this week: Hurricane Laura battering the Gulf Coast; unrelenting wildfires in California, the death toll from the coronavirus passing the 180,000 mark, as millions of students from kindergarten to graduate school return to classes — and others face months of isolated online learning; concerns about future postal service as persons wait for needed checks and medications, another young black person, Jacob Blake, shot by police — this time shot in the back, seven times — and the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin erupt in protest.  Plenty of reasons to ignore the GOPs made-for-reality-television episodes.

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Balcony in Barcelona, 2018

It can be overwhelming.  Each of these tragic events deserves attention, human care and response.  There are so many threats as so many innocent people face unexpected, life altering events.

Two images come to mind as I watched the Republican National Presidential Convention.  The first is a balcony curtain seen in Barcelona two winters ago. It was, to my eyes, a delightful piece of whimsical art: two hands appear to be pulling back the curtains on a balcony.  It represents the joy of discovering what might otherwise be hidden.

The other image is a photo taken on the same day in a nearby neighborhood.  There were dozens of these banners, hanging from balconies and roof tops.  The image is a blank face where a mouth has been smeared over and the word “democracia!” is printed below.

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Democracia!  This is a cry heard round the world in our time.  From Hong Kong to Belarus to Damascus to Louisville and Kenosha the cry, too often muted and all too real, rings out.

As I watch snippets of the made-for-television Republican convention, there is little mention of the multiple tragedies that surround and threaten to overwhelm.  In fact, these calls for democracia are not mentioned.

Folks are paraded in front of the cameras — grifters, cons, wanna-be-future-presidents.  There are folks who seek profit or status by supporting the forced alternative reality that is being sold from the platform of fear and grievance.  It is a world deconstructed of truth; a world of scarcity that is broadcast by folks who have more than enough.

All aimed at good persons, who have bought into conspiracy theories because they fear the future and, like too many people all across the world, they are willing to put their trust in a totalitarian idea… No worse yet, trust is put in a totalitarian and narcissistic man.  He actually suggests we shouldn’t believe what others may say or think — trust him only as a source of truth.   Forget science, ignore history, avoid moral thinking apart from a few made for grievance and simplistically answered dilemmas.  He who, though you know he cheats and manipulates, still claims to be the one to bring the order and easy solutions you hope will one day come.

Truth is turned on its head — the immigrants who bring talent and a willingness to work are turned into the enemy.  Young people who seek justice and protest out of conviction are turned into rioters.  NATO becomes our enemy and Russian operatives who seek to undermine our common well-being are turned into our friends.  After all, the supreme leader sends love letters to the North Korean dictator and speaks fondly of the tyrant in Turkey.  He is “doing foreign policy differently” we are told and any appeal to human rights disappears.  The scriptures are not read or studied; no.  The “holy book” is but a symbol, a prop; it is held up like some talisman that can block out the truth contained in the great and true counter narrative within the book.

The idea that there is only one person who can fix things, all of the social disarray around is what this man openly stated four years ago.  Today, in the United States the true believers are the Trumpists.  Who would imagine, who could imagine, a political party that decided it needed no plans for the future, no party platform, especially when tragedies abound?  Who could imagine?  Would someone please pull back the curtain and let the realities of our situation be made apparent.  Might “we the people” discover it is essentially our shared, widely enacted, response that can begin to bring renewed health and hope.

There are also well meaning, sincere folks.  Persons I think of as “the genuine articles” who are given a cameo performance on the GOP stage.  They have bought into the big lie.  The lie that the world is an either/or place.  Either you are with the supreme leader, and that is the only way to fix things, or you will lose your place of security, of status and order.   There are multiple alternate paths for a people who might seek truth together; however we will have to work with persons who see some parts of reality differently.  Pull back the curtain.  There are options to being a Trumpist. It will require pulling back a curtain to see that those who differ are also Children of God, like you? The Trumpist wants to say all who differ are “socialists.”  Such astonishing, deceptive, untruthful language is repeated over and over until good people believe the lie.

Democracy means we will have to work with others to solve the complex real world problems; we must, in fact, do it together.  I so value the good folks who seem stuck in this trap of binary thinking — they are my neighbors, my friends, my family.  Still, my reality is that our democracy is now being smothered. 

It is like a giant pillow of grievance and fear is forced down across the face of our body politic.  There is not room for protest, dialogue, compromise.  As Bill Moyers put it “A democracy can die of too many lies. And we’re getting close to that terminal moment, unless we reverse the obsession with lies that are being fed around the country.” (See Bill Moyers on Truth).