What Isn’t Said
You know what I find most fascinating about this week’s presidential debate? What they didn’t talk about. There was a lengthy back and forth about energy policy and who would drill where and who would get the most oil out of US public lands, but no mention whatsoever about climate change. There was some discussion of clean energy technologies in terms of jobs and economics, but never in terms of the urgent issue of climate.
How is it that what is perhaps that largest issue of our time and for generations to come, an issue that affects all beings of this planet, an issue that we could actually do something about if we had the collective will, never manages to even make it to the floor? I think the answer is pretty clear. It isn’t a winning topic. People don’t want to know that the earth is changing, and that we will have to change to deal with that rapidly altering world. Either they deny the reality so that they don’t have to deal with it, or they plug their ears and go “La la la la la” so as to avoid the topic.
When in doubt, our natural inclination is to step around the topics that we don’t want to deal with. For a certain period of time we can manage to pretend not to notice Dad’s drinking, the cracks forming in the roof, Aunt Ellen’s diminishing mental capacity. Of course, as with climate change, dealing early and effectively with major problems diminishes the damage. But that requires the courage to step forward and take away the car keys or call the long-term care facility or give up things that we want now in order to pay to fix the roof in the not-so-distant future. And those things are hard.
So we just let it slide for another day. Perhaps it is too much to expect our politicians to exhibit moral courage when they know the voters won’t reward it. Perhaps it is the role of leaders to, you know, lead—to use the bully pulpit to remind people of what needs to be done and to offer a plan on how to do it. I don’t know.
What I do know is this: the best chance that any of us will have rests in a nation of truth-tellers. I don’t have a problem with fantasy. Fantasy is good. Each of us should carry a dream of what exactly we would like our lives and our world to look like. But you can’t just dwell in the fantasy world. Reality will, inevitably bite you in the end. Far better to start with a clear-eyed look at the world as it is, dangers, flaws and all, and figure out what next step might tilt the real world in the direction of the dream.
Maybe one person turning to their neighbor to ask why the emperor isn’t wearing clothes won’t be enough to stop the parade. But if enough of us dare to speak enough of the time, telling the truth of our lives and the truth of our world, then there might just be hope for us after all.
The Connection of Church and State
I am a big fan of the separation of church and state. I do not believe that it is appropriate for the government to privilege any religion, or impose any set of religious beliefs on its citizens. I don’t think that anyone’s religious views should be allowed to determine who may or may not get married. I don’t think that anyone’s religious views should be allowed to determine laws around abortion or access to contraception. I don’t think that we need to set aside time in schools to pray, and I don’t think that “under God” should ever have been inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance. There is no reason at all to teach “creation science” in biology class, as if any science were involved in the religious stance that all the overwhelming evidence for evolution should be set aside because the Bible says something different. It is not the place of a free, democratic government to impose the religion of some set of people on other people who may not share those views.
On the other hand, I’m absolutely in favor of people making political choices based on their religious views. How would you not? If your religion matters to your life at all, surely it has to inform your decisions about what laws and which individuals will work for the things that matter to you. If you follow the one who said “ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me….Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” then surely you will vote for the candidate who seems the most likely to provide for the poor, care for the ill and have compassion for the immigrant and those in prison.
If you call yourself religious, it is your job not only to hold a core set of values that you understand to be at the heart of your religion, but also to go out and practice and advocate for those values in the world.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I would say that freedom is a central value among my religious peeps. But it’s not at the very center. At the core, the value we hold most dear is ever and always love. That’s why you see UUs in bright yellow t-shirts that read “Standing on the Side of Love” at rallies in favor of marriage equality and compassion for immigrant families. Love is where it’s at for us. When I vote, it’s on the basis of the practical application of the principle of love. Love for our neighbors, love for citizens of the wider world, love for the planet which we share with so many non-human beings. I am Voting on the Side of Love.
What values are at the very heart of your religious life? Where do you see those values taking shape in the political sphere? How will you vote for the heart of your religion?
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Streets to Dwell In
Responsibility
One of the major themes of this election cycle has been one of individualism vs. “collectivism.” The argument of those on the individualist side seems to be that people need to take responsibility for themselves. If we do too much to shelter people from the harsher realities of life, then, it seems, people will lose initiative to take care of themselves and will become dependent on the system to support them.
I can see the point of this argument. We have all known people who seemed to feel like the world owed them a favor, who didn’t seem to want to step up to the plate and take responsibility.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think you really understand what it means to be responsible until you start taking some responsibility for more than your own little life. Certainly, the whole idea of what it meant to be responsible changed drastically the moment I became a parent. Suddenly, working and paying my household bills seemed like a trivial task compared with the need to make sure that nutritious meals turned up on time, that baths and clean clothes and bedtime all happened at the appropriate moments, that enriching opportunities for learning and growth appeared—without any pressure or agenda. And all those tasks are minor compared with the responsibility of providing just the right blend of openness and limits, of connection and independence, of work and play and rest. And we won’t even go into what it takes to maintain a loving composure in the face of two-year-old temper tantrums or the eye-rolling snideness of a teen.
Being responsible for a child is a massive undertaking. But it’s only the beginning. Those of us who are truly responsible know that we have responsibilities to our neighbors. We clean up after our dogs, and shovel our sidewalks when it snows. And if you’re going to participate in a democracy then you have a responsibility to make your vote count, to be informed, to weigh in on those matters that concern you, whether it be a traffic light in front of your local school or a giant oil pipeline running across your country. When tragedy hits across the world in the form of a hurricane or a tsunami and we reach out to help, we might realize that our responsibilities don’t end with the borders of our own particular country.
In fact, our responsibilities reach out across time as well as space. Do we not have some obligation to hand off to our children and our neighbors’ children an earth that is still hospitable and green, not to mention an education system that prepares the next generation for a future we can’t quite imagine?
Yes, I’m all in favor of personal responsibility. But I think we haven’t begun to touch our responsibilities until we’ve committed ourselves as broadly and deeply as possible to the health and well-being of all those whom our lives touch.
Grief and Atonement
There are so many reasons to be filled with grief: the four diplomats whose lives were cut short and the families devastated by the amputation of a beloved person from their midst. The loss of trust between partners in the US and Libya working for peace and freedom. Our national sense of violation and vulnerability from an attack by extremist Muslims on our most tender, damaged day.
But more than that, for me there is the grief that once again the violence inherent in narrow-minded, domination-centered, triumphalist forms of religion has bubbled to the surface once again. I do not forgive the Libyans who turned offense and outrage into murder. I also do not forgive the America-Israeli filmmaker who set out to cause offense and incite mayhem. Yes, killing people is worse—far worse—than hateful, bigoted language. But the inciter and the rioters came from the same place: a belief that their religion is right, that everyone else is wrong, and that their religious supremacy deserves to be accepted and honored.
I do not forgive. But as we approach the Days of Turning, the time between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur when Jews are called atone for offenses they have given and forgive offenses committed against them, I wonder if maybe we aren’t all called to atone. I know that the person who created the offensive film is no more representative of Christianity than the murderers in Libya are representative of Islam. But I suspect that all of us, whatever our faith, are in some way complicit in this tragedy.
I don’t suppose that anyone reading this message has vilified another religion, let alone physically harmed another in a religiously-fueled rage. But I wonder if all of us might not have moments when we treat the religious convictions of others with contempt, or let ignorance lead us into saying things that are offensive. I wonder if all of us haven’t fallen into some easy assumptions about who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad. I wonder which of us is free, not from violence, but from the underpinnings of violence that assume that we can make others conform to our view of the world.
There is plenty to grieve for today and in the days to come. May our grief lead us toward the deep sources of peace rather than the temptations of violence.
Pro-Life
The moral and ethical questions surrounding abortion are complex, and although I have my own firm opinions, I know that good people disagree with me for good reasons. I have no intention of arguing the question here. No, what I’m wondering about at the moment is just what it means to be “pro-life.” After all, being “pro-life” seems to me to be an excellent goal, a moral yardstick almost identical to Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life.” Just as a start:
If I am pro-life I will advocate for universal health care, for everyone’s access to technologies that literally sustain life.
If I am pro-life I will work for universal access to clean water, without which life is not possible.
If I am pro-life I will strive for everyone to be able to get healthy food, to live in communities that are not polluted, to breathe air that is clean.
If I am pro-life, surely I will be a proponent of arts in the schools, of public art and libraries and community theatre and senior citizen bands and all the ways that individuals and groups bring beauty and creativity into their own lives and the lives of those around them. After all, I am not just in favor of existence, but of life more abundant.
If I am pro-life I most certainly will be deeply committed to the conservation of our natural world, to the preservation of species and habitats, to combating climate change, to preserving life in all its diversity, not just human life.
The list could go on and on. In what ways are you dedicated to being pro-life?
REsources for Living
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Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, many be the source of one of the most…um…surprising religious traditions I know of. Surprising, as in a nice way of saying downright strange. Although only a few Orthodox Jews do it any more, it is traditional on Yom Kippur to do kapporot.
And what is kapporot, you might well ask? Well, basically it’s swinging a live chicken around over your head.
The Cost of Speaking
I try to be a nice person. Really I do. OK, it doesn’t always work, but I deeply believe in the practice of civility and respect toward all people. So I was genuinely sorry when a Facebook friend wrote to say that I had deeply offended her by questioning her integrity, and that we would no longer be friends. I wrote and apologized, but even as I was writing, I knew it was the kind of crappy apology that politicians are known for.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t just phrase something poorly and, as so often happens online, say something that I didn’t mean. She’s right. I did question her integrity. I accused her, I believe, of “being disingenuous at best.” That’s not a very nice thing to say, and I said it. I also meant it.
She is a Tea Party Republican. I am a liberal Democrat. And my faith tells me that that shouldn’t matter, that we share a common humanity. Before Facebook, it didn’t really matter, because our connection was through a shared hobby that has nothing to do with politics. But she is deeply committed to posting the kind of thing on Facebook that just makes me around-the-bend crazy.
Let me say this: there are many political subjects on which I think it is entirely a good thing that people disagree. There is such a thing as too much government and such a thing as not enough government, and people should argue their case about where the line of just enough government falls. Governments should both protect the rights of individuals and act for the common good, and sometimes those two values are in conflict. I believe society is better off when there is lively discussion about how to manage those two important values. There is no one right answer on a whole variety of contentious subjects.
But there are things that simply aren’t true. And when this Facebook friend used a line quoted out of context from a campaign speech Obama gave in 2008—a line in which he was calling for an expansion of the Peace Corps and diplomatic consulates—to declare that Obama was in cahoots with the New Black Panther Party to create an armed Black militia, I just couldn’t let it go. It seemed to me, and still seems to me, that there is no way to come to such a conclusion in a way that has a decent regard for facts, and if you choose to put something out in the world that you have no reason to believe is true, well, then I can’t help but think that you’re “disingenuous at best.” OK, lying.
So here’s the question: is it more important to preserve the human relationship and just let outrageous lies go past, or is it more important to stand up in a public forum and ask that people give some evidence for what they say? Which response is more ethical? Which more spiritual? Can you be genuinely spiritual without being ethical? Is it more respectful to call someone on behavior you think is inappropriate, or is it more respectful to make sure that feelings aren’t hurt, and relationships preserved?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. I just know that this won’t be the last time in the next few months that I will have to choose. What I do know is that I can choose to make the political statements that I put out there in the world scrupulously honest, identifying what is fact and what is conviction, never resorting to name-calling or stereotype. This woman is no longer my Facebook friend, but I will be a better person if I allow her views and her feelings to remind me of what it means when I choose to speak.
Real vs. Manufactured Outrage
I was going to write a post very much like the one that Peter Friedrichs shared yesterday. One in which I bemoaned the barrage of outrage from all sides of the political spectrum: “President Obama thinks that small business owners don’t actually accomplish anything by their own hands!” “Republican lawmakers swam naked in the sea of Galilee!” Surely people on all sides of the political spectrum can find real and substantive differences to argue about rather than hollering “OMG! OMG!” about the latest manufactured crisis or media-hyped “gaffe.” Surely there is a way for people to discuss genuine differences in a way that allows people to vote for a vision of the future that inspires them.
All the manufactured outrage keeps us from treating one another with respect, and prevents our listening for both our genuine differences and our genuine commonalities. But it also does something else. It makes it harder to determine when something really, genuinely is outrageous. As much as I hate the media pouncing on a single sentence or paragraph casually uttered by a politician (let alone the deliberate spin of what a politician says), some too-frank utterances provide insight into genuinely outrageous beliefs that are more often sugar-coated.
When Todd Akin says that women don’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape” he lets slip the seamy underside of a world view that declares that women not only do not deserve control over their own bodies, they don’t even have the ability to name their own experience. The concept of “legitimate rape,” or “forcible rape,” assumes that women are not really able to name the experience of rape, that there are kinds of rape that somehow don’t count, aren’t real rape. As when Republican lawmakers convened a panel made up entirely of men to discuss women’s health care, this attitude declares that men, and only men, have access to the real reality, and that women are not qualified to define the needs and the violations of their own lives, their own bodies.
My religion affirms “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” To write into law the notion that women not only don’t have the right to control their own bodies but, worse yet, don’t have the ability to understand and articulate their own experience, is, in fact, an outrage, and an offense against my core beliefs. It isn’t just a gaffe, it’s a world view, a world view that conservatives have built into the party platform. So this time, yes, I am outraged.
What’s Behind the Spin?
I’ve become curious about the way that Romney and those in support of his campaign have been accusing Obama of “hatred” and “division.” Is it just a throw it out and see what sticks tactic to assault his character, or is there something deeper going on?
Here’s my best guess. Obama, both by policy and by the mere fact of his existence, violates the world-view of the most privileged. Because white people have traditionally held the vast majority of the power in this country, we are raised with an assumption that white people in power is “normal.” A Black man in the Oval Office violates that deep-rooted sense of “how things are.” It’s “divisive” in the sense that it puts a wedge between the more rational side of the white psyche that articulates that of course we don’t have an issue with Black people and the gut-level sense that things we have always been able to count on are shifting, and so the world is somehow threatening or unsafe.
Similarly, Obama’s stand in favor of gay marriage is “divisive” in that it forces those opposed to same-sex marriage to acknowledge that their point of view is not necessarily “normal,” that the heteronormative society in which we were all raised might not be the society in which our children come of age. Same-sex marriage is in fact a threat to society as we know it—in the sense that it demands of us the flexibility to embrace a society that is slightly different than what we had assumed it to be.
Of course, if you are Black or gay then you have no choice whether to grapple with that division. You can either decide that you are “not normal” or you can decide that society needs to change to make a place for you at the table. But if you have gone through your whole life assuming that the people who are already at the table are the ones who deserve to be there, then a President who wants to bring up some more chairs to let others in is crashing the party.
If you are extremely wealthy and someone says that you aren’t contributing your fair share to society, it’s easier to believe that the person issuing that call is filled with jealousy and hatred than to deeply examine what you owe to the common good, or what compassion and justice demands of each of us.
Which is why I’m talking here about religion and not just politics. Because, really, it is the job of religion to call us beyond our assumptions, beyond our privileges, beyond our narrow worlds to something far bolder. Because it is the job of religion to divide us from our prejudices and sense of entitlement and push us toward the rigorous work of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
