When I Die
I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seeds every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. Read more →
A Shovel Full of Earth
A few shovel fulls
of earth
await humbly.
Dark brown as only
earth can be—
dug from the fragrant depths. Read more →
Resurrections
I collect stones, and now also beach glass, as we walk with our dog along the lake. When we moved to Evanston I jettisoned many pounds of rocks from other places—Berkeley, Big Sur, Provincetown, Ferry Beach, Star Island—and kept only a few. I forget where most have come from, but when I look at them and hold them, I cherish the sense of history and pleasure emanating from the colors and textures of their faces.
Love and Death
Although I have delivered some thousand sermons on almost as many discrete topics, one way or another each circles back to a single theme. This tendency, I’m told, is not uncommon. Every minister worth his or her salt has one great sermon in them. It’s no wonder that we return time and again to its familiar music and uplifting chords.
The Losing Team
Another election has come and gone. Some people, presumably, are delighted, while others are filled with gloom. OK, it was mostly gloom on my Facebook page. Maybe you worked really hard on behalf of a candidate you truly believed in, and that candidate didn’t win. Maybe the one who did win is the worst kind of corrupt imbecile, totally in debt to the moneyed interests. Maybe you feel like the country is going to hell in a hand basket, and we are all at the mercy of people who think that Ebola is washing our shores on a wave of Black people and climate change is a hoax invented by scientists who want to further their careers.
It could be that we are doomed, and if your plans for this week should happen to include an adult beverage or a childhood comfort food, well I wouldn’t blame you.
But eventually we always come round to the question of what now. Now that the election is over and we get a break from the ads. Now we know just how vehemently we might disagree with our neighbors or family members. Now that the whole cycle of hope and possibility and things not ever living up to their potential starts over again. Now what?
The same thing as always. Sorry, but I don’t have a better answer. Now we make dinner and pet the cat and read the kids a story and decide what to wear to work tomorrow. Now we look for a job that will pay the bills or an apartment that won’t break the bank or a date who won’t turn out to be a complete waste of time. Now we call our friends to comfort them or be comforted. Now we wait to hear back from the doctor or we wait to hear whether there will be an indictment from Ferguson. We visit the rest home, we take the children to soccer or to dance, we cry or look at videos of cats.
Maybe we remember other elections that swept us up in a tide of hope or despair, and we remember how after those elections we kept on doing what we do. I’m in no way saying that elections don’t matter, or that it’s not worth being deeply engaged in the political process. The government sets policy, and those policies affect really important things like who gets deported, who gets health care, whether people can manage to live on minimum wage, what efforts are made to combat climate change, what kinds of transportation we have access to, whether there is funding for research, what is supported and not supported in our schools, and on and on and on.
Politics matters. Having a voice matters. Speaking up for your hopes matters. But it doesn’t necessarily matter in the way that we would like. Paying attention and voting and making calls and writing letters and campaigning door to door doesn’t always result in the person or policy we support winning. And, sadly, even if they do win it rarely means that everything is rosy and the world is organized the way we would organize it.
Whether we get what we want is not what defines our efforts. We are called to care, and to love and to work for justice. Whether or not things go our way at any given moment. I used to serve a church in the same neighborhood as Wrigley Field in Chicago. Although I am not, myself, a baseball fan, I learned a lot from my Cub-loving congregants. The Cubs lose. Everyone knows that. Historically, currently, the Cubs are just not what you would call a winning team. Which doesn’t stop the fans from rooting for their beloved Cubbies, year in and year out.
You love what you love, and you go out and yell on its behalf, following the statistics or the players or whatever markers of success or defeat you might have. You show up and cheer. When your team wins you get a parade. But when your team loses you have the opportunity to gather with your friends and mourn the losses and plot how next year will be better.
Or maybe two years from now, when elections roll around in 2016.
Justice, Elections, and Whiteness
Brits By the Boatload
When that boatload of Brits showed up in Massachusetts, they quite literally considered themselves god’s gift to the continent. Subsequently, they decided which religions were acceptable; which ethnicities and countries of origin were acceptable; who could vote; who would be enslaved; who lived and who died.
This norm has functioned continuously since, letting some in and refusing entrance to others. This normative power is what Professor Ignatiev meant by “white” in her book How the Irish Became White.
A look at the election results this past Tuesday demonstrates that white skin and male gender are still the tickets to power in the United States, the power of whiteness.
That boatload of British Anglo Saxon Protestants declared themselves the baseline. The arbiters of all things worthy. And they vote.
US history shows that some groups were able to get into the club relatively easily. Descendants of German immigrants, for example, now outnumber descendants of British immigrants. George Washington was half German, though it took until 1890 for a full-blooded German to be elected to national office . . .
Germans became white in 1890.
Professor Ignatiev argues that the Irish became white by becoming more racist than the British and Germans. One piece of evidence: is it a coincidence that the great haters on Fox News are generally of Irish extraction?
Whiteness. It’s a club.
Tuesday’s election demonstrated that whiteness hasn’t given up. I suspect it will become more overt in the next several years.
Here’s a hero many haven’t heard of: A. Philip Randolph. Randolph was African American, born in 1889. He organized a union called the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. One of the first African American unions. He was also president of the Negro American Labor Council and vice-president of the AFL-CIO.
Whether it’s right or wrong, the Marxist analysis of race that Randolph believed is very simple: the ruling class (read: that boat load of Brits) uses racial prejudice to divide and conquer the poor. In other words, Marxists say that “whiteness”—and allowing some into the club of whiteness—is a manipulative tool for controlling the poor, the majority.
True or untrue, this analysis of race is why humanists, Unitarians, Universalists, and other progressives were once at the forefront of anti-racism work and nowadays are not. True or untrue, the Marxist story marked a path that could be usefully followed.
A. Philip Randolph was a Socialist. An atheist. And a humanist. He signed the second Humanist Manifesto in 1973. (As did Betty Friedan.) The second manifesto was a child of the more explicitly socialist first Humanist Manifesto, written when the New Deal was a heady dream.
Humanism has socialism in its DNA. After all, if you believe in the inherent worth and dignity of each person, it’s hard to argue that “white” America and its engine, Capitalism, offer a level playing field. Facts on the ground point the other direction. Far from being a statement of individualism, the inherent worth and dignity of every person implies communal action toward communal good.
After all, after you’ve asked how a nation can create a level playing field, you have gone down the road of redistributive justice. The most extreme of un-individualistic ideals.
There are two ways to redistribute wealth: revolution and taxes. Sane people tend to suggest that taxes are the way to go . . .
But back to A. Philip Randolph, who helped plan (along with nonviolence theorist, gay rights activist, and socialist Bayard Rustin) the 1963 March on Washington, where MLK gave his greatest speech. That march was the culmination of a way of thinking outside the norm.
And that was then. Isn’t it almost unthinkable in today’s US? Where would the Civil Rights Movement have been without labor halls to speak in and union money?
We are the stories we tell ourselves. “True” or not, some narratives bear richer fruit than others. The idea that race is a construct used by the oppressors to oppress was the fuel of the Civil Rights Movement. Nothing since has borne so much fruit.
I’m just sayin’ . . .
A Phillip Randolph put it this way:
Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.
Election Day, November 4, 2014
(photo by D.Vandiver)
Today is the day, friends. The day to VOTE.
This is the day when we get a chance to be citizens and constituents, rather than just consumers. Today is the day this nation decides party control over the House and Senate, decides who will address the looming issues of raising the minimum wage, immigration reform, equal pay, and – let us not forget – going back to war.
In New Orleans, many judicial races will be decided today – criminal court, domestic court, juvenile court… Today we elect the people who will decide who goes to jail, who gets custody in a domestic violence case, whether or not your child gets a second chance… Beloveds, in a state that incarcerates more people per capita than any other state in the country, this election matters.
Wherever you live, it is the local elections that will most immediately shape your community. What happens in Washington, DC certainly impacts us, but rarely as intimately as local policy and enforcement.
If you are young – please vote! If you are an elder – please vote! If you are in the sandwich generation – please vote!
If you can vote, please vote.
If you voted early, well done!
If you, like me, plan to vote today – don’t forget!
Vote today.
There are 2,867,473 registered voters in the state of Louisiana. Almost 2.9 million possible voters! Let’s see what it looks like when we all show up to choose the people who will make the decisions that shape our schools and our families, our courts and our country.
With gratitude to everyone who can vote today and grief for all of those denied the right to vote through the gutting of the Voters’ Rights Act and other egregious practices, I wish each of you well. May this election day end with leaders elected who care about you, your families, and our planet.
Go forth in peace and vote!
PS: In Orleans Parish, mark your calendar to vote on Dec. 6th, too! The state legislature has tried to do an end run around the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and give away its money and control to the Recovery School District (RSD) through a millage vote that doesn’t even list the RSD in the summary that will appear on the ballot. It is slick, my friends, and it is as wrong as having to work on Mardi Gras day. Mark your calendars for Dec. 6th and vote NO on the grand theft masquerading as an education millage.
Be Still
My daughter is learning to nap. Again.
Not on a shoulder or on a lap.
But in her crib, with a stuffed wolf and a pacifier.
To fall asleep on her own;
To quiet her mind and her body and her mouth —
practicing, practicing, ready to talk;
To turn away for a few moments from the excitement of life;
To turn off the stimulation of the every day.
I am trying to help:
To set the scene, to rub her back, to gently say, again and again,
“You’re just going to sleep.”
I watch her work her way up to the edge, ready to leap into dreamland,
and then wake herself up, roll over, wriggle and jump and babble.
I’m not into letting her cry, and I’m not looking for advice.
She will get it.
And she comes by it honestly:
A mother who struggles to quiet her own mind and body (and mouth),
To turn off devices and turn away from Facebook,
To be still.
To know.
To rest.
Conscience and Choosing the Hill to Die On
As of this writing, Maine nurse Kaci Hickox is under house arrest for her resistance to what she considers a fear-based, anti-scientific, and politically-motivated quarantine.
In 2012, the US military experienced a odd occurrence: for the first time in US history during time of war, more active duty troops died as a result of suicide than combat.
Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhiseng disappeared in 2009. He reappeared recently, in prison, with no charges against him, and no release date.
Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, risked torture, imprisonment, and death fighting in the courts for the rights of women and children in Iran.
All these stepped out of line. They disobeyed their governments. Some disobeyed the dictates or their religions. Most are disliked by a majority of their fellow citizens. Some of them chose death rather than a life of guilt and shame.
Why do people do things that sometimes get them killed; sometimes imprisoned; sometimes demoted or fired or exposed to the scorn of millions of their fellow citizens?
What drives all of this crazy, counter-intuitive, behavior?
Conscience. And the mental punishment inflicted by conscience, guilt.
Conscience. The feeling that some actions cannot be condoned, no matter how “legal” they are.
The feeling that enables we human beings to take actions for the good of others rather than ourselves.
The Great Leap into Sapiens
Why do human beings have a conscience? Isn’t a conscience merely a drag on getting ahead?
Henry David Thoreau said in his handbook for rebellion, Civil Disobedience: “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”
Despite the fact that Thoreau’s thoughts have become the template for those acting on conscience, notice that word “machine.” Thoreau saw conscience as an individual attribute against a deterministic mass. But it isn’t always, is it? Sometimes, as in the case of Edward Snowden, the machine is ambiguous.
We still don’t know why homo sapiens sapiens—the “wise man,” as scientists have (perhaps over-confidently) called our species—began to have a conscience. My vote for best hypothesis goes to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
Dunbar theorizes that human language developed as a result of the need to socially interact in larger groups. Neanderthal, for example—also known as homo sapiens neanderthalensis—traveled in very small bands—and were for the most part inbred. They didn’t use a whole lot a gray matter figuring out what other people were thinking or trying to get along with an extended group.
They didn’t use their words much, and so didn’t have a need for a great many. They probably didn’t have much of a conscience, either.
Navigating the deep and often stormy waters of multiple relationships, however, required a good many words and concepts. And this may be why the children of homo sapiens sapiens—the “wise man”—developed complex language. It was a matter of talking about it or dying. It was also a matter of considering multiple goods in the gray shades that human existence swims in.
Emotions are in the gut. But it takes gray matter and complex language to make the complex decisions a Solomon or an Edward Snowden have to make.
The Critical Mind
Philosopher Peter Singer says there are two types of conscience—the traditional and the critical. This goes some way into an important distinction. Most people have that traditional form of conscience. It’s the stuff of traditional religions. It’s the level of confidence in others that allows us to work in offices and live in communities. Almost all human beings have it.
The people who get the Nobel Peace Prize are of the critical variety. A Malala or Shirin Ebadi. They have considered the arguments of the majority. They have heard the arguments of traditional religion. And they have decided to act for a greater good.
The right thing to do isn’t always clear. Human governments aren’t faceless machines of conformity, as Thoreau appears to have thought. The individual isn’t always correct. (The deluded decision-making of Timothy McVeigh demonstrates that point.) Yet, homo sapiens sapiens gets wiser only though the actions of brave individuals risking themselves and thinking way outside the box.
It is that accumulation of brave thinkers that may, someday, made us truly wise.
Plenty and Then Some
This blog post, and the excerpts of a sermon on which this blog post is based, are both inspired by a song, “Help Somebody,” by Susan Werner.
“I got plenty and then some….what do I do?” I can not get this song out of my head, once it’s in there…and because of this refrain, I don’t mind that at all. I love the question and the reframe that this song poses when it pops up yet again in my mind, even—especially—in the midst of running around feeling overly busy, this song reminds me: “I got plenty and then some / what do I do?”
The messages, mantras, and recurring thoughts that we get stuck in our head are, I believe, far more impactful than we realize. They matter. Remember last week when the media was obsessing about Ebola, three cases of Ebola in the United States? I’m as impressionable as anyone and a little too much Ebola coverage in my face and I was obsessing about washing my hands even more than I already do and not sneezing on anybody. Which is, you know, courteous, but as far as Ebola in our town goes, it’s not a rational response. It would be far more productive and useful to send a check to the Red Cross, which has groups actively engaged right now in education and disease prevention efforts in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.
…I’ve actually just learned that there is now a new disease that has been identified and defined—have you heard about this? It was reported on by CNN starting last Tuesday, and it’s spreading rapidly throughout the United States. It’s defined as “an airborne disease that spreads through conversation, entering your brain through your ears. It’s called Fearbola. Fearbola is so contagious that some victims have contracted it simply by seeing images and videos about Ebola.”
In all seriousness, our spirits are often irrational. We can overreact to anything both positively and negatively, generously and fearfully. I believe that we each and all hold the potential for heaven and hell within us, that all our congregations, communities, cities, institutions and countries have the potential to create either heaven or hell for one another on any given day. You have seen heaven created in the ways that families are held in love and tender communal celebration during a wedding or upon the birth of a new baby; you have seen hell created in the lives of children and their families at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I’ve heard Susan Werner sing her song in a way that says “I think I’m in heaven—right now, I’m in heaven; what do I do? I go out and help somebody get to heaven, too.” What if heaven is to love and be loved, to have enough of what we most need in the way of food and shelter, access to books and walking trails through woods with golden-leaf-covered pathways? Would you know if you were already in heaven, right now, in this world? If you focused all your energy, all your attention, all of your heart and mind on all that you have plenty of in your life, on being amazed that you have been this blessed, lived this long, loved and been loved this much, known this many amazing and unique people, had that many filling and wonderful meals—how would that reframe lift your spirit into a place of marveling, celebrating, of wonderment, of, quite possibly, enlightenment?
And then, once the vast majority of us appreciate the plenty that our lives have been blessed with, then what? Plenty and then…what?
We each have something to offer, but it’s so easy to forget that. As a congregant quoted by Rev. Rebecca Parker shared so eloquently, “I am a person who has something to give. I am a person who has received abundantly from life. I am a person whose presence matters in the world, and I am a person whose life has meaning because I am connected to and care about many things larger than myself.” Our perspective on whether or not we have enough impacts everything else that we experience, perceive, think, and feel.
…
Sometimes I feel like the need for perspective is what feeds our interest in the news and that in turn encourages the news to be so hyperbolic. We all know that if we want to be reminded that “it could be worse, for someone, somewhere,” we just have to turn on or look to the news! Our minds are naturally competitive, always comparing and contrasting with others. Our hearts long for perspective, hunger for the message that who and what we are is enough. Our spirits rally and resound with the teaching that what we have and experience in our lives is tremendous. What shall we do with all this beauty?
We have plenty and then…some.
We have plenty and then…what?
The Dalai Lama teaches that “the very purpose of religion is to control yourself. He guides us to ask ourselves, each day, as individuals and as a society: what are we doing about our anger? About our attachment, our hatred, our pride, our jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life.” This is the purpose of spiritual practice. In Unitarian Universalist terms, I would say that this is cultivating the practice of self-awareness. Or we could call it: inquiry. What is our outlook on the world on any given day? What is the refrain that is running through your mind? Writer Byron Katie teaches an incredibly simple and powerful practice of questioning our own thoughts, asking ourselves “is that true?” about each thought that we find repeating itself over-and-over in our minds. “Is that true?”–what I’m thinking about myself or another person, the thought that is driving feelings of anger or frustration, sadness or desperation, reaction or judgment. Is that thought I’m thinking actually true? And what if the opposite were true, can I really imagine and inhabit that possibility? Is it really true that there’s not enough time or not enough money or that it’s all his or her fault or that he or she would never agree to something we want to do? Is that true? If I question that thought, if I maybe even let it go, what happens then? Katie teaches that heaven is when we are thinking: “This is wonderful. I could stay here forever.” And just like that, with the opposite thought of “this is not quite perfect,” we can find ourselves in the quagmire of hell, and lose all perspective on the plenty with which we have been blessed.
…
What do you, what do we, not even realize that we have an abundance of in our lives? How might we look around and within ourselves and take one more step forward into this world with a greater sense of splendor, of plenty, overflowing in our hearts? What do we do with all this beauty?
Let us commit, and recommit, each day, to being self-aware, to questioning our own thoughts, to asking ourselves, “really? is that true?” to deliberately choosing what stories we tell and re-tell. Let us keep fresh before [us] the moments of [our] High Resolve, that in good times or in tempests, [we] may not forget that to which [our lives are] committed.” Let us find ways to calm our fearful human natures and reach out in love. Let us resolve to let our lights of hope and kindness shine brightly. Let us turn towards one another, open to new possibilities, new ideas, new ways of being together celebrating the plenty we have found in our lives. May it be so.
