Ideology
The government has come screeching to a halt because Speaker Boehner, under pressure from the Tea Party Republicans, will not allow the House to simply vote up or down on a continuing resolution to fund the government. (Since having an actual budget has bizarrely gone the way of the politically impossible.) Unless the Democrats agree to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has passed the House and Senate, and been affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court, not to mention the American people who re-elected Obama by a significant margin knowing that the ACA was an important part of his platform—unless they undo what has already been done and throw in a random selection of Stuff Republicans Want, then they will not vote to fund the government.
It boggles my mind, and only becomes explainable when you recognize that these folks are not only playing for political gain (Look! I’m important! I talked for the better part of a day about things like “Green Eggs and Ham”!), they are operating out of an ideology that declares that by definition, less government is better. If less government is better, then no government must be great. Especially since they get to keep their paychecks for no governing. At the center of their ideology is the conviction that each of us is in this life for ourselves, and that the best thing our neighbors can do is get out of our way.
Now, the temptation is always there to declare those with whom you disagree to be ideologues, while you, yourself, are free from prejudice. But the fact is that each of us is operating out of our own ideology. Just in case you were wondering, here’s a bit of mine:
- We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves. Not one of us can get through this life entirely on our own power, and we shouldn’t even try. Life is better when we care for one another, when we pool our resources so that we can accomplish things that no one of us could do alone, when those who have much carry a sense of obligation toward those who have little.
- Facts are not negotiable. People can, and should, have a wide and creative variety of ideas about how we should address any given fact, but they are not entitled to just make stuff up. Life works better if you make choices based on reality, rather than what you think reality should be. This means that putting significant effort into gathering the facts about any given situation is almost certainly worth it. This applies to climate change, abuse of Medicare, the effects of immigration, everything. Science is a methodology for finding things out. It produces knowledge. It is not optional.
- No one person, group, religion or nation is really that exceptional. We all matter. We all have different gifts and challenges. And if you think that you or your group or your religion or your nation is uniquely wonderful you are likely to miss out on the great things that others have figured out. Really, why not look around and see who has the most effective, cost-efficient health care system and try to create something like that? Why not look and see where education is working the best in the world and see what we might learn from them? Sure, be proud of who you are, but not to the exclusion of learning from others who have just as much reason to be proud of themselves, and maybe more.
- We are all connected. That is a theological statement. It is also a fact. Every choice you make affects someone else. We share one planet, we breathe one atmosphere. There is no such thing as an individual outside the context of that person’s life, and we forget this at our peril.
OK, call me prejudiced, but I’m pretty well convinced that a government with a commitment to my own personal ideology would be off to a pretty good start. But I’d be more than happy to hear what kind of ideology you’d like as the basis for our government. Plenty of room in the comments section below.
Who’s In and Who’s Out of Institutions (and the immigrants between)
The British social anthropologist Mary Douglas had this to say about institutions:
Inside a religious body you get sects and hierarchies, inside an information network you get bazaars and cathedrals, it is the same, call them what you like. They survive by pointing the finger of blame at each other.
That about sums it up, doesn’t it?
Douglas is most famous for her theory of dirt: She claimed that human groups form solidarity by what we consider disgusting. For example, if your group considers eating sheep’s eyes disgusting, you’re unlikely to become very intimate with the group next door that considers sheep’s eyes a delicacy.
Douglas claims that human groups, or “institutions,” allow those inside the institution to point fingers at those outside the institution. As we stand inside and point fingers, we develop group cohesion: there’s an inside and an outside.
But, it doesn’t stop there.
Douglas thought that first we off-load responsibility for our actions onto an institution, then we begin to allow the institution to think for us. As a matter of fact, Douglas believed that our institutions operate exactly opposite from the way we generally think they do: we think institutions make small, rote decisions for us; but, actually, we allow institutions to do the big thinking for us, and we stick to the small stuff (–you know, such as consuming too many calories and avoiding exercise. Stuff like that.)
Because . . . it’s not easy bearing personal responsibility for the things that institutions such as government do. Yet, if we intend to lead an examined life, we must look in the mirror and ask ourselves what benefits we get from those things we off-load onto institutions.
Let’s think about government . . . oh, say, the United States government: bad immigration policy; institutionalized racism; millions of working poor; gun “freedom” that kills thousands per year, and poorly regulated industry, to name a few problems. Now, ask yourself, What benefits do I get by being in that group?
It’s disturbing.
It’s disturbing because Dr. Douglas is not saying, human beings form institutions and then wag their fingers at outsiders when they aren’t thinking about it or when we get lazy or when we fail to change wrongs. She isn’t saying those other people do that. She’s saying that’s what ALL institutions do. It’s disturbing because a basic fact of human nature is that we form groups, then we lose any ability to act morally concerning those things we have given away to an institution. Then we benefit from the immoral actions.
Now, you can say, “Oh, well, she’s just a crazy leftist feminist postmodernist, so, you know how THEY are!”
Or we can say, “hmm, that’s interesting! How can we use that human propensity both to better understand institutions that we don’t like, and those we do?
How can we use that idea to create institutions that encourage the sort of human action that we see as positive, rather than the sort that we see as negative?
I know you’re already way ahead of me on this . . . ideally, Unitarian Universalist congregations are places where people are not only encouraged, but required to question assumptions. Places where we encourage finger-pointing at systemic injustices, not at the people who may or may not be perpetrating the injustices, for whatever reasons . . .
If we look at Mary Douglas’s ideas from this perspective, they aren’t quite as crazy. Or quite as ivory tower!
Take, for example, immigration.
Consider for a moment that, as nations go, Mexico is not a a poor one. As nations go, the average Mexican is somewhere in the mid-range of income and social well-being for human beings on the planet. It isn’t that Mexico is poor, by international standards, but rather that the income disparity between Mexicans and North Americans is large–as a matter of fact, the disparity is the largest of any two bordering nations on earth.
That goes a long way toward explaining why people might consider crossing a border. To me, anyway, it’s hard to point my finger at a group of people trying to do that.
How have we–and let’s listen to Mary Douglas and include all of us–how have WE—the institution called the USA–responded to the immigration issue? Rather than facilitating the flow of people back and forth across the border, we have tried to stop the flow–we are still following that policy.
Now, I’m old enough to remember when the border was porous. People came here for summer work, then went back to Mexico–they went back home–for the winter. People can’t do that anymore. Because we have spent billions of dollars to stop them. They’re stuck here.
What would you do, if you found yourself stuck in a foreign country, no way out?
First you would go to the embassy, right?
Then you would start calling on your support network . . . family and friends.
Then you would get out your credit cards . . . see if throwing money around might help . . .
What if your loved ones were across the border?
How long would it take before you just took off walking . . . ?
I have a challenge for you: listen to Mary Douglas and get outside your comfort zone. Call yourself on one of your prejudices . . . . Call your own bluff on one of the “institutions” where you sit comfortably and point fingers from . . .
Maybe it’s the institution called race. Maybe it’s the institution called social class. Perhaps it’s the institution called education. Perhaps you wag your finger at close-minded people.
Whatever.
Try reminding yourself this week that, as psychologist Steven Pinker puts it,
“Our minds are organs (like the lungs), not pipelines to the truth.”
Our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth.
Try it. Actually realize that your brain is an evolved organ and has its limitations. And your brain is NOT an institution.
This week, call yourself on one of your prejudices. Call yourself on one of the things you get away with because of an institution you belong to. Step outside your comfort zone. Actually listen to someone who your prejudice tells you can’t have ANYTHING valuable to say.
Instead of pointing a finger and even wagging it a little, sit back and listen.
Try it.
A Better Choice
It was a few days after the 9/11 tragedy. We had done our best to shelter our not-quite-three-year-old daughter from the constant onslaught of images on the news, but there was no way to censor things entirely, particularly our conversations as the tragedy unfolded. How could this happen? Who would do such a thing? How were we to go on?
So it wasn’t too surprising when, as we got to the end of bath time that evening, she said: “Tell me about the splat in the sky.” Explaining horror to a very small child is not the easiest thing in the world, but I did my best. I explained that there were some people who lived far away who got very, very angry at our country. And because they were so angry they decided that they wanted to hurt as many people as they could, and so they flew some airplanes into buildings. And so many, many people were hurt, and we were very sad. She thought for a moment, squared her shoulders, and looked at me from there in the tub. “They should have made a better choice.”
They should have made a better choice. It’s OK to get mad, but it’s not OK to hurt people. Use your words. Look for a solution. Take a breath. Take another breath. So many of life’s tragedies could be avoided if we would all just adhere to the wisdom that we teach our toddlers.
The men who downed the planes should have made a better choice. Also the Bush administration should have made a better choice than to go to war with Iraq. And now, now there is Syria. And surely Assad (and/or his generals) should have made a better choice than to use chemical weapons. But could it be that we are, in fact, on the verge of making a better choice ourselves? Could it be that the governments of the world will manage to walk the fine line between allowing the unacceptable and committing the indefensible?
Probably it is too soon to get attached to hope. But there it is. In this particular moment, Wednesday, 9/11/2013, it seems like President Obama, Congress and various heads of state have acknowledged that there might be a better choice. That there could be solutions that don’t involve blowing things up. That it’s OK to be mad, but that doesn’t mean we need to hurt people. That we could pause, and take a breath, and work toward a solution that is better than what happens when you rely on hurting people to tell the world how you feel.
What will happen remains to be seen, but today I am praying for a better choice.
Bombing Again? But It’ll Work This Time!
There’s really no need to refer to specifics. When you’ve been a citizen of the United States as long as I have, you’ve heard it all before: national security; stopping this or that madman; ending drugs or terror or Communism; honor. Whatever. The point is always the same: now, in this situation, violence will actually work to fix the problem. Unlike all those other times! And the United States, like an abusive spouse, swears this time is not like all those other times.
But it is.
A few years back I worked with a group of committed Unitarian Universalists on what we call a “statement of conscience” concerning war. Oh, the squeals. The Unitarian Universalist movement is not, after all, a “peace church” like the Quakers or Mennonites. As a matter of fact, Unitarians and Universalist have been complicit with, if not instigators of, most of the violence in the US since that civil war referred to nowadays as “the Revolution.”
And so the well-meaning and committed group attempting a statement of conscience concerning the violence of nation-states sank into the weeds of “Just War Theory” and other bromides.
Pacifism has never done well among Unitarians or Universalists. The list of pacifist ministers is short, though the prominent Universalist Clarence Skinner and the prominent Unitarian John Haynes Holmes are on it. (The pacifism of Holmes led Theodor Geisel, pen name Dr. Seuss, to write, “If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not.”) Another name on the list is John H. Dietrich, a predecessor of mine at the congregation I now serve. It’s a short list, but I’m proud to be on it.
No, the present situation is not like the First or Second World Wars. Fortunately. And, yes, there were some good excuses for killing people, at least in the Second one. Still, the human propensity toward violence and its manifestation in the violence of nation-states is odd, to say the least. It doesn’t serve much of a purpose, either, does it? The human propensity toward violence does appear to be innate, though the fact that murder rates vary from one murder per hundred thousand people in many European nations to twenty murders per hundred thousand in the US argues that violence has a large cultural component. The US is a violent culture, and that violence spills out across the globe.
Will it ever end? Probably not. In the present kerfuffle, pacifists like me will have to bow our heads once again and wait for the inevitable results. But we aren’t required to like it. And we can keep calling it what it is–silly, silly, silly.
None of the Above
As I write, the President and Congress are discussing how to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is full of strong opinions: that we must respond to the wanton abuse of citizens with chemical weapons, that bombing Syria would be a huge mistake, that force is the only solution, that force is never the solution, and on and on.
Here’s my best assessment: there is no good solution. I am certainly no expert on the political situation anywhere in the world, and certainly not Syria. But I get a sense of things from articles I read, and, frankly, the news is not good. As far as I can tell, no one in this fight is the hero, the virtuous protagonist who is bound to win in the end. We Americans love a narrative that echoes our national story of the little guy overcoming the superpower and establishing democracy to flourish for the ages. But whether or not that narrative is justified for the US, it certainly doesn’t look like it’s a tale that’s going to play out in Syria. People are being slaughtered. The suffering is immense. It’s hard to imagine that bombing anyone is going to help, but equally hard to just stand back and tell the world that there is now carte blanche to spray people with poison gas.
I would love to tell you what is right, what I think we should do, what we should all take to the streets and the airwaves and cyberspace to promote. Unfortunately, I have no idea. Here’s what I know. Life is full of untenable positions. As a minister you are called on to support people who have to decide whether to undertake medical procedures that will undermine the quality of their life even as they extend it. You counsel people who are trapped in unhappy marriages who know that leaving would be devastating for their children. You are there for people who are looking at providing years of round-the-clock care for a parent or spouse or child who is slowly failing, who want to give everything to their ailing loved one, but still yearn for a life of their own.
It feels a lot better when you can fix things, when righteousness prevails and happiness reigns. But that happens a lot less often than the stories and the movies would have us believe. All too often, there is no good answer, and whatever the conclusion, there is suffering as well as joy. What you learn as a minister is that while you may never have the stunning piece of wisdom that will set a suffering person on the way to happiness, you can listen. You can be prayerfully present, offering your witness to what they are going through. You can hope that in the conversation something will emerge that is clearer or more creative than what the person walked in the room with.
That’s all I’m able to advocate for at the moment – that there be as much listening as possible. As much prayerful presence as possible. As broad a conversation as possible. I hope that the conversation goes far beyond the president and congress, that it includes the UN, that Syria’s neighbors who are being flooded with refugees have a chance to speak. I hope that out of the listening there will arise some greater clarity, some greater creativity, than anything that we have yet seen.
I know that hope is not justified, that there is little that we have seen from anyone in the situation, including the US, that would lead one to expect something better than bombing. So, if nothing else, perhaps those of us who are without decision-making power, who have no control, can manage to be a model of that listening and that creative possibility. It’s not a solution, but it’s the best answer I know.
Culture Shift
There is an old and often told story of a child walking along a beach, picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. In this story, an adult encounters the child and proclaims, “you can’t save them all. Your work doesn’t make a difference.” Replies the child, continuing in her labor “I made a difference in this one’s life. And this one’s life. And this one’s life.”
It is a powerful story about the importance of small acts.
And.
And it is cultural cover for a big lie. If that child doesn’t look beyond the stranded starfish to the re-graded shoreline, she cannot realize that the starfish are being stranded because the new vacation development changed the inflow and outflow of the tide. She cannot see the new drainage line funneling the city’s contaminated runoff into the sea to which she is returning the starfish.
Beloveds, let us commit to looking beyond the need presented in front of us and ask “why is this happening? What is going unquestioned in the larger system that allows people to be hungry, wetland to be destroyed, water to become scarce?”
And while we feed those who are hungry, let those of us who are not hungry recognize that we, too, are benefitting from a system that creates hungry people. Let us wonder, together, why this is – and then begin to work with those who are hungry to change the system that creates hungry people.
It is time for a culture shift, beloveds.
And.
And we are called to be a part of the change. Let the organizing begin.
UU Verbs
I had the honor of spending this week with a dozen youth who chose to spend the first week of August in New Orleans. So you already know that they are brave. You should also know that they are leaders and followers, conveners and collaborators, organizers and educators. But this isn’t a note about nouns. This is a note about verbs. Unitarian Universalist Verbs.
My colleague, Rev. Paul, showed up (consistently, faithfully) this week wearing these verbs around his neck:
CARE
SHARE
GROW
LEARN
HEAR
HOPE
LOVE
I want to take a moment and affirm the National Youth Justice Training UU youth for embodying these verbs with courage and kindness beyond measure. Let us join Jessica, Emma, Emily, Emily, Meiling, Alex, Ellie, Ian, Sam, Sam, Anais, and Leah in transforming the injustices of this world into Beloved Community that both is and is becoming.
May it ever be so, beloveds.
Keep the Faith!
art by Kristi of Barn Owl Primitives
In his story of a man with a sneering wife, Sufi master Rumi begins:
A special guest was coming to visit and the man worked 200 days to earn the price for the quality lamb kabob he wished to serve this guest. On the appointed day, the man bought the meat and brought it home for his wife to cook and then went to fetch the guest.
While he was gone, the wife cooked the kabob and
ate
every
bite
of
it.
When the man returned with the special guest, she greeted them at the door, saying “the cat has eaten the kabob. You’ll have to buy more, if you have any more money.”
The husband asks a servant to bring the scales and the cat. The cat weighed three pounds. “The meat was 3 pounds and one once. If this is the cat, where is the meat?” “If this is the meat, where is the cat?” Start looking for one or the other!
Sometimes truth can be found on a scale. Usually, it is a more complex endeavor for us human beings. The recent trial of George Zimmerman for the death of teenager Trayvon Martin revealed a plethora of truths in the lived experiences of the people of United States. Some have an expectation of justice within the justice system. Others have no expectation of justice within what they consider a criminal system – one that actively perpetuates crimes against humanity.
What you look like, where you grew up, who you live with – all of these are complex predictors of how you experience truth and what truth you experience.
Walking away from the Justice for Trayvon Vigil in New Orleans last week, I met up with a history professor from Tulane University. She brought up the Jena Six, which some of you may remember as a time when the criminal justice system in Jena, Louisiana revealed to the nation its deep roots in the Reconstruction Era, built after the abolition of slavery to maintain control over black bodies. In 2007, a nationwide protest against the mockery of justice there descended upon the town of Jena, population 2,500, with an estimated 50,000 protesters.
There were so many people – and so few white people. The professor I was walking with said, “if you took all the Unitarians out of the crowd, I could have put the white people present in my car.”
Author activist Jordan Flaherty, in his book Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six reports that “perhaps one to three percent of the crowd was white, in what amounted to a disturbing silence from the white Left and liberals.”
I would call it a disturbing silence from white people, regardless of their political stance. When children of color are demonized by a criminal justice system created for and by white people, we cannot be silent. We cannot be absent.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the white Unitarian Universalists who showed up, were called out as allies, people living into the truth of beloved community with their bodies, their whole and holy beings.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the Unitarian Universalists of color who walk in this faith with trust that we are going to live into our collective covenant with more and more anti-oppressive skill, more and more respect for the inherent worth and dignity of each person, more and more beloved community.
When we show up as our whole and holy selves, lives are transformed, systems are changed, beloved community becomes possible. Keep the faith, beloveds. Keep showing up on the side of love in this world.
_________________
References:
The Essential Rumi, 1995 (translated by Coleman Barks).
Flaherty, Jordan. Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, 2010.
Embodied Justice, Embodied Speech
Beloveds, let us have a common vocabulary. In the midst of the conversation on race prompted by the verdict of the Zimmerman trial, allow me to point us toward the 4 I’s of Oppression, spelled out clearly here by YouthBuild USA: – https://youthbuild.org/sites/youthbuild.org/files/Four%20Is.pdf Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalize Oppression. Recognize that racism operates on many levels in this country. If you do not know this, please take the time to learn about it before joining loudly in the conversation. This matters.
Let us hear truth when it is spoken to power. Let us keep the dialogue grounded in the realities of oppression. And if you are white, keep showing up in solidarity with all who call for Justice for Trayvon. It is beyond time for more than a handful of white people to stand on the side of love in this country.
Dear ones, let us live into the possibility of Beloved Community with courage and grace.
Storms and Solidarity
All day Thursday I wore my Standing on the Side of Love t-shirt, through meetings with academia, organizers, congregants, and staff. A day of solidarity, a day of grief and a day of joy. Solidarity with the Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who stood on the side of love (without eating, drinking, using the bathroom, speaking off-topic or leaning against any furniture) for all families for eleven hours. Solidarity with communities of color and anti-racist allies grieving the gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Solidarity with beloveds all across the nation celebrating the end of the mis-named Defense of Marriage Act and the first step in the passage of a national immigration reform bill.
It is a lot to hold, beloveds. And this doesn’t even begin to take in the illness of the beloved elder Nelson Mandela or the floods and the fires around the world. Or my dear friends who are moving away from New Orleans this week or the beloveds going through a second round of chemo.
This morning, I sat and watched a summer thunderstorm crash through my neighborhood and gave thanks for this precious moment of unscheduled time, a chance to be fully present to the storms within and without. May you, too, have time to bear witness to your own storms with gentleness and compassion. May you feel companioned by a host of thousands standing in solidarity with you on your life journey.