Re-Visioning John the Baptist

How about a John the Baptist who looks like Fabio and preaches like Mister Rogers?

With some help from Leonardo da Vinci and Episcopal priest Penny Nash, that is the image emerging for me this week. The Rev Nash, on her blog, Penelopepiscopal, makes the connection with her post, “Fabio in the Wilderness.” Check it out here.

It was synchronicity, or perhaps “the spirit of God,” that brought this home to me to meditate upon during this Advent season. Last Sunday, during the Gospel reading from the third chapter of Luke, I heard, as if for the first time, what John the Baptist was teaching. He told the people, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." To tax collectors, he said, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers were advised, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

As the priest closed the Gospel book and turned to give the homily, I was thinking that what we heard was almost like a brief synopsis of the teachings of Jesus. Certainly it was something of a prelude to his coming, and the people responded to John’s message with hope and expectation. Some even thought that perhaps they were seeing the Messiah standing before them.

The priest reiterated in the homily that John was explaining to the people that the way to prepare for the reign of God is to start sharing what we have and to treat others fairly. Then I read Penny Nash’s homily on her blog where she bring da Vinci’s painting to the fore along with the Gospel reading to give us a new image for the forerunner of Christ. She has much more to say about it, and I recommend her post to you.

As we wait in Advent for the celebration of Christ’s first coming, there is something new for me in re-visioning John the Baptist. So my words today are not my own. They are a repeating of things heard and seen this week, and offered here so others may catch a glimpse.

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Image: St. John the Baptist
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Medium; Oil on walnut wood
Courtesy of Wikipedia

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Post Election: Do Not Grow Weary with Well Doing

The Year the Bat Cracked

The year was 2003, and I was quite distressed and growing weary.  The United States launched a war in Iraq, the consequences of which we are still dealing with. I was opposed to the war as was half the country. There were demonstrations in major cities with people chanting “No Blood for Oil.” It was a misguided endeavor from the beginning, and in 2003, the news reminded me each day of our nation’s misdirection.

That year, baseball, the national pastime, was a great national distraction for many of us weary of the drumbeats of war. Sammy Sosa was on a roll as he continued what he was best known for: hitting home runs. A few years earlier, he and Mark McGuire had been in competition as they were both trying to break the world record for the most home runs in a single season. He seemed to still be on top of his game when in March of 2003 he stepped up to the plate, got a solid hit, and his bat cracked revealing that it was corked. A home run hero was found to be using an illegal bat. It was symbolic to me for so much of what I was seeing in the country.

This year we have seen another crack that is showing us who we are as a nation: what values we hold at our core. There was an ominous foreshadowing soon after Barrack Obama’s election in 2008. I was elated as I watched that first inaugural ceremony and thrilled that we had finally taken further steps toward racial equality in America. Yet almost before they could get the folding chairs put away, we began to see the hatred and racism that had been just beneath the surface breaking out into the open. Racist memes about President Obama were appearing in the social media and angry Tea Party protesters were disrupting Democratic as well as Republican town hall meetings, using racial slurs to protest healthcare legislation.

With the 2016 Presidential election, our bat cracked. The racism and hatred that we tried to keep under wraps, and which some of us hoped we could move on away from is suddenly exposed to the world, but more important, revealed to ourselves.

A Divided Nation

Many have been writing about what the election of Donald Trump to the presidency means for the days ahead and for our future. My initial response of how to go forward was a bit humorous, but also a serious call to carry on with daily life:

• Jesus said to love your neighbor.
• St. Paul said to take a little wine for the stomach’s sake.
• The only thing I would add is to eat your vegetables and get some sunshine and we will make it through this together.

In other words, we go about our daily tasks of doing what we need to do. We keep our social ethic and we also practice self-care. I see this as being in line with the Zen proverb, “Before enlightenment, tote water, chop wood. After enlightenment, tote water, chop wood.” 

Neal Gabler wrote a bleak commentary about the election outcome in an essay,  “Farewell, America.” He wonders if we as a nation will recover, yet he finds some hope in quoting from W.H. Auden’s poem. “September, 1939”:

Defenseless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

As disheartening as it is that we have elected a man who demeans women as sex objects, who spouts words hatred and fear, and who taps into the racism of the populace; and as distressing as it is to hear Christian leaders thanking God for his election victory, we must remember that fully half of the country also rejected that vision of America.

It is that other half that carries some hope going forward, yet also underscores the fact that we are a nation divided. Whoever had won the election would have to face governing a polarized and divided country.

Nothing Really New

I am not an expert in history, so there are people who can recall dark times in our nation’s history better than I, but the two great evils that continue to characterize America are the institutionalizing of slavery from the very beginning, and the acts of genocide committed toward the indigenous population. We were born out of a conflicting ethos of securing freedom for all while condoning slavery and ethnic cleansing.

History tells the story of how the Cherokee Nation made use of the legal process in order to remain in their ancestral lands. They took their case to the U. S. Supreme Court and won. Yet that victory did them no good when President Andrew Jackson disregarded the rule of law and implemented the Indian Removal Act by military force. There were some highly shameful acts that established our “sweet land of liberty” of which we love to sing. The evil in our midst that we must face is nothing new. 

There are three things that I take away from the lessons of the 2016 election cycle:

• Our country’s racism, hatred, and bigotry has been exposed (like Sammy Sosa’s bat) to reveal what is at its core.
• It is dismaying for me as a Christian that so many Christians were willing to overlook the corrupt character of a presidential candidate in order to keep their ties to the political empire.
• It is also true (and herein lies some hope) that fully half of the country voted against a legacy of hate, racism, and bigotry.

We have made it through some dark days of division in the past, and we can make it through these times as well.

Now What Do We Do?

We must now face the reality of our hatred and bigotry. Like Sammy Sosa's cork filled bat, we would be more honorable without it, but it has been exposed. Now we can choose to celebrate the points of light in our darkness (as W. H. Auden noted in his poem). “We must not grow weary in well-doing,” as St. Paul encouraged the Galatians who were living under another corrupt empire years ago. 

The thing we do now is what good people have always done in our country. Christian groups have the example set forth by Protestant Evangelicals of the 19^th Century who advocated for the abolition of slavery, prison reform, education, and an end to child labor. There is also the Catholic tradition of advocating on behalf of the poor and implementing works of mercy to create a better society.

In the 20^th century during the Great Depression we saw the Catholic Worker Movement, founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, which sought “to live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ,” taking the Sermon on the Mount as their social ethic.  We witnessed the long struggle for civil rights, voting rights (first for women, then for African Americans), and equal rights for all. We saw a new awareness of people with disabilities as we made room for them in the public square rather than shutting them away from society. We saw safeguards put into place to provide a safety net and access to healthcare for the elderly as well as the poor and disadvantaged.

All of these changes that have benefited our neighbor and helped us as a society were hard won by farsighted people who understood the ethics of living together with peace and justice. It was good people of all faiths and of no faith who understood the need for a better way and saw many changes slowly put into place.

Charity vs. Systemic Change

There is a difference between charity and systemic change. Growing up in the South, I saw that difference. Charity would help some poor black families have a little more to eat and clothes to wear during the holidays, but with civil rights legislation, we saw systemic change that enabled those same families to make a way for themselves in society, allowing them to have the long-lasting and substantive benefits of full participation in society. 

That systemic change, however, is not yet complete and that is the thing that people of goodwill must ensure for all of our citizens. It will require vigilance and advocacy for the vulnerable groups in our society that now feel threatened by the advent of a new administration. 

None of our efforts need stop with a new president in the White House. We still have half the country eager to see those points of light. We still have people of good will who will hold our government accountable. We will continue to do what we have been doing, so that in spite of setbacks, we will still make it a priority to work for the common good.  

Now we have to carry water and chop wood, which reminds me of those matters of infrastructure. We'll save that topic for another day. 

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Photo by Marco Vincenti: Zen sand garden



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Pope Francis Tells Congress What We Are Doing Right

... and thereby encourages us to do better

Pope Francis addresses the U.S. Congress
Photo by Win McNamee (Getty Images)

Pope Francis challenges political leaders by his commitment to the Gospel of Christ and Catholic social teaching. His embodiment of the church’s “preferential option for the poor” often upends the accepted social and economic structures of our day. Yet this Pope brings such hope wherever he goes and whenever he speaks, largely due to his pastoral approach.

That pastoral manner was evident yesterday when the Holy Father addressed a joint session of congress. He made a point in his opening remarks that though he was speaking to congress; his intent was to address the American people. His written work makes clear his stand on unfettered capitalism, care for the environment, care for the poor, and regard for all of life. Instead of lambasting, however, he was able to encourage a conflicted and strident nation by pointing out what was right about our country. (You can read the entire address here)

Pope Francis outlined his remarks to congress within the framework of four American lives: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton.

• Abraham Lincoln, “the guardian of liberty, who labored tirelessly that 'this nation, under God, might have a new birth of freedom'. Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.”
• Martin Luther King who led the march “from Selma to Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his 'dream' of full civil and political rights for African Americans… Dreams which lead to action, to participation, to commitment. Dreams which awaken what is deepest and truest in the life of a people.”
• Dorothy Day for “her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed.”
• Thomas Merton “who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.”

Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God. Four representatives of the American people.

The Pope’s address to congress did speak to the social, economic, political, and environmental challenges of our day.  He encouraged us to do more, yet even with the many challenges ahead, he was able to place those within the context of our better angels, affirming that we have rejected the temptation to imitate tyrants in our attempt to be freed from tyranny.

A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice. We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today’s many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

There can be no denying that this was a historic occasion in our nation’s capital. Some observers commented that they had never seen congress pay such close attention to any other person addressing that body. Let us hope that some sense of a striving for the common good will remain. Certainly those of us who take heart in efforts for justice and equity will be encouraged by this pastoral visit from Pope Francis.  Near the end of his address, the Pope reminded us of the examples he set out at the beginning:

A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.

After his address to congress, Pope Francis highlighted yet another thing we are doing right by forgoing lunch with politician in order to dine with the homeless outside St Patrick’s Catholic Church where Catholic Charities offers food and shelter for the homeless. 

Pope Francis with people at St. Maria's Meals Program of
Catholic Charities in Washington D.C. (CNS photo by Paul Haring)

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Hoping for a Country that Works for Everyone

I have friends who really don’t want to have to vote for Hillary for president. They want to vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. “Hillary is too centrist,” they say, “She’s just as beholden to corporate America as the Republicans.” With Bernie in the race, they may get their chance to cast that hopeful vote.

I understand where my friends are coming from. We see the middle class being washed away and workers’ rights have been so eroded that we are all in danger of living only to serve the corporation. My take on the political primaries is a bit different, however. When the hype of political campaigns is over, the real test is the effectiveness of elected officials in implementing policies that can make life better for the people. I happen to like both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – a lot. I just think both of them can serve the country better in the senate. That is where they have a better chance of influencing real policy change. 

There is a valid argument, though, for bringing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders into the Democratic primary. Either one of them can insure that the voices of the people will be heard. Both of them have a proven ability to bring out the real issues of ordinary people being crushed by corporate America. They have the ability to bring hope for the common good into the national debate. Now that Bernie Sanders has declared his candidacy, we are sure to have some more excitement in the primary process, and it is more likely that the issues of ordinary people will be raised.

How Can We Make Things Better?

Whether the talk is about politics, religion, or social change, we often see heated discussions over how we can make things work better. Many are quick to point out the barriers that stand in the way, and who is to blame for what is lacking in our society. As with any presidential campaign, we are hearing various claims about which political candidate can best lead the country to greater things. The latest Rasmussen Poll reveals that 67% of the voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, so clearly, the public wants something better than what we are now seeing. 

When I have discussions with some of my friends about the political scene and what this country needs, I often find that while we have disagreements we generally want the same thing. What we really want is a country that works for everyone. The real question is how to get there. The big issues that come up in the national discussion are often centered on jobs, healthcare, wages, and equal opportunity. From there, the discussion often goes to the question of whether these issues are seen as individual rights. For example, the question of healthcare is often framed in terms of whether it is a right or a privilege. This is the wrong question, and is often laden with hot-button issues. The real question is what is good for society?

Three Things are Needed

I have a short-hand guide that I use to think about what a healthy community needs. There are three basic things that make a society function well. Of course, there are many things that must happen to create a healthy society, but here are three essential things that must happen, things that we are not doing particularly well across the board in our society:

• Access to healthcare
• Access to education
• Access to transportation

Mayo Clinic image

By "access" I mean that one needs to be able to connect with the services that many of us take for granted. Healthcare is one example. Some people have limited access to healthcare because they live in a rural area where services are simply not available. Others may lack access due to economic limitations. We have seen with the Affordable Care Act how many more now have access to the healthcare system due to expanding insurance coverage. Even so, there are still many who continue to have limited access to healthcare. I would rather have seen a single-payer plan put in place, but that's another topic in itself.

Shutterstock photo

Education, a key factor for one’s well-being, should be available and accessible as well. Years ago, even when I was a teenager, I heard that there were those who questioned why taxes should come out of their pocket to support schools when they had no children in public schools. Of course, the short answer is that if we have an educated public, then everyone benefits. If some segments of society are deprived of an education, then we all suffer as a result of that lost potential. Most will agree that education is key to success in life, yet many do not want to invest what is needed to see quality schools for all come to fruition. Look at how many of us move our families to the best school districts, or pay for private school while those who have no other option are left to fend for themselves in failing school systems. The poorest neighborhoods are then lacking in both hope and opportunity due to the lack of funding and support for their schools.

AL.Com photo

Transportation is certainly important for success. It is often taken for granted by the affluent and underfunded by local governments. I will never forget a conversation I had with a young man when I was working in social services. He lived in “the bad part of town,” which was where he could afford to live, and had gotten a job as a dishwasher at a nice restaurant in one of the “good parts of town” that was several miles down the road and a good thirty minute drive in traffic. He was in a jam because the clunker of a car that he used to get himself to work was broken down and he had no way of getting to work. The bus system in town had gone through a series of curtailments because the community had consistently voted down tax measure to support mass transit. First the hours of service were cut, and then the number of routes was cut. The young man I met that day had the good fortune of finding a job, but the misfortune of having work hours that were not served by the limited availability of public transportation. Ironically, the young man’s employer suffered as well when transportation was not readily available for his employee.

If the basic provisions for healthcare, education and transportation are in place for the population, then we can have a workforce healthy enough to contribute to society, educated enough to the job, able to get to work in the first place. At that point, we can realize that the question of whether these things are individual rights or privileges is indeed the wrong question. It becomes obvious that optimal health for all citizens benefits the whole of society. Education for even the poorest communities and adequate mass transit will benefit us all as well. If everyone in every strata of society has access to these three things, we all benefit. Look at any disenfranchised segment of our society, and you will see that one or more of these three elements has been hindered.

Common Good vs. Corporate Greed

We are divided in the United States on how to achieve these big three benefits for society. On the one hand, there are those who say that the only way to achieve the common good is for all to work together in community. On the other hand, there are people who say, “I worked hard for my college degree, my BMW and my Blue Cross coverage. If others want it they should work hard too.” 

In this country we are so afraid that some “undeserving” person may get some relief that we turn our backs on the widespread suffering and poverty that exists right here among us. That is the reason I am re-framing the question from "is it a right or a privilege" to "is it good for society?" For those who cannot stomach supporting those at the fringes of society, maybe they can get on board with a plan that will make a country that works for all of us.

There are some people who are fighting against injustice, and there are indeed others who realize that everyone benefits by living in a society that works to the benefit of all. Too many, however, have been willing to partition themselves off from the needy and the working poor in an effort to not have to deal with the problem.

The trouble in Washington D.C. is that corporations are spending millions on politicians in order to keep their own interests secure with little regard for the common good. Whoever the candidates are in the presidential primaries, both Democratic and Republican, let us hope that the national debate does not lose sight of the common good, and that we continue to raise the questions of how to best serve the whole of society so that everyone benefits. In the final analysis, it is not so much what the politicians are able to do as it is what we the people are willing to do.

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To hear some suggestions from Robert Reich about some things we can start doing now, go here.


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Ayn Rand Redux

Ayn Rand is the natural spokesperson for Libertarian ideals.  Her novel, Atlas Shrugged, portrays a dystopian society in which the government suppresses individualism, creativity and initiative. The turning point comes when protagonist John Galt leads the people to stop productive activities, thereby starving the government of its revenue and bringing down the oppressive system. The idea being that human achievement should not be suppressed, and that oppressive structures only exist with the tacit approval of those being oppressed. When the structure collapses, then people will be free. Thus Ayn Rand presents her ideal of a world in which those who work hard get what they deserve, and those who are lacking in worldly goods are poor because they are lazy or morally defective. 

"Objectivism" was Rand's philosophy; individual rights along with the pursuit of one's own happiness was the essential morality that she espoused. She saw laissez-faire capitalism as the most logical milieu for nurturing the values of her philosophy.  Little wonder that Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan was enamored with Ayn Rand and loved her book so much that he gave it out to people. Rand was voicing what the right wing Tea Partyers are extolling: no more government handouts, no more taxing away our money that belongs to us because we earned it.  Government bureaucracy is inefficient and bad, private enterprise is good.  All of these ideals are to be found in Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

Paul Ryan is now backtracking because he found out that Ayn Rand was an atheist, or maybe it’s because she favored a woman’s right to an abortion.  The whole Ryan/Rand incident exemplifies something that I see that is wrong with politics and the media sound bites of our day. For one thing, Paul Ryan should be able to articulate which aspects of Ayn Rand’s philosophy he agrees with and why, and which ones he disagrees with. The problem is that such articulation would require a sophisticated understanding of the world that is not made up of simple black-and-white issues.  Such an explanation would also require more than a 20-second sound bite and unfortunately Ryan’s followers may not attend long enough to hear an explanation.

Ryan has made his political capital on Tea Party issues of private enterprise, no taxes, no government handouts, and family values. He is free to hold his economic and political views, though they are not views that I hold to. As much as I would love to make an issue of the “Godless Free-Market Capitalism” of Ayn Rand and pin that on Paul Ryan due to his past exuberant embrace of her philosophy, and as much as I would love to point out to Tea Partyers that their family values have been sold down-river by the money-mad right-wing politicians, I shall refrain.  It is important, however, for anyone to take stock of what they say they believe and to consider what the consequences of political actions would be.  The ethic that I hold to affirms that we are to take care of one another. The morality of a society is seen in how the weakest and most vulnerable are treated.

Blogger Bob Gifford has very succinctly written about his own conversion from Ayn Rand libertarianism in “My Politico-Religious Journey.” Darrell Grizzle, who has read extensively from the works of Ayn Rand, posted a timely piece on his Blog of the Grateful Bear just last week. I have talked about my views of what makes a society work for the good of all its citizens in “Politics and the Common Good.” Check out each of these short essays and ask yourself what it is that you envision for our society, and how can we get there?



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Politics and the Common Good

The common good involves establishing a healthy living environment for all who live in that environment. As such, politics is a necessity in achieving the common good. I am often perplexed when I see good hard-working American citizens voting against their own best interests. We hear that the "Bush tax cuts" are necessary because it is the business sector that creates jobs, while never stopping to ask where all those jobs are that the tax cuts ten years ago were supposed to bring. It is as though many voters have some doctrinaire concepts that they dare not question or challenge. Sometimes I wonder if some fear who might be helped if their taxes go toward any social safety net.

Years ago, even when I was a teenager, I heard that there were those who questioned why taxes should come out of their pocket to support schools when they had no children in public schools. Of course, the short answer is that if we have an educated public, then everyone benefits. If large segments of society are deprived of an education, then we all suffer as a result of that lost potential. There are many things that we can accomplish as a group that we cannot accomplish individually (and by "as a group" I means we the people of our town, our state and our country). By pooling our resources into the government process, we can accomplish many things for the common good. I do not have the personal capital to even pave enough road to get to work each day, but my taxes are used to maintain a road system that serves me well -- far beyond my own ability as an individual. The education I received in 12 years of public schooling was certainly more than my parents could have afforded if they had been required to hire a tutor or use private schools.

My short-hand view of what makes a society work is three-fold:

     1. Access to education

     2. Access to transportation

     3. Access to healthcare

When our government policies support these three things, everyone benefits. Look at any disenfranchised segment of our society, and you will see that one or more of these three elements has been hindered. This is why I believe it is patriotic to pay taxes. This is why I believe that policies should protect the private citizen, the working Joe or Jane, not the corporation. This is why I believe we could be handing our country over to an oligarchy of big corporations when the Supreme court rules that a corporation is a citizen and when the people vote for tax breaks for the wealthy. We may be in danger of losing our democracy "of the people."

Currently we are seeing a disturbing gridlock in our government which is making it almost impossible for it to function. There are intractable politicians who argue for no tax increases on one side and for no reduction of government programs on the other, even as the country teeters at the debt ceiling abyss.

For a well stated and coherent view of what is gong on in the current political process, check out Chauncy DeVega's article at Alternet:

Debt Ceiling Holy War: Why Do Conservatives Have Unshakable Faith in Ideas That Are Totally, Demonstrably False? AlterNet

Joe Klein also has some insightful words about congress's attempts to address the debt ceiling crisis in "Tea or Sanity." Klein's assessment says to me that it's not dark yet, DeVaga says, "but it's gettin' there."

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