Politics Redux

I believe God has a sense of humor and I believe that human life gives God a lot to laugh about. Two days after my blog about the care I take in not being publically partisan, I received a phone call. It was from a campaign worker for President Obama’s re-election campaign. There was going to be a campaign rally on Tuesday October 30 here in Duluth with an important political figure. There were organizing a program. Would I be willing to give the invocation? I know the caller, just a bit. She has served on the Duluth City Council. She was better acquainted with my son who has been a campaign worker for a few candidates at the local, state and national levels, all from the Democratic Party. Anyway, I asked for a bit more information. She told me about the time involved, and then said I would need a Secret Service check. Wow. This was going to be somebody significant! I said, “yes.” She then told me that the event was going to feature former President Bill Clinton. I was glad I was available. Whatever one’s politics, the opportunity to meet someone who has held the office of President of the United States is rare, and pretty cool. So there I was on Tuesday giving the invocation prior to a campaign rally featuring President Bill Clinton.

I began the prayer with a moment of silence to remember all those whose lives were devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Then I prayed:

God of all peoples, weaver of the intricate web of life, we come here grateful to live in a country where we can pray freely, where we can discuss ideas openly, where each of us has a voice in shaping the future of our nation. As we make decisions about the direction of our country, may we hear more clearly your call to do justice and nurture kindness, your call to live with a certain humility and with compassion. May we hear your call to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, cloth the ill-clad, and befriend the friendless. Where we have fallen short in justice and kindness, humility and compassion, in caring for those struggling and those on the margins, we seek forgiveness. Even more we ask for determination, courage and imagination as we seek to do better, as we work together for a newer world – a world where justice is done, where kindness and gentleness are nurtured, where beauty is created, and the garden of the world tended lovingly. That work for a newer world goes on and we join it again. The cause of a newer world is ours and we accept it again. Our hope for a newer world lives on in each of us, and we fan the flames anew today. The dream of a newer world, planted deep in our hearts and souls, may the dream never die. Amen.

And if George W. Bush is ever in town and would like someone to pray, I would pray a very similar prayer.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

By the way, this picture from my cell phone lets you know how great a seat I had for this event.

Politics and Pastoring

I do not come from a family that was terribly political. I have no idea who my dad voted for when I was growing up, and don’t know who he voted for in the years before his death in 2009. I am not sure if he even voted regularly. My mom keeps her votes completely to herself, though I do remember her once saying that she voted for Richard Nixon in 1960 because she thought John Kennedy was just too young to be president. She would have been in her mid-twenties at the time.

I remember buying a book about United States Presidents from the Scholastic Book Club when I was in elementary school and being quite interested in all these men. When the 1968 presidential election came around, I was a McCarthy supporter, for the simple reason he was from Minnesota. So, too, was the eventual Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey. When the election was concluded, and Nixon beat Humphrey, I recorded the results in the back of my president’s book.

In 1972, I initially liked George McGovern. He did not like the Vietnam War, and that made sense to this thirteen year old. He was also Methodist, which I was, too. I supported him until near the very end of the election. We took a straw poll at Ordean Junior High School, and I ended up voting for Nixon. I said that I did not like McGovern’s support of school busing, but I probably caved to my best friend who was a Nixon supporter.

I voted in my first election in 1978. I was 19. I wrote in a candidate for the United States Senate that year. I first voted for president in 1980. I did not vote for either of the major party candidates that year. I have voted in each election I could vote in since then. I subscribe to magazines with significant political content.

I have a Ph. D. in religious studies. My focus is in Christian ethics. My dissertation was on Christian ethics and democratic political theory. It carries the unwieldy title: “Political Majorities, Political Minorities and the Common Good: An Analysis of Understanding of Democracy in Recent Christian Political Ethics.”

All this is to say I have a long and strong interest in politics. I think politics matters. I think there is a moral dimension to Christian faith and I think that many political issues have a significant moral dimension to them. I will preach and teach on the moral-religious aspects of contemporary issues.

As a pastor, though, I will not endorse candidates in any public manner. I have prudential and theological reasons for this. I don’t think it is very prudent to endorse candidates as I think it might taint what one wants to say about the moral-religious dimension of contemporary issues. If one is perceived to be too much in favor of one candidate or party over the other, what one says about issues can be seen as simply partisan. I don’t think that is helpful. I want to speak about and discuss the moral dimensions of issues without it seeming like my goal is simply to support one candidate or one party over the other.

Theologically, I also argue that while certain policies and the candidates who propose those policies, may provide what I consider to be more morally adequate solutions to the issues we confront, no candidate, no party, no policy can or should be identified with the kingdom of God (or reign of God, or God’s dream for the world). The Kingdom of God, God’s full intention for the human community in relationship, is always future. I hope its ideals of love, justice, community and beauty inspire thinking about a political common good toward which we should be moving as a society. Yet the Kingdom of God is not simply an election a way! Furthermore, I am disappointed that the current state of our politics seems inordinately focused on winning elections and under-concerned for promoting the common good.

So I will continue to think about politics. I will continue to vote and be active in other ways. I will also recognize that the focus of my life and ministry has a wider horizon, and is responsive to a God who is less concerned about the next election than about a new heaven and a new earth.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

60s Pop

But popular culture is where we go to talk to and agree with one another; to simplify ourselves; to find our herd. It’s like going to the Automat to buy an emotion. The thrills are cheap and the payoffs are predictable and, after a while, the repetition is a bummer. Whereas books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves. Inside this solitude, we take on contours, textures, perspectives. Heightened language levitates the reader. Great art transfigures.
John Leonard, Reading for My Life, 3-4

I have written appreciatively here of John Leonard. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he wrote. I take some issue with Leonard’s comments above, agreeing in part, disagreeing in part.
I appreciate art that complicates. The more I see and hear and learn, the more wondrous, mysterious and complicated life seems. It helps to have music and images and words that help us grasp some of that complexity so our decisions are more respectful of the genuine mystery of the world. Humans often gravitate toward a simplicity that easily becomes simplistic.
With Leonard, I appreciate becoming more complicated. Yet I have some questions. If one were to put jazz in the category of popular culture, I would assert, against Leonard, that this is an art form that complicates. Given the typical sales of jazz music, it may be difficult to place it in the realm of popular culture. One of the things that attracted me to the music of Bob Dylan was the way he worked with words, laying out image upon image in his own unique way. His latest musical offering, Tempest, has a lyrical richness to it that offers varying textures with which to appreciate life. By the way, in another essay in his book, Leonard seems to appreciate some of Dylan’s music, but doesn't much like the man.
So I may or may not quibble with Leonard in defining what qualifies as popular culture. I would also raise this question with him – isn’t it o.k. sometimes to reach for the simple song that puts a smile on your face and a little dance in your step? Isn’t part of the wonderful complexity of the world that we can sometimes find a song, or a moment of film, that jolts our hearts a little, and is something a little bit more than buying an emotion at the Automat?
I confess to having a fondness for sixties pop music, especially some of the psychedelic pop. Here’s a list of songs I burned on a cd not long ago, as a sample of that time (a couple of songs are early seventies). These are mostly one hit wonders, with a couple of notable exceptions, but listening to them lifts me just a little. I think that’s o.k.
Marmalade, “Reflections of My Life”
The Left Banke, “Walk Away Renee”
Strawberry Alarm Clock, “Incense and Peppermints”
John Fred and His Playboy Band, “Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)”
Five Americans, “Western Union”
Every Mothers Son, “Come On Down to My Boat Baby”
The Lemon Pipers, “Green Tambourine”
Lou Christie, “Lightning Strikes”
Bobby Hebb, “Sunny”
The Beatles, “Strawberry Fields Forever”
The Beach Boys, “Surfs Up”
Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Reflections”
The Buckinghams, “Susan”
The Monkees, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”
American Breed, “Bend Me, Shape Me”
Jose Feliciano, “Light My Fire”
Albert Hammond, Jr. “It Never Rains in California”
Jerry Jeff Walker, “Mr. Bojangles”

Rock critic Lester Bangs, in his wonderful essay on “Bubblegum Music” (Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll) wrote: the real truth is that there will always be at least one tender spot deep in the heart of rock & roll which should never grow up and never will. In our complicated world, a world which we need to see in all its complexity, with multiple textures contours and perspectives, there remains a thread of innocent joy over simple pleasures. It is ok from time to time to visit that place – that place of incense and peppermints and green tambourines where Judy’s in disguise, surfs up, Mr. Bojangles dances, and strawberry fields are just around the corner. Nothing to get hung about.
And I think I owe those last sentences to John Leonard.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Deep Faith Deep Respect

When I completed my Ph. D. in 1994, I was free to read just about anything I wanted to. I had enjoyed doing the reading and research and writing for my doctorate. At the same time, it kept me focused in a particular direction – democratic political theory and Christian ethics. Now I could turn my intellectual sights in any direction I wanted to. I chose to read Martha Nussbaum’s book Love’s Knowledge: essays in philosophy and literature. Nussbaum’s book was about ethics, my field of study, and it beautifully wove a concern for ethical reflection and the moral life with a love of literature and an appreciation for human feeling. I have never lost my appreciation for Nussbaum’s work.
I have just finished her most recent work, The New Religious Intolerance, which reflects on the overwrought fear of Islam in Europe and the United States. She argues that “without fear we’d all be dead” (20). Yet, “fear is primitive” (55). It is “an intense focus on the self that casts others into darkness. However valuable and indeed essential it is in a genuinely dangerous world, it is itself one of life’s great dangers” (58). Her book makes the case that we need to manage our fears by combining principles of respect for human equality, offering arguments that are not narrowly self-serving, and by nurturing curiosity, friendship and sympathetic imagination (21).
In the course of her book, Nussbaum offers this statement: Religion is central to people’s sense of themselves (102). I certainly think religion is intended to be central to one’s sense of self, that is, if one is part of a religious community or proclaims a religious faith, it is intended to be an important part of one’s self-understanding.
I think many struggle with this, however. In American society, we are encouraged, in many ways, to keep our faith private, to consider our religious identity one hat among many we wear. I think a number of church people see being part of the church as one thing among many others that defines them – along with parent, spouse, coach, job, friend. Rather than being central to all these, religion can be just one “role” among others.
One source for this psychic marginalizing of one’s religious identity is found in experiences of intolerance. Many of us have seen a certain kind of religious self-certainty become an overbearing self-righteousness – “we are right and you are wrong and there is a terrible price to be paid for your wrongheadedness.” One reaction to this can be to make our religious identity a little less central. It is one way to avoid becoming overbearing.
It is not, however, the best way, I think. As a pastor, I deeply appreciate these words penned many years ago by Daniel Day Williams. It can be truly said that the pastoral task is so to minister to people who have lost the power of a right use of Christian language that this language can be restored to them with reality and with power (The Minister and the Care of Souls, 49). A right use of Christian language is to understand that who we are in relationship to God is central to who we are as human persons. To see ourselves as persons created in the image of God, and who continue to struggle with living into that, is central to who we are as human persons.
Our task in a religiously pluralistic society is not to marginalize religion, but instead to combine deep faith with deep respect. It is to embrace the centrality of our religious identity while at the same time fostering a genuine respect for others, curiosity about others, and friendship toward others.
As a Christian, trying to live the Jesus way is central to who I am. I can offer testimony that the Jesus way is a good way. One evidence for that assertion just might be my ability to befriend others on other ways.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Book Learning

Over the years I have collected so many books, that, in aggregate, they can fairly be called a library. I don’t know what percentage of them I have read. Increasingly I wonder how many of them I ever will read. This has done nothing to dampen my pleasure in acquiring more books. But it has caused me to ponder the meaning they have for me, and the fact that to me they epitomize one great aspect of the goodness of life.
Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books, 19

He was an ordained clergyperson from another denomination who had left pastoral ministry to go into some kind of non-profit work. That detail has been lost to my memory. He had made an appointment to visit with me in my office in a church on the Iron Range. He was pleasant, friendly and out-going – a good conversationalist. As he was sharing his story he talked about his experiences leaving pastoral ministry and going out “into the world.” He had learned a lot in his experiences, and then came the line that I have heard others speak. “I’ve learned a lot, things you can’t learn from books.” He was a smart person, but to my mind he held a simplistic view of what books can offer the human person, and the relationship between learning from books and learning from life.
“You can’t learn that from any book.” The words have a condescending tone to them. In the United States, we have an ambivalent attitude toward education, a divided mind about it. On the one hand we praise learning and wring our hands when we think we are “falling behind” the rest of the world. We are pretty anxious about education right now in this country, and the proposed answers seem to gravitate toward more time in class, more testing, more results (by which we mean the acquisition of skills for the job market). By the way, students in Finland spend fewer hours in the classroom than their European counterparts and are ranked the best performing students in Europe (Harper’s Index, September 2012). Furthermore, I am very supportive of education for job skills and think we can do a much better job of offering vocational training. Yet it is important to remember that making a living and creating a life are distinct. I digress. On the one hand we praise learning, but on the other hand, we celebrate all those self-made successes, people who dropped out of school to make a lot of money. The underlying premise seems to be that if you can be rich without education, then go for it. Were some of our self-made millionaires inspired along the way by things they may have read? Might they have been taught some things along the way by people who valued books? We don’t seem to ask those questions.
To be sure, there are many things we don’t learn or learn as well from books. We recently replaced the walking belt on our treadmill. The old one was torn and we called the company about a new one. They said that one could be ordered, and individuals could install them, but it was not easy. It would take some time. Well, we got the belt put on, though I learned some things about how I would do it differently the next time. We learn by doing. Reading a recipe is not the same thing as cooking a meal. Reading a book about good communication is not the same as actually talking to someone.
Nevertheless, to say in a condescending tone that you can’t learn about that from any book sells both books and ourselves short.
I belong to the community of the written word in several ways. First, books have taught me most of what I know, and they have trained my attention and my imagination. Second, they gave me a sense of the possible…. Third, they embodied richness and refinement of language, and the artful use of language in the service of the imagination. Fourth, they gave me and still give me courage. (Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books, 22-23)
Reading a recipe is not the same thing as cooking a meal, but it enriches our experience of both cooking and eating when we add imagination to the recipe and when we can formulate our experience in words. Language both describes what we feel and experience and shapes feeling and experience. Yes, we learn many things outside of books, but our learning and experiences are enriched through the language we learn by our reading, and by the imagination that is formed through words.
A well-formed imagination does more than enhance individual experience. I am convinced that the broadest possible exercise of imagination is the thing most conducive to human health, individual and global (Marilynne Robinson, 26). In her recent book The New Religious Intolerance, Martha Nussbaum makes a similar point about the importance of imagination for the well-being of society. Good political principles and consistent arguments work well only against the background of morally informed perceptions, and these perceptions need the imagination. Only the “inner eyes” can tell us that what we’re seeing is a full human being, with a range of human purposes and goals, rather than a weapon assailing our safety, or a disgusting piece of garbage. (187) When we imagine the lives of others as full human lives, we treat them as full human beings.
I remember another voice, this one not seated across from me in my office, but coming through the television on CBS Sunday Morning, though when I ever got to watch that program I am not sure. His hair was gray and receding, with a gray beard and round glasses. He was unafraid to speak with the full vocabulary of words he knew, and could string together images and references across a long spoken sentence, leaving the listener almost breathless. His name was John Leonard and he spoke about politics and books and society. He died four years ago, but recently a collection of his essays was published, Reading For My Life. In the title essay, Leonard writes about the reading he has done, its importance in his life, and about the writers he has championed. It seems to me that my whole life I’ve been standing on some tower or a pillbox or a trampoline, waving the names of writers, as if we needed rescue (1). He ends his essay wonderfully. So do they all, these writers I’m waving my arms about, these angels made of words. Watch out for them. They give you dreams. (8)
“You can’t learn that from books” – true about some things, but our dreams are nurtured by our imaginations and our imaginations by our language. About writers – watch out for them; they give you dreams. And who are we without our dreams?

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Langston Hughes

I think I read that in a book.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Surprises

Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Gomer Pyle

Life is full of surprises, most of them bad.
Wilfred Bion quoted in Eigen, The Psychoanalytic Mystic, 134

New every morning is your love, great God of light.
United Methodist Morning Prayer

Life has its surprises. Sometimes the surprises are wonderful, sometimes horrible, and sometimes something in between. I disagree with Bion, that most of life’s surprises are bad. However, I find his words a helpful corrective to overly cheerful and optimistic assessments of life and the world. In today’s economy, for instance, one is more likely to be surprised by a raise than by a pink slip.
On our summer vacation, though, I found most of our surprises pleasant. We started our vacation in Cleveland, where I had attended the meeting of the North Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church. We visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We thoroughly enjoyed that, though it was not a surprise. It was planned. Our planned destination was Niagara Falls. The falls were beautiful, and I was surprised by how captivating they were.

Along the way, we spent the night in Mentor, Ohio and discovered there the home of President James Garfield. Garfield was elected in 1880, inaugurated in March 1881 and shot on July 2 of that year. He died on September 19. His home was a delightful surprise as was discovering more about this rather remarkable man.

Traveling we also visited two sites that were part of the Underground Railroad, one in Ohio and one in Ontario. The Ontario site was the home of one Josiah Henson, a man whose life was used as a basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s portrayal of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

While we had not considered this before our trip began, we (my wife Julie, our daughter Sarah and me) realized that we could put our feet in all five of the Great Lakes on our trip. We were surprised by the simple joy of doing this.

Life is full of surprises. When they are filled with wonder and delight and joy, I am grateful. It makes me think of a morning prayer I have used. “New every morning is your love great God of light.” Surprises can be a means of grace.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Maturity

Health means maturity…. The life of a healthy individual is characterized by fears, conflicting feelings, doubts, frustrations, as much as by positive features.
D. W. Winnicott, Home is Where We Start From, 22, 27

Since I last wrote, I have attended the North Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church, went on vacation – including a trip to Niagara Falls (more about that in a future post), and I attended my 35th high school class reunion. I hope that is reason enough not to have posted for a while. I am committed to writing more regularly as summer moves toward autumn.
So I attended my high school class reunion. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed seeing people, some of whom I have not seen since high school. Friday night we were at a local restaurant/bar and there were televisions. I have also been following the Olympics and asked if a television might be turned to the games. I can multi-task! I never said to anyone, “Nice to see you again but can you move a little so I can watch this swim.”
High school reunions push me to think about growing older and change. I also think about what it means to not only grow older but also to grow up, to mature. Chronological age does not automatically bring maturity. The Olympics have also helped me think a bit about maturity.
Winnicott is right. A healthy and mature person experiences fears, conflicting emotions, doubts and frustrations along with more positive things. I think maturity has something to do with being gracious amidst the ups and downs of life. It is not a shallow positivity, but a certain equanimity when things are going well and when they are not. I have been impressed by the maturity displayed by Michael Phelps – gracious in winning and losing. I have seen that kind of maturity in a number of places as I have watched the Olympics. I saw it as Aliya Mustafina gave a thumbs-up to fellow gymnast Aly Raisman who had bested her in the floor exercise. I saw it powerfully when gymnast Sam Mikulak watched intently as his opponents vaulted after him, and gave himself over to amazement at some of those routines. He hugged and congratulated those who medaled ahead of him. Graciousness. Equanimity. Maturity.
Life is not all gold, silver and bronze. Often it is disappointment, sometimes heartbreak. Often there is little of the Olympic drama. Instead we have on-going ordinariness. Maturity means something like recognizing that life will have ups and downs. It means enjoying the ups, the joys, the beauty. It means not being defeated by inevitable disappointments. It means knowing sorrow, feeling it, but not letting it take over.
At my reunion, I knew once again that I was growing older. I hope I am also continuing to grow up, to mature.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David