Thinking about Race

I'm participating this week in a webinair on white privilege.  The webinair is an orientation to a new curriculum being introduced by the United Church of Christ, our denomination.  It is designed to help folks explore what it means to be white in America.  The course will be focusing on issues like education, incarceration and economics, and how being white in America confers certain often unrealized privileges.

I'm taking the webinair to learn more not only about the issue, but also about the curriculum.  I am hoping to use it here at the church in the coming year.  While I know folks in my congregation will be open to discussing the issues, I wonder how they will respond to the basic premise?  Like most UCC congregations, we are overwhelmingly white (as is Sanibel in general.)  Our county, Lee County, is not--there are large numbers of African-Americans, Hispanics, and others.  But for the most part, aside from their presence during the day as part of the minimum wage work force, they are not on the island.

During the webinair's first session today there were two or three instant polls of participants asking a variety of questions.  One of them had to do with how I had experienced white privilege.  Had it given me any advantages in things like employment, housing or education?  Had it bettered my chances of receiving a loan?  I suspect the answer to all of these is yes, but I could not truthfully say I had been aware of any advantage in most of the areas listed.  And that, I imagine, is the problem.  Those of us who are privileged, don't even realize it most of the time.  It is so "baked in" to our culture, that we think the way we are able to live is the norm for all. 

I imagine I will learn much over these next few days as I think about the issue.  I am glad that the last session is something of a "where to from here" session..  How can I,

as a white person, be a part of bringing about change. I suspect that's the biggest issue of all.  Clearly, awareness is the first step--but what next?

Heaven or Hell? Love or Hate?

Saturday, June 11th at Noon, at Copley Square, thousands of folks gathered to join in Boston's annual Pride Parade.  Black and white folks, young and old, gay, bisexual, transgendered, lesbian and straight, people of many religious persuasions, and some of none--all sorts of folks, joining in a festive celebration.  Among them, my granddaughter pictured above on the right, chatting away with one of her friends.  She and one of her moms, my daughter Liz's partner Erica, had a grand time.  It was like heaven on earth.
Not much more than twelve hours later in Orlando, where two more of my granddaughters live, a man bent on terror and hate, blasted his way into a gay nightclub, filled with more folks celebrating life, dancing into the wee hours, and killed fifty, while injuring fifty-three more.  Blood and weeping soon spread into the night.  It was like hell on earth.

As a grandfather, it all scares me.  What if that hatred had spewed out over the parade in Boston?  What if . . . .

But then I stop, and realize I'm thinking exactly the way hatemongers and terrorists want me to think.  I am succumbing to fear.  And that can only get in the way.  For fear breeds all sorts of distorted thinking, distorted responses. 

I can't help but wonder, for instance, what sort of fears prompted Pastor Stephen Anderson in Tempe, Arizona, to record a video message saying in reference to the Orlando shooting, "The good news is that there's 50 less pedophiles in this world, because you l know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles.  That's who was a victim here, a bunch of, just disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar, okay?"  (www.patheos.com)  Well, no, Pastor Anderson, it is not okay.  It is no more okay than the shootings in Sandy Hook or Blacksburg.  It is no more okay than the shootings in Charleston or Aurora.  The folks killed in Orlando, were all sons and daughters, grandchildren, of those who now grieve.  And more than that, they were, and are, sons and daughters of God.  And God also weeps.

The first report I read after the incident, said officials were trying to determine if this was a hate crime.  I realize there is a technical definition of a hate crime.  But make no mistake.  This was, in every sense of the word, a hate crime. But hate mustn't be allowed to prevail.  Fear must not be allowed to grip our hearts.  There are many things we must say and do in response I am sure. I am not sure what all the answers are to assuring the safety of my children, and yours as well, but of this I am sure:  whatever we do, must grow out of love, for hatred only breeds more hatred.  Love alone can change us.  Love alone can save.  But love takes work.  Hard work, complicated work. 

I say all this as a grandfather who wants only the best for his family and yours as well.  I say it as a Christian pastor.  I say this knowing we can choose--heaven or hell.  Love or hate.

(Photo Credit:  Erica Edwards)

Going Bananas!

Someone once gave me a book titled 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways by John Llyod, John Hutchinson and James Harkin.  Now mind you, the interesting facts are often quite obscure, and while there is an index to the book, there are no source attributions.  So I guess we just need to take Mr. Lloyd and friends at their word. 

A full six of the 1,411 facts have to do with bananas.  Did you know, for instance, that there are 1000 species of banana, but we only eat one?  Or that bananas are considered unlucky on fishing boats?  (No more peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the coolers guys!)  Or that bananas are used in making kimonos?  (Huh?)  My favorite banana fact, however, is this one:  "The world's largest container ships can carry 746 million bananas."  (67)

Imagine that!  Bananas stretched as far as the eye can see, and then some.  End on end, enough bananas to, I don't know, reach the sun?  The moon?  Midtown Manhattan?  Think of all the banana pudding you could make.  Or banana splits (Personally, I never liked the pineapple sauce though--make it mostly chocolate syrup.)  Or banana bread.  Now that would be pretty gross.  I mean, you have to let bananas go half-rotten before you can use them in banana bread.  Imagine the fruit flies that would attract!

I suppose this is something of a waste of time--ruminating on bananas like this.  But sometimes, you need distractions from a world that offers up things like this year's presidential campaign. I mean, it is, quite literally, enough  to drive you . . .  well, bananas.  746 million of them at least!

No Need for Trash Talk--But Let'sTalk!

Do you ever talk about religion with people outside of your family?  It's a provocative question, and recently was posed in a survey conducted by the Pew Research Group.  Here's what they discovered.  18% of American adults discuss religion at least once a week.  15% discuss it one or twice a month.  18% discuss it several times a year.  33% seldom discuss religion.  And 16% said they never discuss it with non-family members.  (www.pewforum.org)

 

So where do you fit along that spectrum?  The same survey indicated that a majority of folks would not try to change the mind of a person whose religious views were different from their own, but a significant portion of mainline Protestants (70%) said they would seek to understand the other person's point of view.  An admirable position to be sure  But there's a catch.  First you need to talk!

I know many folks were told as they were growing up that it is impolite to discuss religion or politics in public.  (In response to that admonition  I once heard someone ask, "So what's left?")   Certainly in my life, some of the most interesting discussions I've had over the years are about religion (and for that matter politics as well!)  To prohibit religious conversation seems to imply it can't be done without rancor.  And, unfortunately, that is often true.  But it doesn't have to be.  For if we never talk about religion, how can we ever hope to understand another person's point of view if it differs from our own?

Throughout my career I have been advocate for interfaith dialogue--and I will continue to urge just such conversations.  I not only learn much about others in such conversations, just as importantly, they help me to hone and understand my own beliefs.  Such conversations help me to grow in my own faith.  What a gift!

Rewilding the Way: A Review

Near the end of C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe one of the characters, Mr. Beaver, describes Aslan, the lion who many see as a Christ figure.  "He doesn't like being tied down . . . . He's wild, you know.  Not like a tame lion."  I couldn't help but think of that line as I began reading Todd Wynward's challenging book Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God.  Like the characters in Narnia, it is so tempting for us to try and control God with our creeds and understandings, but God is greater than that.  Indeed, as a seminary professor once reminded me, if you could control God, than God wouldn't be God--you would be.

Wynward's book addresses a wide array of issues confronting the church in this day and age.  Some of them, like trying to tame God, aren't at all new.  But others, like our increasing distance from the natural world, are unique to our era.  Indeed, environmental concerns are laced throughout this book filled with wisdom. 

Wynward begins by positing that there is a third way to approach life as a Christian.  Not the way of absolute renunciation (of the world and the things of the world), not "unexamined affluence"(20) but rather the Way of Jesus.  "God," he writes, "has always desired for us to be conspirators in God's dream, collaborators in redemption.  What is this God project?  heaven on earth.  From the beginning, God has dreamed of an ideal society, something Jesus called 'the kingdom of God':  human community embodying covenanted right relationship with each other and all creation."  (22-23)

Throughout the book, Wynward offers powerful examples of folks who are trying to do just that.  And, adding integrity to his words, he discusses some of his own efforts, and those of his family, to live by this Third Way as they live in an intentional community built largely around the task of providing wilderness based education in New Mexico.

Well read, Wynward often refers to a wide range of authors including Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Wendell Berry, Joanna Macy and G. K. Chesterton. At one point he even quotes the poet Walt Whitman:  "'Now I see the secret of making the best person,'" Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass, "'it is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.'"  (80)  A poetic summation of much of Wynward's approach to life itself!

The heart of the book, appropriately, is found in the middle section, called "Seven Paths to Wild Your Way."  Here Wynward offers up seven chapters devoted to presenting and illustrating seven basic principles.  Among them are "Steer by Inner Authority," Rely upon Radical grace," Embody Enoughness," and "Trust in the Spirit."  

Wynward freely admits to his own limitations.  Speaking about his work in Taos, he writes:  "We're inconsistent and distracted with other concerns, but we often find ourselves growing food together, raising goats together, educating our children together, wandering the mountains together, resisting empire together."  (265)  But for all his humility, Wynward really does have some important things to say about how we might better live as those who seek to follow Jesus, as those who realize our God is a wild and untamed God.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network.  I was not required to write a positive review.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

A New House--and a Reminder

My wife Linda and I recently bought a house.  It is the first time our primary residence has been a home that we actually owned in over twenty-five years.  Since coming to Sanibel we have lived in rentals, and before that we lived in parsonages for over eighteen years. 

You forget, as you are caught up in the excitement of buying a house, just how much responsibility comes with being a homeowner.  Especially when you live, as we do, in a community bound together by a Home Owners Association (HOA).  It's not a gated community, but it is circumscribed, and each of the one-hundred and sixty-four households are protected by certain agreements we have made together.  The document that binds us all together is called a covenant.  And the rules run from what color you can paint your house, to how often you can rent it out in any given year.  The result of such an agreement is a very lovely, well-maintained community.  But it isn't without its struggles.  There are sometimes, I am told, contentious times as the community-elected board of directors attempts to enforce the covenant.'

As I've thought about our HOA, I realize it is a bit of the nation in miniature.  To be a citizen of this (or any) nation, means to buy into the rules that govern it.  That doesn't mean the rules can't be changed.  They can, by majority vote.  And they are subject to interpretation by the various governing bodies and courts.  But in the end, having a functioning, effective nation depends on full participation by its citizens.  And the nation's covenant, is the Constitution.

And so too, I realize as I'm writing this, the church.  For the church to be a lovely, well-maintained, functioning, effective community, all its members must participate.  And, so
we too have a covenant.

None of this is especially profound.  Its a rather simple set of analogies, but every once in a while we need to be reminded:  communities and nations and churches are the result of individuals working in concert for the common good. 

Learning from the Past

For two or three years now I have been undertaking what I call my "Presidential Project."  In essence, I am reading a biography of each of our Presidents in chronological order.  With my other reading (I always have a novel going, a professionally related work of non-fiction and something for my soul--not to mention the occasional book I am reading in order to review it for Speakeasy) I have been averaging a presidential biography every other month or so.  Sometimes I get bogged down, if the subject or the author's treatment is a drag ( Thomas Reeves' Chester A. Arthur comes to mind!) and it takes much longer.  And occasionally a shorter one is a breeze. 

Currently I am reading A. Scott Berg's brilliant Wilson.  It is a beautifully written volume, full of wonderful details about our 28th President, Thomas Woodrow Wilson.  Berg has a good grasp on the historical context, and provides many salient details which help to explain Wilson's very complex personality.  He even shares how and why he was known as Woodrow instead of Thomas.  (You'll have to read the book for yourself to find out the details.)

Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian preacher, was a very moral man.   His decisions were often rooted in his deeply held Christian beliefs.  He was a regular churchgoer and read the Bible most every day.  As I have been reading about his life and work, however, I have been rather troubled that this man, who I really admire in so many ways, was also, for all intents and purposes, a segregationist.  Having grown up in the South in the period of time following the Civil War, he seems to have soaked up the surrounding cultural norm that surrounded him in his early days.

Now, I am not here to judge Wilson.  I think his many, many of his positions and actions were quite laudable.  Would that modern politicians be as thoughtful as he was!  But his story raises the question, how do we deal with such glaring flaws in the lives of those people of the past we have come to admire?  Do you write them off as unacceptable people?  Do we discount everything else they did because of such inconsistency?  Or do we honestly acknowledge the flaws, while still celebrating the good things they did, the positive contributions they made?  Clearly, I think the later approach is more useful.  And frankly, more humane.  After all, isn't that the way we want others to treat us?  As a human being, I have some real shortcomings.  But I pray people don't simply see me for may failings!  I hope they are willing to see me as a man struggling to live a life of faith and integrity.  Not as a hypocrite.  I imagine you wish for the same for yourself.

History always has much to teach us.  About our world, about ourselves.  Might we be willing to learn!