Savior? Job Filled. No Need to Apply.

By the time you read this, our congressional leaders may have already endorsed the president's plan to bomb Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack. I have been trying to understand the reasoning behind this decision. Is it to save face after the president drew "a red line" that must not be crossed? Is it to send a violent message to any who would use chemical weapons because we feel helpless to stop them and simply don't know what else to do? Is it because our foreign policy has devolved into a knee-jerk response to shoot first and ask questions later? Perhaps it's a bit of all the above. At a deeper level, I think it reveals a blind spot in the American psyche. We seem to view ourselves as morally, spiritually, and politically superior to the rest of the world. As such, we can rationalize virtually any action in the name of our principles, even when our actions violate those principles.This has been the case since the founding of our nation when our sense of manifest destiny justified genocide of the people native to this continent.  A self-appointed savior can always justify demonic behavior.

Of course, this is not unique to us. Violent jihadists, for example, mar the name of Islam in the supposed defense of Islam. But let's keep the focus on our own house. It's neither our place nor within our power to be the world's sheriff/savior. Have you ever tried to fix someone? How did that go? What makes us think it works any better on a global scale?

Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Decades of covert CIA operations to overthrow governments and assassinate leaders. Our intention to make things right often goes terribly wrong. Our bombs seem to create enemies faster than we can eliminate them. We say we are making the world safe for democracy. As our surgical strikes kill children and spouses ("collateral damage"), grieving souls must wonder who will keep them safe from democracy.

It's easier to fire missiles (real or metaphorical) and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, than it is to build consensus, fumble through ineffective action until effective action becomes clear, and admit that we are just as clueless and vulnerable as the rest of the world.  It's called humility, but it doesn't sell well on Election Day or jibe with our American "can do" spirit.

What does sell is distraction. Being savior of another person or of the world is often a distraction from neglected inner work. How many times have I helped someone, not out of kindness, but to mask my own sense of unworthiness? How many times has our nation lashed out in righteous anger while ignoring our own unrighteousness? Where's our indignation about an economic recovery comprised of cellar-paying McJobs as corporate honchos rake in record profits? Where's the moral outrage about our eroding civil liberties? Where's the call to arms to fix a dysfunctional social services system that is failing the most vulnerable in our midst?

Yes, America has done much good in the world. And, yes, violence is necessary...on very rare occasions...when there truly is no other option..as our reluctant, humble and sober choice.

So as the drumbeat quickens for more violence in the name of peace and compassion, I'm reminded of a Biblical self-righteous, self-appointed savior who was marching on Syria to make the world safe for God and God's followers. His name was Saul, later renamed Paul. Here's how he tells the story of his aborted crusade:

“While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Then he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.’" (Acts 22)

Saul saw the light. When will we?

A New Birth of Freedom

Politics makes strange frenemies. Two friends. Co-workers. Revolutionaries. Visionaries. They knew each other for over half a century. Their friendship turned to animosity when they battled for the same job, but over the years they reconciled and forged the deepest of bonds in spite of their political differences. They died on the same day, five hours apart, on July 4, 1826. These two friends, then enemies, then friends again, were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who both died fifty years to the day after the publication of the Declaration of Independence.  It was Adams who convinced the committee charged with writing the Declaration of Independence to let Jefferson write the original draft. Their lives were woven together as no other political figures in American history. Adams, our second president, was a hot-tempered, New England Federalist, who believed that the aims of liberty and justice were best served by a strong, centralized government. He said,  "No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it." Jefferson, his successor, was a reserved Southerner and favored achieving the same ends through strong state governments. Oddly, Jefferson's party, which evolved into today's Democratic Party, now holds the opposite position from their founder.

What endures midst ever-shifting political tides is an ideal stated so eloquently by Jefferson, that

"...all men [and women!] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

While our founding principles are a beacon to the world, our behavior has frequently fallen short: slavery, misogyny, racism, corporatocracy, nearly incessant wars, hegemony, lack of access to healthcare and jobs that earn a living wage, a shrinking middle class, the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and the list goes on.

To suggest that American is anything but the greatest nation on earth is blasphemous in most quarters. But how can we be great if we are unwilling to see the gap between our ideals and our behavior? Why is it unpatriotic to love our founding principles so much that we challenge the deleterious policies we have enacted as a nation? If America is to be great, that claim must be based not on our economic prowess, nor our omnipresent cultural influence, nor our military industrial complex. Rather our greatness is determined by our willingness to rise above prejudice, narrow self-interest, and fear in order to fulfill the bold, egalitarian vision of our founders.

This week also also marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a horrific carnage that took place from July 1-3, 1863. Months later President Lincoln went to that battlefield and challenged his generation, even more politically polarized than our own, to renew their commitment to these ideals.

What would it look like to renew our commitment? Can we celebrate our heritage in a way that moves beyond jingoistic shouts of "We're Number One!"?

Rather than place our deceased founders on pedestals and currency, a more useful response would be to take up their unfinished work and embody justice, equality and liberty here and now. Rather than gloat about how great we are in comparison to other nations, it is time for us to own up to our shortcomings and get our own house in order. Rather than down another cocktail as we apathetically watch reports of unchecked injustice on our big screen TVs, it is time to make the necessary sacrifices so that our founders' unfulfilled dream inches closer to reality.

Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, channeling the spirit of Adams and Jefferson, are just as applicable and inspiring now as when first spoken:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Happy Independence Day!

Life Isn't Fair

How many times did your parents respond to your complaints by saying, "Life isn't fair!" While annoying, their analysis is proving increasingly true. Our global economic system rewards "the winners" at the top with far more than they deserve while "the losers" (everyone else) suffer. For instance:

• U.S. CEO's are paid 380 times the amount of the average employee salary. CEO's certainly work hard, most likely harder than most of their employees, but 380 times as much?
• The richest 300 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 3 billion people.
• While the industrialized nations send $180 billion in foreign aid to poor nations each year, $2 trillion shifts from poor to rich countries each year through tax avoidance, trade agreements that favor multinational conglomerates, and debt service. 
• 30 multinational U.S. based firms with $160 billion in profits paid $0 in taxes over a recent three year period. 25% of the largest corporations pay no taxes. And we recently learned that Apple Computers paid virtually no tax on $102 billion in profits.

The result is an ever-widening income gap (as graphically depicted in this video) in which the poor become more desperate, the middle class evaporates, the upper class struggles, and those at the very top reap the benefits of everyone else's toil. And it's all perfectly legal, but not perfectly moral.

Sadly, large segments of the Christian Church remain silent on economic justice, turning a deaf ear to the suffering of the nation and the world. Trusting more in the free market than in justice or mercy, much of the church barely resembles its namesake. The words of Jesus in Matthew 25 echo in my ear. In that passage Jesus separates true followers from the fakes based on how they care for the most needy among them. What would Jesus say to many who claim his name today?

I was hungry, and you said it was my own damn fault. I was thirsty because your company polluted my town's river in order to make a quick buck. I was a stranger, and you called me a wetback and paid me slave wages as I worked in unsafe conditions so that you could live in comfort among friends. I was sick, and you chose to start wars instead of providing me with access to healthcare. I was in prison, and you let me suffer in the hands of the prison industrial system, never admitting how your own greed led to my desperation. I tell you the truth, when you treat one of the least of these members of my family with such callousness, you have done the same to me.

W.W.M.L.K.D.?

What would Martin Luther King do? (W.W.M.L.K.D.) That is the question many are addressing this week as we commemorate his birth. Disparate interest groups are claiming that, were he alive today, he would support their cause. The most outlandish claim I've head comes from Larry Ward, the Chairman of Gun Appreciation Day, who said last week:

"I believe that Gun Appreciation Day honors the legacy of Dr. King...The truth is I think Martin Luther King would agree with me, if he were alive today, that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history."

Um, yeah, right. And I hear that the Wicked Witch of the East adores "Houses that Fall From the Sky" Appreciation Day.

What would Dr. King be doing today? Fighting for the marginalized, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the oppressed. Moreover, he would be fighting for human souls with the power of love. For Dr. King, that love was not a touchy-feely emotion. It was a commitment to bring out the best in humanity, even when humans responded to that call with their smallest, cruelest, fear-based hatred or apathy. The love he proclaimed held justice in one hand and compassionate endurance in the other.

While most reference Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech as the zenith of his oratory, I am most drawn to a sermon he delivered shortly before his assassination. Here is an excerpt from "A Christmas Sermon on Peace" delivered in December 1967:

“I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.’"

What would Martin Luther King do? I don't know, but I doubt he'd be clutching an AK-47 to promote nonviolence. The better question is: what will you and I do here and now? Dr. King is not alive, but we are. We are today's "soul force". We can embody his vision of a love that is both compassionate and just, that longs for the liberation of both the oppressed and the oppressor. What is one concrete way that you can wear down an injustice with your love and win a "double victory"? What will you do?

Barkly and Mitts: Who Will Lead the Pack?

Below is a short story without an ending. Read it and notice what your gut reaction is. What do you think happens next? There’s no right or wrong answer, but your first response is likely the most honest and the most instructive. Your response may reveal something about the lens through which you are processing life. Whether or not it provides any insight, have fun with it! The story:

Once upon a time there was a pack of dogs, purebreds and mutts, living together. The pack had just come through a difficult period. Their former alpha, a cocker spaniel named Georgie, had made a mess everywhere he went. For instance, he let his fellow purebreds eat almost all the food, leaving only scraps for the mutts in the pack. Unfortunately, the unmitigated gluttony of the purebreds caused a collapse in the food supply so that all the dogs suffered. To make matters worse, Georgie had taken on a pack of nasty Chows claiming they had hidden bones in their territory, which proved to be untrue.

Licking their wounds after the Chow episode, the pack decided to change leaders. The new alpha was Barkly, who was the first mutt ever to become pack leader. He reined in the purebreds' excesses and ended the ongoing spats with the Chows.  Barkly claimed that it took the work of the entire pack to secure food. Mutts served as scouts, pack protectors, puppy nurturers and territory markers, all of which were essential for the survival of the pack. Under Barkly's leadership the purebreds who led each hunt still got first dibs, but the rest of the pack got a greater share of the food. Because they were better nourished, the mutts became even more adept and committed to their pack duties. As a result, food became more prevalent for all the dogs. In fact, even though the purebreds were receiving a smaller percentage of the packs' GDP (Gathered Doggie Provisions), they actually ate more overall because the healthier pack was securing much more food.

While times were still hard, the future looked promising until...along came Mitts. Mitts was a pampered Pekingese, who nonetheless enjoyed instant status because he was a purebred. He started to complain about Barkly's leadership. True, the pack was getting healthier, but Mitts yiped that it was taking far longer than it should.

Mitts also howled at Barkly's idea that everyone in the pack should take turns licking a seriously injured dog's wounds in order to maintain the wellbeing of the whole pack. Mitts said it's a dog-eat-dog world, and each dog should tend to his own wounds. Mitts snipped at any starving, stray mutt who tried to join the pack, telling them to self-deport back to their own territory.

Above all, Mitts whimpered that Georgie's approach had been right all along: purebreds should be allowed to devour all the choice food and let everyone else beg for scraps. This was the natural order of things according to Mitts. Oddly, a number of mutts even began to believe Mitts' claim that they too would be better off if they let the purebreds do as they pleased.

Things came to a head. Mitts challenged Barkly for leadership of the pack. Mitts met secretly with the purebloods to line up their support, where he harrumphed that 47% of the pack were lazy, dim-witted mutts mooching off the feasts of hardworking purebreds.  In public, however, Mitts tried to woo everyone with his double-bark and platitudes about the pack's greatness. He even made a play for the support of female mutts by referring to his "binders full of bitches".

The day of reckoning has finally arrived. Barkly and Mitts face off surrounded by the rest of the pack. What happens next?

The Pecking Order: A Brief Followup to Chik-fil-A

In reading the flurry of online activity about Chik-fil-A's financial support of anti-gay marriage groups, I finally realized what's actually going on here beneath the veneer of Bible quotes and the first amendment. The voices of privilege, in this case evangelical straight folks, feel threatened when a group that does not have the same rights insists on equality. Fuming evangelicals say they are the ones who are being persecuted because of their beliefs. It dawned on me that the angry voice of privilege is really a voice of fear, fear because those not privileged are challenging the established pecking order and the sense of identity derived from it. Whether the oppressed are women, people of color, immigrants, the poor, people of other faiths, or the LGBT community, the response is fear disguised as anger.

I also realized that my role is not to fix or change anyone. My path is to keep my heart open and reflect the truth of my experience as given the Light to do so. In effect, I become a mirror.

Privilege when seeing its own prejudice in the mirror, complains that the mirror itself is a bigot.