FREEDOM OF WHAT FOR WHOM?

Today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer’s front page carries two stories about life and death.

The top headline is “Trayvon’s death stirs responses from Cavs, other NBA players.” A picture of a hooded Miami Heat team accompanies the story.

The headline below that picture reads, “Protesters blast birth-control rule.” That story’s picture prominently displays the bottom half of a placard expressing something about “Freedom of Religion.”

The first story probably needs less explanation from me than does the second. Everyone knows about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by Sanford, FL, “neighborhood crime-watch volunteer George Zimmerman,” and about the protests and outrage that have ensued because Zimmerman is still free and still has a gun.

The second story grows out of the Obama administration’s interpretation of last year’s Affordable Health Care Act that would require “faith-based organizations like hospitals, universities and charities that employ and serve people of all faiths as well as nonbelievers” to offer “health insurance plans that cover contraception and sterilization without charging co-payments.” The rule “exempts health plans carried by churches and some religious organizations.”

The administration has since backed off a bit from its initial rule, now requiring the insurance companies themselves to pick up the cost of contraception. I admit I don’t understand how that is supposed to work, but it did not satisfy the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, which is why this demonstration was held yesterday at Cleveland’s St. John’s Cathedral, Bishop Richard Lennon preaching. The Catholic Church has cast the health care rule it opposes as an assault on “Freedom of Religion,” hence, the pictured placard.

When it comes to contraception the Catholic Church has not been very successful with its own constituency, which makes its wider political machinations even more interesting. The Plain Dealer article ends by reporting that “a number of recent surveys show that as high as 98 percent of Catholic women support and use contraception.” If that number is anywhere near close to accurate, it may mean the Church is exercising its political clout upon society as a whole to try to deny its own members access to contraception. It is willing to deny the nation’s non-Catholic population the freedom to follow its religious convictions in order to force the Catholic population to acquiesce to the Church’s moral teachings.

So, whose “freedom of religion” are we talking about? Shades of the early pilgrims who came to these shores for “freedom of religion” - their religion, not mine, or yours, or someone else’s. “Freedom of religion” stops where it impedes another’s “freedom of religion,” and justification for limiting anyone’s freedom must be based upon the guaranteed rights of each individual, not upon that particular religion’s own theological dogma.

Women should be free in this country to have access to whatever health care they need, including contraception and (dare I take the next step?) safe abortions. And the wonderful thing is that the more access to contraception women have the less likely it will be that they will get pregnant, and a woman who is not pregnant sure won’t need an abortion.

What does the above have to do with the shooting death of an unarmed teenager in Florida? Just this: if the Roman Catholic Church gave a tenth of the energy it devotes to fighting contraception and abortion to advocating reasonable control of handguns, its advocacy for stricter gun control might save far more lives than its resistance to birth control is creating. I believe the bishops have some fairly progressive positions on a number of social issues, including racism, poverty, and capital punishment. For a time they mounted impressive street campaigns supporting paths to citizenship and the like for undocumented aliens, but that’s about in recent years, as far as I know.

What if the Roman Catholic Church led the way onto our streets to protest our becoming a vigilante society, where “neighborhood watch volunteers” carry guns they think they are justified in firing to “Stand Their Ground” when they see a black teen-ager in a “suspicious-acting” hoody? What if the Church bought billboard space to carry gory images of bodies riddled with bullets? What if it lobbied against “concealed carry” laws with the same vehemence it gives to trying keep unthinking cells from getting together deep inside human bodies to make new babies?

What if the leadership and people of the United States of America faced the incontrovertible truth that we suffer under the highest rate of gun violence in the civilized world because we have and allow too many guns, not too few? What if my freedom to do or be anything is threatened by a guy walking behind me who doesn’t like me in my freedom and who pulls a gun out of his pocket simply because who I am threatens him?

And, just to get it off my chest, any fool (except a few Supreme Court justices) has to admit the Second Amendment has nothing to do with the chaos in our gun laws today. Where is a “well-regulated militia” when we need it?

On page 4 of the very same Plain Dealer that I started with this morning, there’s an article about Rick Santorum, a very, very good Catholic. While campaigning at a shooting range (So cool!) in Louisiana, Santorum “fired a pistol at a target (What a man he is!), and as he did so a woman in the crowd shouted, ‘Pretend it’s Obama!’”

The story reports that Santorum was wearing ear protectors, so he didn’t hear the remark. Later, when told of it, he called it “absurd” and “horrible and terrible,” and then said he was glad he “didn’t hear it.” His strong Catholic faith should have led him to call her comment “immoral.” Presidential candidate that he is, he certainly told the Secret Service guy keeping watch over him, didn’t he?

Maybe if Santorum and other Republican politicians listened to more of what’s being shouted by the people they are wooing they’d hear their rhetoric taking us all down to a place where there will be no real freedom of religion or anything else for any but the most favored few...corporations.

At the J

Been workin’ out at the J.

Workin’ out doesn’t come naturally to me. Where I was raised everyone knew that if you lived your life right (i.e., you “worked hard”), you would never need to waste time “workin’ out.” That’s my moral excuse. Beyond that, I hate doggedly doing repetitive things that hurt. Who can argue with faux moral reasoning buttressed by disdain?

Around here the J is The Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland. Those who don’t know it as intimately as I do call it the J.C.C. Those initials are not to be truncated into J.C., because doing that opens a can of theological worms.

How did a life-long Gentile like me get so cozy with the J? Simply put, my wife made me do it.

Maxine thought I needed to start workin’ out. That’s because, I suspect, she sees me as I am in ways I do not. Something about tall and skinny me oozing into a bulge at my middle.

Maxine has been workin’ out for some time now. She started with an inexplicable devotion to running, which is the very definition of “repetitive” in my lexicon. About a year ago she added visiting a place for women called “Curves” to her running regimen, and when the Curves closest to us closed she decided it was time for us to find a place to work out together. So when the J offered a deeply discounted sign-up fee for new members in January, we were in. Both of us. Just like that.

I must admit that the sales tour was pretty convincing. Our guide didn’t flinch when, in response to her question, I told her I was a retired Presbyterian minister. The J seems as eager to welcome non-Jews as the Y is to welcome non-Christians. When it comes to our bodies, we are a lot of more inclusive than when it comes to our souls.

A large number of blacks (African-Americans, I presume) work out at the J, but I haven’t noticed many Asians or other obvious ethnic groups...except all those who “look Jewish,” some of whom may be Arab - even Muslim - for all I know. We all just do our thing, carefully wiping off the equipment we’ve just used with towels sprayed with disinfectant. So there is a limit to how inclusive we are of one another’s bodies.

The J seems to me to be a fine place for the kind of place that it is, though you’ve probably already figured out that I am poor judge of gyms. A lot of machines and bar bells and straps and harnesses and contraptions that look like something in a medieval torture chamber are arranged in a convex semi-circle facing a huge expanse of glass that looks out on one of Cleveland’s many Jewish schools. A track bearing a forgiving surface circles two full-sized basketball courts that can be sub-divided into smaller spaces for all the kinds of activities that thrive on shiny hardwood floors. There are two large pools, one inside and the other out. There’s a Pilates room, a spinning room, a Yoga Room, a den for the trainers who prowl the J, a sauna (apparently on long-term disability) and a men’s room that’s a whole lot better than I remember from junior high. I am sure the women’s room is even nicer in a feminine sort of way.

Amenities include a place you can leave your kids with licensed care-givers and a lot of stuff to destroy, a kosher Subway Shop, and a “Treasures from the J” shop featuring gifts and trinkets from Israel. One day I bought a loaf of Lax and Mandel challah (baked “Under Rabbinical Supervision if Bag Contains Bread Net Weight 16 Oz or Over”) for $4.00. Delicious. What you gain workin’ out you lose on the way out...or is it that what you lose workin’ out you gain on the way out? You know what I mean.

After a trainer named John welcomed me, showed me a computer-generated graphic of how much better I’ll look “after” compared to now “before”, and set me loose to work out on a series of machines, I determined to go to the J three or so times a week. “Or so” is central to that determination, but I’ve been pretty good about it. For a small fee, John will meet me again to reset my path on other machines and weights and ropes and stuff. I’m saving up for that.

I have made some progress. I can pull/push/lift/drag/grunt through an additional 5 or 10 or 20 pounds on most of the machines, and I can bicycle in place farther than when I started. I am glad for that, because my motivation for getting into this is to be able to go farther and longer and easier on my yellow Schwinn this spring than I could last fall. Unfortunately, spring is coming much faster than I am peddling, and all my workin’ out may be put to the test before I am ready. Meantime, I tell myself I am lookin’ better.

But here’s my dilemma: it is not polite to look any way but straight ahead at the J. You certainly are not to stare at others, because, in the spirit of the most universal of universal rules, you must not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. Until today I’d never caught anyone admiring their emerging new and improved physiques in the mirrors that shadow the weight and stretching areas. But sometimes you just can’t help comparing yourself to others. And when I accidentally glance around, or catch people out of the corners of my eyes, I am sometimes encouraged, but more often discouraged.

There are a lot of really old people at the J, some who can hardly walk, and I’ve even seen a woman pushing herself in a wheelchair among the machines. I think I look better than they do, until I remember they are workin’ out against really tough physical challenges, and then they look pretty darned good. The wheel-chair bound woman actually climbed on machines and worked them. I don’t know that I would be that persistent.

There are many younger elderly types who look a lot like me, whom I try to follow around on the machines so I can find out how much weight they are able to chest press, etc. I cannot easily tell if they encourage or discourage me; they, like me, just are what we are.

I confess to feeling a certain moral superiority over the guy who passively peddles his bike while reading the Wall Street Journal. What earthly good is he doing himself, body wise? It’s too easy; he should be ashamed of himself.

Finally, there are those spectacular few of both sexes and all ages who just plain look great. They completely discourage me because the chances of me ever looking great are nil. I didn’t look great when I was 17, 27, or 37, so it’s not about to happen when I’m pushing 70 - but don’t tell John I said that.

And I have to admit that I don’t work out all that hard (don’t tell Maxine I said that). Is it because I am running classical music through my iPod Shuffle? Whatever, I can’t think of a good reason to impose any more than moderate pain and agony upon my only body. It has served me quite well for decades without a lot of effort on my part, and doesn’t deserve punishment. So I’ll just continue to ease into workin’ out, that easin’ made easier because I’m doin’ it at the J.

Leaving

I share a recent change in my life with my blog’s readers.

Shortly after I started coelietterra I entered into a one-year contract with a large church to serve as its interim pastor. I did this despite an earlier resolution made with myself to retire, finally and in fact, and not to accept another long-term, full-time position. I convinced myself I was keeping my resolve by agreeing to work only three-quarter’s time.

I soon realized that the position I had accepted was not, at least for me, a part-time one. I became overwhelmed by what I thought I should be doing. Half-way through the contracted year, anxious inner wrestling convinced me that I could not continue in the position. I asked to be able to leave the relationship with the church. Church leaders graciously accepted my request, and Sunday was my last day there. I know the church will move forward, but I also know have I let some people down - disappointed them. I will spare you the details.

I have not been able to get myself entirely comfortable with what I have done. I cannot tell if the “reasons” I have creatively developed about whether it was okay to leave have substance or are mere excuses. They start with, “I’ve never done anything like this before,” and end with “I’ll never do anything like that again.” The first is not true, and the second is unprovable. Between them are rationalizations, justifications, blaming others, and, most questionable of all, attempts to assign grand, even divinely-inspired purpose behind my decision. Frankly, I don’t know if there is even a hint of God in the whole business.

Could I have done something else? Could we have orchestrated some other outcome? Perhaps. But I felt at the time and I continue to feel that my decision to ask to leave was one I had to make - that I had no choice. (My previous post, “Turnpike’s Trees,” conveys part of what was charging through my mind as I decided.)

Looking ahead, I am committed to writing for the wider public. Writing is a common post-retirement calling for many of us preachers - as if we have not done enough of it throughout our careers. But I am planning to spend real time casting words upon a blank page and/or video screen. I started this blog to share my experience of things of “heaven and earth” with anyone who might be interested. I want to get back to it in earnest.

I have received encouragement to move on in a quote from a book that was recently reviewed by Martin Copenhaver (Christian Century, March 7; pp. 30ff). In Year of Plenty Presbyterian minister Craig L. Goodwin writes how he and his family embarked on a year of eating food and buying items “that were local, used, homegrown or homemade.” After the year started Goodwin began blogging about his family’s experiences, which eventually turned into what Copenhaver calls a “charming book.” (I am energized by Craig Goodwin’s transition from blog to print.)

Goodwin admits they sometimes “broke the rules”; that they did what they had said they would not do, or did not do something they said they would do. What did they learn about rules and following them? Goodwin writes,

“We discovered that a key to having rules to live by is not just sorting out how to enforce them, but also discerning when it’s okay to break them. Following rules is always an improvisational act, a living compromise where the constraints of human life crash up against hopes and ideals.”

Thanks, colleague whom I’ve yet to meet. You have given me permission to embrace both the pain and the promise of my leaving, to improvise with it all as best I can, and to write my way through my hopes and ideals with as little compromise as I can muster.

Turnpike's Trees

Tearing along the Pennsylvania Turnpike at 75 mph on a bright February day, I tried to look at and see beyond the trunks of leaf-less hardwood trees. I seemed to be passing them at varying rates of speed - the nearer trees too quickly to focus on them, the farther trees more slowly, but obscured by the rushing nearer ones. My mind could not linger on any tree, whether near or far. In my hurry, near trees passed too fast and far trees were obscured by closer ones.

At the end of my trip I had not seen - really seen - a single tree. And I felt that loss.