Happy birthday, and how free will she be?

I’m thinking about our granddaughter’s birthday today, and wondering how free she will be to make decisions about her one precious life and body in the decade between now and her 21st birthday.

I fear her freedom will be sharply limited by the Republican party in cahoots with a theologically compromised evangelical Christianity and a politically compromised judicial system.

Under no circumstances would she have the choice of a medically safe abortion. She would not be free to enjoy a legally-protected loving relationship with another woman. She would not be free to change her gender if she realizes she is not the gender she was assigned at her birth.

People eager to limit other’s rights should focus on one person they truly love and ask what if? about their futures and freedom. How doing that would change the discussion!

Now to the politics of it…

The New York Times published an article this morning about Doug Mastriano, who is running for the Republican party’s nomination for governor of Pennsylvania. He’s very conservative, so much so that the Republican establishment in the Keystone State is said to be worried that he might get the nomination.

The article was accompanied by a picture of Mastriano wearing a t-shirt on which is printed, “Walk as free people,” and under it in small print, “John 8:36,” or so I think it says. That citation is a bit fuzzy, and that’s not how John 8:36 reads. In any case, what purports to be a Christian scriptural citation is spread across the chest of a man running for governor of a very diverse state.

It tells all you need to know about whose votes are important to him.

In trying to find exactly where Mastriano got his “walk as free people” slogan, I came across a June, 2021, article about a rally held to protest pandemic restrictions in Pennsylvania…masks, closings, distancing, vaccinations, the whole bit. In remarks to attendees that day, Mastriano is quoted as having said, “We need to walk as free people. You’re sovereign over your own body.”

Judging from his stance on abortion, honestly should have compelled him to add, “except when you are pregnant.”

Beware of politicians wearing their religion on their chests.

"The Americanization of the foreigner"

Herbert Quick’s 1922 novel, Vandemark’s Folly, is the first-person story of very young Jacob Vandemark’s trek from New York State to Iowa in the 1850s. Jake is an American by birth, born of Dutch parents in New York. One of the central crises occurs when he finally comes to the forty-acre plot that is to be his, only to discover that it is considered the poorest piece of potential farm land in that part of Iowa. “Hell’s Slew,” the locals call it. Soon it will be known as “Vandemark’s Folly.”

At the end of his long and arduous journey, Jake is overwhelmed by the shock of his profound disappointment at where it has brought him, and he “crie(s) like a baby.” He feels a large hand on his head, looks up, and sees the man who will be farming the land next to his. Immigrant Magnus Thorkelson comforts him with, “Forty acres bane pretty big farm in Norvay. My fadder on twenty acres, raise ten shildren. Not so gude land like dis.” Magnus offers to live and work with Jake, and he accepts the offer.

Here is how Jake concludes this chapter of his story:

A lot is said nowadays about the Americanization of the foreigner; but the only thing that will do the thing is to work with the foreigner, as I worked with Magnus—let him help me, and be active in helping him. The Americanization motto is, “Look upon the foreigner as an equal. Help him. Let him help you. Make each other’s problems mutual problems—and then he is no longer a foreigner.” When Magnus Thorkelson came back on foot across the prairie from Monterey Centre, to lay his hand on the head of that weeping boy alone on the prairie, and to offer to live with him and help him, his English was good enough for me, and to me he was as fully naturalized as if all the judges in the world had made him lift his hand while he swore to support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Iowa. He was a good enough American for Jacobus Teunis Vandemark.

Might we make progress in resolving our persistent immigration challenges if we approached them with the openness Jacob Vandemark and Magnus Thorkelson showed to one other?

By the way, if you’d like to know more about Herbert Quick (1861-1925), there is quite a bit available on line. I posted an essay about him on this blog on February 13, 2014. I know of him because he was born in Grundy County, Iowa, where I grew up.

Between Easters

This is the week between Easter as it is celebrated in the “Western” Church and Easter as it is celebrated in the “Eastern” Church. Very broadly speaking, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are considered Western and Orthodoxy is considered Eastern. It’s a long, long story.

Last Sunday in our church we sang “Christ is Alive” by 20th century hymn writer Brian Wren. One stanza particularly struck me when churches and nations are bitterly divided between and within themselves, and when two largely Orthodox nations, Russia and Ukraine, are engaged in a bloody war that threatens us all. I will simply quote that stanza here. Take from it whatever it gives to you…

In every insult, rift, and war

where color, scorn, or wealth divide,

(Christ) suffers still, yet loves the more,

and lives, though ever crucified.

The glass in the grass: green

This old man canes his way
upon late March’s greening grass,
neither slow nor fast,

around and over lumps in earth’s carpet,

and the mini wetlands cradled between them.

He looks up toward his goal:

the paved parking lot beyond this green expanse

that separates it from the gravel trail to its north.

Maybe a hundred yards of earth,

a shortcut through spring.

He recalls the exhilaration of his childhood’s spring,

felt for all its confidence and hope.

Now above all else he fears falling.

But he needs to be here—

this sun, this air,

these birds singing spring into being on this grass.

Now! A new green—a shiny, flashy

glint of green—spikes his eyes.

He focuses just ahead where,

in the grass, a broken shard of a bottle

—a Coke bottle, the old kind?—

hides among the blades.

He stops, examines it and its surroundings.

Experience teaches that where there’s one glass sliver

there certainly lurk two and three and more.

As there are, as he knew there would be.

He winces: behind his eyes he sees

a barefoot child (not a care in the world!)

outrun their parents into the grass

only to stab their foot upon glass

and bleed and scream…

…and, the man hopes, to be comforted by love.

Calmed.

(He does not know that child.)

What will he do? For the good of that child

he will remove the glass from the grass.

He can balance three, maybe four, pieces

between his left hand’s thumb and fingers,

make his way to the parking lot,

then cross it to the trash can framed by parked cars.

Steadied by the cane in his right hand, he bends his lanky frame,

picks up first, one piece, then two more.

He clasps them as best he can,

then steps out—so carefully—maintaining

just the right amount of pressure on the hurt he carries.

Walking these last few yards he sees still more glass

strewn randomly, as if on purpose,

here and there in the grass along his way.

A car is parked on the lot’s near side,

motor running, person sitting at the wheel.

Will they notice me and wonder what on earth I’m doing?

Why, at my age, my cane and I are doing it?

Is not this cane problem enough for me, and my years?

On the far side two figures sit inside

another car flanking the trash can,

its rap deafening them to birds’ songs.

They must see him open the trash can’s cover

and drop something small and green into it.

Look at that strange old man.

Done, should he do more?

More glass is out there. He saw it.

If he has saved the child

from the cut of the glass he’s carried away,

their foot could still land on what he left behind.

Well, he couldn’t get it all even if he were

fifty years younger a man. No sense trying.

And anyway, he needs something to carry

all these pieces in. He can make only so many trips.

His car’s trash container is lined with a plastic bag.

He yanks it out, balls it in his left fist,

and carries it back across the lot and into the grass,

where he stops to wonder where

the glass he saw not a minute ago has gone.

How foolish, this old man!

No rightly-thinking one would do this.

But he would, and is—a lesser good deed

than some he might have done in younger years, he knows.

Yet a good deed, foolish as they can be.

He finds caches of shattered Coke bottle glass

scattered all around in small piles,

even the bottle’s bottom cradles its top,

as if buried together.

This park’s mine field is no accident.

He finds what he finds without going far—

he collects enough to make him feel good about his day

walking and enjoying spring,

asking how many he has left to enjoy

before spring and he disappear in the march of change and time.

He puts his retrieved green glass into the bag

with the candy wrappers already there,

and carries it all back to and through the lot,

passing slightly amused drivers,

and lowers it to the floor beneath the seat

the passenger would sit in if he had a passenger.

He drives home, where he feels just okay about his little good deed

as he deposits the plastic bag of glass and wrappings

into the trash can in his garage.

Will this old man’s way

save a child from at least one

of the dangers of life?

No one will ever know.

As this old man will never know who

will pick up after him, or what.

Broken.

Sometimes—he reflects to himself that evening

because the glass in the grass is his secret—

sometimes all he can do is pick up shards

and hope he's found enough of them

to save another from his pain.

(Keith Dean Myers)

A nation off-balance

One of my frightening surprises as I’ve aged has been the deterioration of my sense of balance. I have learned that it happens to many of us. It is a major reason older people fall.

Another frightening surprise is that I have aged into living in a nation that has lost its sense of balance. Our United States of America is at risk of falling, bringing about a political and social collapse more disastrous than any I might experience. 

There are many signs of our nation’s loss of equilibrium: We have no agreed-upon sources of news and information. We refuse to trust anyone but ourselves and people we know. We are bombarded daily by in-our-face demands that we do this, buy that, watch the other thing, follow this or that person, believe whatever, go here or there…it never ends. Who do we believe? Which way should we turn?

Our social mores are on their heads; for example, I might unintentionally offend someone because I assume their gender by how they look, act, or sound. What used to seem easy is now difficult.

Factors beyond our immediate control are contributing to our national imbalance. COVID’s ripping of every fibre of our national fabric and wildly destructive weather are two very obvious disturbers of our stability.

Then there are forces that deliberately try to keep us off balance, often using things beyond our control (such as COVID and wild weather) as launchpads for their destabilizing messages. Primary among these forces are the promoters of unfounded conspiracy theories—most famously, QANON.

Advertisers use what people generally report makes us happy—friendship, love, acceptance, security, etc.—to try to convince us that buying their wares will get us those things. They refashion the sources of true human happiness into commodities, tempting us to forget that, once our basic survival needs are met, “the best things in life are free.”

Politicians and political parties want us to think only our own particular priorities and desires matter to them. They relentlessly focus on what they think and tell us we want without acknowledging the legitimacy of others’ needs.

Religions, particularly when marching lock-step with those politicians and parties, promise individual salvation apart from a saved—that is, a liberated—social order. We are encouraged to believe and live as if what we want can only be ours at the expense of others and our common good. We lose sight of our context and try to make our way through life like balance-compromised, blindfolded people struggling to walk a straight line.

Are there insights we could gain as a people from my experience dealing with my own off-balancedness?

My out-of-kilter balance keeps me constantly on my guard when I walk. My first priority is to protect myself from falling, so I tend to play it safe. Often the things I do are not the right things. It is easy to slouch while I walk and to keep my eyes on the ground, at my feet. But I know it is much better for me to stand up as straight as I can and focus on what’s ahead of me without losing sight of what’s around me. I have to work at walking upright if I want to get to where I want to go. My eyes must be open and my all my senses remain attuned to my immediate environment.

A society in fear of falling arms itself with guns and other weapons for “self-defense.” It goes for the jugular of those who differ from the majority or even from its loudest and most toxic members, eager to deny any right to another opinion. It grants power to individuals and institutions that promise the most safety the fastest, even when those promises have proven time and again to lead to misery and loss of liberty.

Many have even begun to doubt democracy itself, a doubt fed by anti-democratic regimes around the world. The Republican Party in particular seems intent on replacing democracy with one-man/one-party rule—rule by personal or party fiat that would not be subject to the will of the people. Were that to happen, we would no longer be a free, diverse, and democratic nation.

To restore equilibrium, our country must be honest with itself about itself, stand straight, and acknowledge the reality it is living in and entering. We can begin by listening carefully to one another, especially to those whose life experiences are different from our own. We can stop calling people who challenge us names, consigning them to categories (“liberal, conservative, socialist, racist,” etc.) that deny the richness of their whole personalities. We can realize that no one is perfect, no one is without fault, all of us have had some part in our destabilizing.

Most important, we must reclaim the promise of America, imperfectly as it is too-often kept, that all are created equal and all have a right to life and liberty and yes, even to the pursuit of happiness, while living together as one people. We may need to find new ways of doing government of, by, and for the people—for all the people—but we have done that before, and we can do it again.

Advice for our nation in the new year

It's not easy to read the book of the biblical prophet Zechariah during the Christmas season, but that's the choice I made. Somehow, it's felt right.

A couple of days ago, reading chapter 7, I came upon what is surely the core of God's will for God's nation, Israel, as it was rebuilding after the exile. Here it is, Zechariah 7:9-10:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another."

I hope one does not have to be "believer" to hear those words as appropriate for us as a people in these challenging times. Take some time to ponder them, and what they might mean for you as an individual and for the United States in 2022. 

Happy New Year!

This Christmas I am particularly drawn to the carol, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” It begins by picturing a “world in solemn stillness” first hearing the angels’ song. There follows the claim that the angels are still singing their song, but now to the world’s “sad and lowly plains,” deafened by its “Babel-sounds.”

The situation gets worse: “sin and strife…two thousand years of wrong…war on earth” block the song from being heard. After a plea for silence, the lyrics focus on individuals whose forms are bent low under “life’s crushing load,” who make their way through life “with painful steps and slow.”

And just at that moment, when all seems lost, the poet calls upon those weighed down by the burdens of life to look up, for hope is coming, rescue is on the way. For once, they can rest, they dare sit down at the side of the road, and listen, really listen to the song that persists in being sung, despite all.

Finally, the promise: the time of peace , seen by the prophets of every generation, is coming. It lies ahead of us all, especially ahead of those of the human family who have never known any real rest.

Now comes the punch line. When the peace of the angel song comes, “the whole world (will) give back the song, which now the angels sing.” The world will repeat, echo, respond by singing back to the heavens, “Peace on the earth, good will to all.” And, I suggest, heaven will be pleased.

The fulfillment of that promise seems far off, perhaps as far off as I’ve known it in my now fairly long lifetime. There’s little evidence the world is singing anything like the angel song these days and years. Yet the song is still out there.

Perhaps the most important thing I can do with my life now is to be sure the song I sing with my life is the song the angels sang that first Christmas and, I trust, are singing still. I need to hush the noise and strife inside of me, listen to what’s above us all, and do my best to live in response to those holy lyrics every single day.

The words are by Edmund Sears. Here they are, though slightly altered:

It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old,

from angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the earth, good will to all, from heaven’s all-gracious King.”

The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come, with peaceful wings unfurled,

and still their heavenly music floats o'er all the weary world.

Above its sad and lowly plains they bend on hovering wing,

and ever o'er its Babel-sounds the blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long—

beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong.

And we at war on earth hear not the tidings that they bring.

O, hush the noise and cease the strife to hear the angels sing!

And you, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low—

who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow—

look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.

O, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!

For lo, the days are hastening on, by prophets seen of old,

when, with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold—

when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,

and the whole world give back the song, which now the angels sing.

Merry Christmas