Who Has the Big Picture?

If Abraham Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address in 2014, would it stand a chance of being remembered at all, much less 150 years later?

If Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his dream in 2014, would it survive the onslaught of opinions to which we'd all be subjected immediately after it?

These questions come to mind as I reflect on a piece by Samuel Wells in the August 30 Christian Century (p. 31). Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London. He writes about the upcoming Scottish vote for independence, but one paragraph sounds as if it should be exported across the ocean to our USA:

"What the [independence] debate has exposed is a vacuum in British society as a whole. Not only is no one able to offer an aspirational picture of a whole society where there's a place for everybody and the various identities enrich and bring out the best in one another; beyond that, our public discourse no longer even permits such language or such a vision. In the absence of an inspirational large canvas, it's inevitable that minority rhetoric will sound more compelling and exciting. But that can only mean splitting into smaller and smaller groups."

Suppose there were a political leader in our nation who possessed rhetorical skills perfectly matched to our times and media, and who had a vision of an "ideal" American society in which all were respected and honored both in words and in actions. Would we allow ourselves time actually to hear and absorb and reflect upon her or his vision before we let someone else tell us what had been said and what it really means?

Probably not; in fact, many of us would likely turn to some trusted commentator to tell us how to think about what we'd just heard before we'd consider it ourselves, on our own terms, from our own point of view. We'd likely go to someone with a stake in dividing us into manageable and compliant factions, and allow that organization or person to determine the validity and credibility of what we'd just heard.

There may be such a leader of vision out there, but I am not hearing his or her voice. Or am I limiting my options only to those I've come to believe are worth hearing?

In any case, it's not a good way to be a democracy.

Israeli Divestment and Presbyterians

Anyone who dives into the dark waters of the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict risks being drowned. Not drowning, but being drowned: someone will surely try to hold the poor soul’s head under water until breathing stops. And should said diver express any uncertainty about who is right and why, he or she will likely be pushed under by at least two someones. There’s no room for doubt in this pond.

So, “I am who about to die, salute you.” I can see this whole mess both ways…actually, in fact, many ways. Sorry, but it is complex, at least in my mind, with few clear good guys and, except for of the most radical, few clear bad guys, either. Just warring groups of people pumped up be religious fervor trying to find security and peace and enough to eat and drink on a small piece of real estate that happens to sit where three great continents.

Into this morass the Presbyterian Church (USA) took a dive at its General Assembly (i.e., national) meeting in June. The commissioners voted, by a hair, to withdraw the denomination’s Foundation and Pension Funds from three US corporations–Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions–that do business with Israel. The concern that guided the Assembly to take this action are the “human rights violations and suffering resulting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” (quoted from the denomination’s “Frequently Asked Questions: Divestment” link at www.pcusa.org.)

I am not going to offer more detail than that, suspecting that if you’ve read this far, you know all about the matter anyway. If you do not, go the website just cited and check it out.

I admit I am conflicted about this action. (One moment, please, while I take cover.) I understand it in many, many ways, and I believe the issue it identifies is absolutely right.

On the other hand, I am distressed when I read and hear justifications for it that barely acknowledge the threats to Israel’s existence posed by its enemies, threats grounded in rhetoric calling for Israel’s annihilation. (As in the afore-mentioned FAQ as well as in a letter in last Sunday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer by a fellow Presbyterian minister.)

The facts of Palestinian oppression are set forth with hardly a nod to the reality that much of the Palestinian leadership has turned every opportunity to solve the conflict into a means of strengthening its own military’s ability to destroy Israel, and seems to care little for the well-being of the people it is supposedly serving.

This is not to excuse Israel and its leadership for the opportunities it has missed. The illegal settlements should have stopped before they were started. It’s almost impossible to see turning them back now, which creates a corner Israel can’t get out of. But it is to make the point that the way Israel treats Palestine has happened in a context that must be recognized if there is any hope for peace.

Some of us Presbyterians apparently do not want to see or acknowledge that context. Eager to do anything, we did something. Now we justify what we did with a carefully selected set of some of the realities. If helping achieve peace with justice for all is the ultimate goal (what else could be?), then will what we did get the world there? Seems to me that if you look at only part of what’s to be seen in making a decision you risk deciding the wrong thing. In this case we risked fracturing the church for a mistake. And put us at odds with Jewish neighbors with whom many of us share long and positive relationships. To break the will of Israel and/or Hamas? To force Caterpillar, HP, Motorola Solutions to their corporate knees?

And now comes John Buchanan, editor of the Christian Century, and one of Presbyteriandom’s respected elder statesmen. Buchanan wrote a scathing editorial on the divestment decision in the July 23 issue of the Century. Two sentences in his editorial leap out at any Presbyterian who likes to think we do things “decently and in order.”

First, “The national Presbyterian Church individuals who provided resources for the committee [that considered the divestment proposal] made no attempt at neutrality but advocated for divestment at every opportunity.” Is he talking about denominational staff members here? I hope not.

And then, “Committee leadership, which is supposed to remain neutral and ensure balance, did not do its job.” True or false? If true, shame on us. If false, John Buchanan’s in a lot of trouble. These are about as damning words as one Presbyterian can say about and to another.

I am troubled by all of this, but not troubled as much as I am by the spectacle of suffering inflicted upon the people of Gaza by Israel as it seeks to root out the terrorists who are lobbing missiles its way from sites located amongst civilians. It’s a mess, and it’s getting messier. If what we Presbyterians decided to do in June makes making peace easier, praise God. If not, we will have only ourselves to blame.

Orwell vs. Huxley

from the July 26, 2014, Writer's Almanac:

Brave New World is often compared with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948), since they each offer a view of a dystopian future. Cultural critic Neil Postman spelled out the difference in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. ... In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us."

A bit disconcerting to think about nearly three decades later.

Independence Day 2014 Thoughts

When I raised our American flag this morning (as I do on national holidays), I was tempted to display it upside down. That's the universal signal of being in distress, which is what I think our nation is and has been for some time. But that symbol alone would be ambiguous: things that seem distressful to me may be signs of hope for you, and vice versa. Here's a short list of things that most stress me this July 4, 2014:

Our elected representatives act as if they have been elected to represent only those people who voted for them or who agree with them. Actually, they represent all the people within particular geographical entities, districts, or states. (The President and Vice President probably don't technically represent the nation in the same way, but they are responsible to and for all of us.) They represent people who did not vote for them, who do not approve of them, who do not like or agree with what they do just as surely as they represent their supporters. At the very least, they are accountable to them. But most now seem to operate as if they have only to please their own group and kind. That's called "the base," and to "the base" they must "appeal."

Those same representatives also seem limited to act in ways that benefit their own people in their own entity, district, or state. Local concern and interest is perfectly understandable, and few will stay in office long if they do not take care of things at home. But they are also to be responsible to the constitution of the United States, and through it to all the people. It's hard work to look out for your own interests while keeping an eye on the greater good for the greater number, but that's the kind of work we need done today.

The reason our representatives act as they do is because it's how many of us act most of time: only I matter, and the only real question is "what's in it for me?"

I'd continue to support the people I've voted for even if they negotiated away some of the things that benefit me in an effort to reach compromises with others that would solve our common problems. I'm thinking of Social Security and Medicare, from which I benefit greatly. Of course, they'll say they can't find anyone on "the other side" to negotiate with because no one "over there" will compromise their positions. I can't believe that. We need courageous leaders of both parties and all persuasions to do the work of governing together.

Shame on all who take pleasure in the premature conclusion that Obama's is a failed presidency. A failed presidency means a failed nation, a failed people, a failed government, especially when the legislative branch has also failed and the judicial branch (represented by the Supreme Court) is politicized and compromised. There's no joy in any of that...unless you want the US to be a failed state.

If Obama's presidency proves to have been a failure (and I don't agree with the conclusion, not yet), there's blame all around. He's contributed more than his share of his own failings, but at the same time many set out from the very beginning to make sure his administration failed.  There's more than enough blame to go around, none of it helpful.

The members of the Supreme Court should all be required to read and absorb Reinhold Niebuhr's 1932 classic, "Moral Man and Immoral Society." If I recall correctly, Niebuhr's point is that while individuals may be moral and ethical on their own, when they band together into a "society" (any kind of grouping) that has its own interests, that society inevitably tends toward doing things those very same individuals consider immoral and unethical. Therefore, it seems to me, the freedoms allowed to and restrictions placed upon societies must be different from the freedoms allowed to and the restrictions placed upon individuals. Example: Hobby Lobby's owners may be fine folks as individuals, but their society (Hobby Lobby, Inc, or whatever) is not the same as they are, will inevitably tend toward acting in ways they would not act personally, and requires different understandings of its rights and responsibilities.

States charter corporations. States grant corporations permission to exist in order to carry out activities and businesses the state does not or cannot take on for itself and to minimize risk to the individuals who invest time and money in them. Therefore, corporations bear responsibility not only to their particular stakeholders, but also for the common good. I am not able to work my way though the thicket of laws and regulations and precedents around all this, but at the very least it seems to me that the state is not doing its job if it allows corporations to do whatever the hell they want. Somehow we the people are allowing the tables to be turned upon the government that Lincoln said is to be of, by, and for us.

Hobby Lobby's "ministries" has a full page ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning that contains a bunch of quotes (all from the 19th century or earlier, I believe) intending to prove ours is a Christian nation, and inviting folks to come to Jesus. Perhaps emboldened by the Supreme Court, they are pushing the envelope further, and this is what they are saying: "Sorry about you Jews, Muslims, atheists, Wiccans, whatever: not only are you not wanted in Hobby Lobby, you are not welcome in this nation." Makes me want to burn my own Christian credentials.

Are we on our way to becoming armed camps of religious fanatics who cannot bear the idea of living with and working with and being friends with people who are not just like us? Is that what some want us to become: a failed state, individuals armed to the teeth, fearful of diversity and difference, on the march in the name of Jesus or whomever. Our world is not a better place because of such fundamentalist theocracies.

I want to do more than complain, than to express my distress about our state of affairs. But when I consider becoming active in movements and organizations that believe in the things I believe in, I fear contributing to the disfunction and gridlock that paralyze us.  I distrust quick and dirty and predictable responses to everything that happens the moment it happens, even when they come from people and organizations with which I basically agree. What can I do that will really help? Distress!

Institutions and Who and Where We Are

           Sometimes important ideas show up in unexpected places and challenge us.

I was recently waiting in a doctor's reception area which featured a vast array of current and recent periodicals–talk about unexpected! I picked up the April 7 issue of Fortune. I never read Fortune, perhaps because I think I am not very interested in what I presume to be its world view. The title of Editor Andy Serwer's opening essay caught my attention: "Ruled by Pop Culture." Likely a positive regime in his eyes, I thought. Pop culture makes huge fortunes for people of widely differing abilities and talents–including celebrities with none at all.

A quote Serwer attributes to novelist Philip Roth fully engaged me:

"The power in any society is with those who get to impose the fantasy. It is no longer, as it was for centuries throughout Europe, the church that imposes its fantasy upon the populace, nor is it the totalitarian super state that imposes the fantasy, as it for 12 years in Nazi Germany and for 69 years in the Soviet Union. Now the fantasy that prevails is the all-consuming, voraciously consumed popular culture, seemingly spawned by, of all things, freedom. The young especially live according to beliefs that are thought up for them by the society's most unthinking people and by the businesses least impeded by innocent ends. Ingeniously as their parents and teachers may attempt to protect the young from being drawn, to their detriment, into the moronic amusement park that is now universal, the preponderance of power is not with them."

“Impose the fantasy?” I think I understand what Roth is getting at, but characterizing it as fantasy strikes me as needlessly combative. Institutions that Roth writes once had the power to impose the fantasy on society – Serwer points to organized religion, government, sports, and yes, big business – were and still are confident that what they were imposing is not fantasy, but fact, truth, reality.

I'd like to substitute "self-understanding" for Roth's "fantasy". In other words, who most compellingly and pervasively tells us who we are and where we are headed and in what context? Who wields the power to impose their understanding and vision of us upon us?

Serwer is less willing than Roth to view the overwhelming power of pop culture as sinister. But he claims to stand absolutely with Roth in his view that, like it or not, the power to impose fantasy/self-understanding now rests in less-than-thinking and often less-than-innocent hands, and that the clout of such people and institutions is multiplied many times over by technology. We think we are free when we can say and read and share anything it all on Facebook, Twitter, and the like, or Google the world, but in fact we are playing mindless games invented by those who have little motivation but to make money from us...invisible people whose "product" range and influence we barely appreciate.

Strangely (in a sentence that cries out for revision) Serwer nearly gives higher education a pass in the confrontation with pop culture: "One of the few institutions I could think of that even begin to rival the unfettered rise of popular culture is our colleges and universities…"

If I understand Serwer, I disagree. I do not share his confidence in higher ed's effectiveness as fantasy/self-understanding-imposer in competition with pop culture: consider Jim Tressel being named President of Youngstown State University, and almost of The University of Akron.

My real interest is organized religion, which wrote my paychecks for nearly fifty years, and now deposits my pension in our bank account each month.

Well before I began my service as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), many of us were sneering at "the institutional church," some even longing for its demise. We, the young-growing-ever-older, continued our sneering as our mainline churches shrank like an iceberg under a polar bear. We actually called this reduction of institutional size and clout good, crediting Jesus himself with our slide into irrelevance and ineffectiveness..."right-sizing" under divine authorization.

Here's just one example of how the institutional mainline church I love shot itself in the foot through its choice of terminology: sometime ago my own presbytery stopped "meeting" and started "gathering." The change in words told us and the world that we no longer intended to meet to wrestle with one another to accomplish anything...as if it wouldn't be our fault if something challenging or important or noteworthy should happen on our watch. Now we gather to be social and festive and informal, to enjoy one another's company and quirks. Woe unto him or her who raises an unpleasant voice!

We sit in gathering after gathering where nothing happens that anyone, including ourselves, cares much about. We spend endless hours closing churches or dismissing them to other denominations. Oh! how we lament our loses! Lacking any sense of urgency or responsibility, we continue to create a vacuum where we once had stood, and then wonder why no one is paying attention to us anymore. Do we think conservative churches have been garnering all the attention by mimicking our passivity in the face of a hostile culture?

While we have been letting our beloved institution fail someone else has been putting together institutions of social media, popular culture, and technology that elevate the individual and his or her taste above the joy, responsibility, and challenge of significant human interaction. For these newer, technological institutions the ultimate measure of things is what I "like," not what is good for all or even for many of us. They are meeting and collaborating and strategizing...and we "gather."

Impose the fantasy, or impose the self-understanding: if responsible and intentional and transparent institutions are not strong to create and communicate positive and just understandings of public good and human flourishing, then all we will be left with are the cheap and momentary fantasies and understandings of ourselves created by outrageous celebrities and viral videos.  As much fun as they may be for the moment, we cannot build a strong or a good society upon their likes. We don't need no institutions (talk about needing revision!) – we need accountable, transparent, and effective institutions articulating visions of our common welfare. Including mainline churches.

+   +   +

An postscript from Far as the Curse is Found: the Art of Scott Kolbo by Cameron J. Anderson in Image, No. 80 (Winter/Spring 2014), p. 27:

"Logged, tuned, or dialed in, our increasingly digital world is training us to consume the sound, images, and text that stream toward us. We have learned to fill our apparently empty hours with this nonmaterial spectacle – one that appears to us as an unending admixture of unremarkable postings, comments, and images that are shot through with vivid, though random, instances of wonder. These brilliant moments are so dazzling that we willingly sift through the residual flotsam and jetsam as if panning for digital gold. If you or someone you know spends countless hours on Facebook, watches sports around the clock, or plays video games to the exclusion of all else, then you have experienced – or are at least a witness to – this reality. While this spectacle is surely not all cultural pap, it tends to belittle history and routinely sidesteps the prospect of meaning. But so long as our 'disbelief' is 'suspended,' it no longer seems needful to speak of things as if they should or even could cohere.”

Somehow, it seems to me related to the main essay.

A Feeling in Music

Woody Guthrie got it right:

"There's a feeling in music and it carries you back down the road you have traveled and makes you travel it again. Or it takes you back down the road somebody else has come and you can look out across the world from the hill they are standing on.

"Sometimes when I hear music I think back over my days – and a feeling that is fifty-fifty joy and pain swells like clouds taking all kinds of shape in my mind. If it is joy it is of such a treasured sort and such a fine make that the thought of its passing is near to pain – and you can see you pain has paid you a profit in its own strange way – and the joy of that sadness is like a raindrop falling in the sun."

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them, 
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.