Some Thoughts on Ferguson

The decision announced last night to not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Mr. Michael Brown is no longer only about this one incident, if it ever even was. This incident has become, and is, about the state of race relations in this country that so many of us love.

At the congregation I serve as pastor, we've begun working in earnest to equip folks with the tools to intentionally share their faith with younger generations. We recognize that, as much as church leaders might want to be incharge of everything having to do with faith, parents have a much greater influence on their children than anyone else ever will.

Parents, or more specifically the adults with whom children spend the most time, are the ones who (intentionally or accidentally) share their worldview with young people. Kids learn how the world works from their parents.

I move through every day assuming that I'll be safe, that I'll be able to get what I need at almost any time, and that I'll have access to someone who has the power and authority to change what needs to be changed in order to make my personal situation the way it should be. That's how my parents taught me to move through the world

What do you assume about the world? If you're white, and especially if you're straight and male, you very well may make similar assumptions to mine.

If you grew up in this country black, or Latino/a, or Asian, or Native, or with any skin color darker than (northern) European, you almost certainly learned something different about how the world works.

See, we learn about the world from our ancestors. I grew up trusting authorities, at least in part because my ancestors had essentially been treated fairly by the culture in which we live.

Most people who grew up in this country with darker skin than mine grew up with decades or centuries of history of being treated unfairly. That deeply-embedded family history cannot be turned around simply because the voting laws changed 50 years ago. It takes generations of everything being different before culture even begins to truly be any different.

From a priviliged white perspective, this is what Ferguson is about. Folks are looking around, seeing that what we have is broken, and demanding that things change.

I'm not a legal expert, so I can't offer an opinion about whether Officer Darren Wilson ought to be indicted.

I do know that Mr. Michael Brown was killed without an indictment or a trial or a sentencing.

Which leads me to believe that our system, our culture, our world needs to be indicted, put on trial, and (most importantly) rehabilitated.

And the place to start, perhaps, would be to start trusting one another - specifically, for white people to start trusting that when people of color talk about how they experience life in our society, they're telling the truth.

$0.02

Belonging

The other day, the day after I arrived back at my home after a mont-long journey, I went to work out at the (amazing, fantastic, unbelivable) gym where I'm a member.

I walked in to the gym, into a large group of people, into a surprising welcome. I felt like the mere fact that I had returned and was going to work out again was celebrated - I felt like I had arrived at a place where I belong.

(At this point in the story, I'm compelled to recall the theme song from that 80s sitcom ~ a song completely and fully about welcome.)

Now, granted, I'm a regular at the gym, and have been for a couple of years. I'm not new, I'm there pretty frequently, and I show up a different class times, so I get to know more people than just one subset of the gym membership.

Of course some of the people there the other day didn't welcome me back, simply because they don't know me. But the ones who I'd spent tiem with seemed genuinely glad that I had returned.

***

I'm thinking about three specific families who I've known in my capacity as a pastor. Each of these families had been members of the congregation for at least four years (or as long as 15). For each of these families, life circumstance had taken them away from the congregation for between 6 months and two years.

When life circumstance brought them back, I observed them slip quietly into a pew with hardly any notice from anyone in the congregation.

***

What's the difference between my gym and many congregation?

• Is it that I spend 2-5 days per week at the gym, while most people spend 2-4 days per month at church. I show up at they gym at least four times more often than most people show up at church?
• Is it that we suffer together at the gym, while most people show up to church acting as if they don't experience suffering at all, and therefore don't need to share suffering?
• Is it that the simple act of showing up at the gym is an implicit (or explicit) admission that we fall short and need improvement, while at church we do our best to hide our faults?
• Is it something else?

These are real questions, and I'm genuinely interested to hear what my eight readers think.

$0.02

Royalty

Royalty

* Royalty: an internationally-connected, and often wealthy, group of people who stewards a nation and provides for the large-scale needs of all of the people.

* Peasantry: a locally-connected, and often not wealthy, group of people who steawards the local land and landscape, and who provide for the small-scale needs of all of the people.

* Definitions you see above: idealistic visions of royalty and peasantry, which probably have never been and will never be realized in the actual world.


***

It doesn't usually work like this. And so royalty is baffling to me, a person who's never lived in a society with any collective experience of royalty. I don't understand the English fascination with royalty.

The other day, we visited a palace. The beauty and impressive grandeur of the place were inescapable. I was impressed.

But just below the surface and equally inescapable to our perception, was a very uncomfortable class system that made itself evident in our experience of the palace - that gave me the feeling of being used by the aristocracy for their own gain at my expense.

What I expected was a tour of the palace and an opportunity to see how a palace might have functioned in the past. That's what we got at the other historical places we've visited on this trip - why wouldn't we expect the same?

I would have loved some kind of compare-and-contrast presentation - maybe a look at the staterooms and the kitchen as they functioned in 1800; maybe an articuilation of the differences between the bedrooms used by a dutchess and her maid's chambers; maybe an explanation of the differences between the life of a 10-year-old son of the duke and the 10-year-old son of the footman.

What we got, though, was a walk thorugh a few staterooms and an un-engaging history of the palace, while most of the palace was private residence and therefore off-limits to the public. Of course, I also got the feeling that my money is being used to prop us a system that benefits very few and has virtually no place in today's world.

Of course, I'm willing to stipulate that there may still be a place in the world for royalty. For that to be the case, though, the whole system would necessarily have to be restructured - everything would have to start from scratch in order to get anywhere close to the ideal.

Of course, one could make similar criticisms of the church.

$0.02

Public Houses

I've had the pleasure of enjoying some extended time in Scotland and England over the past couple of weeks. While most of the trip has been fantiastic, I'm interested right this minute in public houses (pubs). Sure, I enjoy having a beer - but my interest is deeper than that.

Dictionaries don't seem to distinguish, but common parlance here in the UK seems to note a difference between the following: pub, ale house, tavern, bar. (Because this is posted on the internet, I have no doubt that if I get this wrong, someone will correct me ... in fact, I expect someone may correct me even if I get it right.) To wit, I heard the following: "He went into a pub ... no, it was more of an ale house."

The bars I've been in, most of which have been in the US, seem to exist so that people can drink. Sure, there are often other things to do in bars (pool, darts, conversation, etc.), but drinking is primary.

On the other hand, my experience of Scottish and English pubs is that they exist as gathering places. Sure, ales and lagers and whiskies are consumed, but the conversation that happens as community gathers together seems to be central.

As I write this, I'm sitting in a pub. Around me there are three groups of 2-5 people sitting and sharing conversation. I'm the only person sitting alone, and that's only because I'm writing.

At another pub, there were at least 35 people in a 12'x12' space. In addition to the musician singing from behind his guitar in one corner, there were no fewer than five conversations, at least one of which was between strangers. I know this, because the person next to me started a conversation with me even while I was writing. Then, when the musician took a smoke break, another patron stopped his own conversation in order to sing his own song.

Another time I was interrupted in the midst of writing was when I was surrounded by at least 60 people gathered almost shoulder to shoulder filling a pub that was also filled with friendly conversation and impromptu live music.

It may well be simply because I'm in a foreign place that I see with idealistic vision - or maybe the pubs I've been in have just been really great. Still, the culture seems to be that whoever shows up at a public house has a place to belong, and everyone who shows up belongs there simply because they've walked in the door.

I appreciate the idea and practice of a local establishment being a regular gathering place where everyone is welcome, where ideas can be exchanged, and where life can be lamented and celebrated.

$0.02

Some thoughts on individual rights and freedoms

I grew up with a western-USAmerican mindset, where the natural inclination for a person is to do as they please, and for that person to allow others the same priviledge. It's a culture of self-reliance and of independance and of individuality - qualities that I see as virtuous. At the same time, though, they also lead toward self-centered conservatism and isolationism and a lack of concern for fellow citizens.

A sense of independant & self-reliant individualism is intimately connected to the idea of inalienable individual rights (which, most of my seven readers will recall, are deeply imbedded in the US Constitution). Those are the foundation fo western civilization, and particularly of USAmerican culture.

(Unfortunately, our societal push toward freedom in founding this great nation trampled on the personal & societal rights of millions of individuals who were part of the scores of Native (North, Central, and South) American societies. Further, our individualistic push toward the pursuit of life & liberty & happiness trampled on the personal and societal rights of Africans and their decendants who were individually and societally enslaved in order to build profit for some.)

I'm thinking about where individual rights begin and end over the past couple of days. Let me explain.

I'm traveling with my family through the United Kingdom this month. We spent a few days in London at the outset of our trip, and I was paying attention to the cyclists that are all over this city.
There were quite a few people on bikes - all kinds of people and all kinds of bicycles.

In addition to the bikes and cyclists who were all around, I also noticed London's cycling infrastructure. There are cycle lanes on almost every major street, and also on most of the intermediate streets as well. The minor streets were generally unmarked for cyclists - however, people on bikes were traveling on those just as they did on intermediate and major streets - in the midst of and alongisde cars and trucks as if bikes were traffic. What a beautiful thing.

In addition to the cycle lanes painted on many streets, I also saw that on some streets, physical barriers (cement curbs) had been installed, as if the city wants to keep people on bicycles safe. Additionally, bicycle parking seems to be readily available almost everywhere, and we walked by scores of rental bike stands.

What's the difference between London (where drivers slow down for cyclists in the road, recognizing perhaps that any delay the cyclist causes will amount to no more than 30 seconds) and Denver (where in a 25 mph zone I was buzzed by a driver who passed me when my speed was 27, and who proceeded a few minutes later (after I'd passed him at a stop) to honk and yell at me because he had to wait no longer than five seconds extra for me to get through an intersection)?

[Of course, I'm probably not giving him the benefit of the doubt, but he seemed to be self-centered and lacking in concern for the perspective of his fellow citizen.]

What's the difference? I wonder if our understanding and embrace of western individualism plays a role?

Did the driver believe that I was trampling on his right to not be delayed as he drove his truck? Does he believe that I have an individual right to ride a bicycle on the street?

Does that driver consider that my right to ride a bicycle on the street is restricted - that I ought not occupy the whole lane most of the time? And does that driver also believe that his right to drive a truck must sometimes also be restricted by my right to ride a bicycle on public streets?

Here's the thing. In a free and equal society, no ond has unrestricted rights. I have the right to freely swing my fist - but my right to swing my fist ends (is restricted at the point where) someone else's nose begins.

So I find myself facing a balancing-act sort of dilemma, particularly with regard to the "right to keep and bear arms" issue.

On the one hand, I absolutely don't want to restrict the rights that our USAmerican constitution provides - the right for citizens to keep and bear arms. On the other hand, do we extend that right so far that it takes away rights from other people?

Does the right to keep and bear arms extend so far as to allow individuals to bring military-style rifles into places of business? I'd like to say yes. But what if an individual who openly carries a semi-automatic rifle into a department store curtails someone's right to the pursuit of happiness? Or, what if carrying a loaded weapon into a restraunt curtails a group's right to peaceful assembly?

Say, for instance, a family's breadwinner just received a promotion, moving the family from a poor neighborhood in San Diego where there are regular gun battles between drug cartels, and where a relative was killed in crossfire. And what if they moved into a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Dallas. What if, when they're shopping for school supplies in a middle-class department store for their kids' school clothes, a group of young men come in the store walking around with pistols on their belts that look just like the guns carried by the cartels? The family is traumatized, and their pursuit of happiness is curtailed.

Who's rights are more important?

Or, for instance, what if a group of Iraq war veterans meet to discuss and work through the PTSD they're living with in the aftermath of their experience in conflict? And what if they go out to lunch together after the meeting? And what if, as they're enjoying some delicious burritos, a couple of young men walk through the doors carrying semi-automatic military-style rifles? The instincts of those veterans will kick in, and their right to peaceful assembly will be immediately curtailed.

Who's rights are more important?

These truly are genuine questions - I'd be interested in a genuine and thought-filled answers ...or at least a respectful conversation.

$0.02

Lent, Week Five

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised  Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from April 9, week five, and is based on Psalm 130

You ever sing the blues?

      ever play the blues?

Once I found myself on stage

            playing the blues

      12 bars later, I was lost

            transported beyond myself by

                  musical catharsis

***

the blues

            down in the dumps

            feeling low down

            depression

the blues

      a state or spell of low spirits

      down-hearted-ness

***

out of the depths

      I cry to you, O Lord

down in the dumps, I cry

      feeling low down, I cry

      singing the blues, I cry to you, O Lord

out of my depths I cry

      and in my depths, I know you hear

***

speaking, or singing, my blues

            giving voice to my cries

      allows space for my own identity

            to be transported beyond the blues

      allows space within my self

            within my very self

for my self to recognize that God is present

      for me to enter into divine embrace

***

though speaking, sharing, singing

            does not magically, or immediately

                  or necessarily

      automatically change my reality

            still I cry out

                  trusting that God,

                        who has passed through through the gates of Hell

                              about as low down as you can get

                  trusting that God, in our crying out

                        in our blues lamentation

            trusting that in our crying out to our God

                  we are ourselves invited into

                        the presence of the divine

and we allow ourselves

            to expect to be

      transported beyond the blues, beyond

            our lamentation, beyond

            our selves

and into the promise of

      the presence of

            divine redemption

Lent, Week Four

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from April 2, week four, and is based on Psalm 23

we’re so far removed,

            most of us,

      from sheep and shepherds

            the Lord may as well be my

                  blacksmith, or my

                  tentmaker

people still do those things

      but they’re not so ubiquitous as they once were

tentmakers & blacksmiths & shepherds are,

      you may be aware

            no longer part of everyday life

*** 

but though we may not know shepherds

            or tentmakers or blacksmiths

      we all know shadows

      we all know death

what scares you?

            spiders, or snakes

            school …

                  or graduation?

      valleys

what keeps you up at night?

            taxes? rent? grades?

      shadow

what twists you up deep inside?

            divorce? unemployment?

                  life-sapping illness?

                        (your own, or a beloved’s)

      death

*** 

it may not be today,   

      but we live in the promise

            that we’re not so far removed

                  from the shepherd

            that we’re not so far removed

                  from the table prepared for us

      we live with hope in the promise

      that our soul will be granted

            respite

            rest

            repose

            refreshment

            renewal

     

      that we will be led beside

                  and are not so far removed from

            still water

      that we are led beside

                  and not so far removed from

            the living water springing up to eternal life

Thanks be to God.

Abolish the IRS

is what I saw on the bumper sticker in front of me this morning. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but as I drove along behind her, I dreamed about having a conversation about that bumper sticker. Of course, given the way folks get worked up about their political opinions, I suspect that conversation would never be possible ... but still, I can dream. So, here's how I imagine that conversation going:

Me: So, you want to abolish the IRS?

Her: Absolutely, and without question.

Me: So, if we get rid of the IRS, who would collect taxes?

Her: That's part of the point - that money is mine, and the government shouldn't take it from me.

Me: But if the government doesn't collect taxes, how will the roads we drive on get built and maintained? How will the police and fire departments get paid? How will the government be funded?

Her: Neighborhoods and communities would band together to take care of their own neighborhoods, to take care of themselves. Plus, the government is too big anyway - we don't need nearly so much government infrastructure.

Me: You're advocating for smaller government?

Her: Yes.

Me: But still, even if the government is smaller, someone needs to collect taxes. Do we get rid of the one we have now (the IRS) in favor of another agency that we develop after abolishing the IRS?

Her: No. The government doesn't need to take my money from me.

Me: You're really advocating anarchy, then, right?

Her: No, not anarchy. I'm advocating neighborhoods and affinity groups banding together to take care of themselves instead of the government thinking they need to tell us what to do.

Me: OK, so neighbors band together to take care of their own roads, and their own sewer systems and their own police forces. How, then, would these things be paid for?

Her: Neighbors would make contributions to a fund to pay for them. 

Me: Well, you may be thinking on a smaller scale, but neighborhoods banding together to take care of themselves seems to me to be the definition of government. It seems to me to be a bad idea to abolish the IRS, or most other government agencies. Obviously some need reform. Obviously some don't work the way they ought to work. However, unless a person is advocating anarchy, it seems asenine to think it's a good idea to get rid of the IRS, especially when that sentiment is on a car that's driving down a road paid for with tax money.

Folks, that's the way the conversation would go in my head. And I'm not even considering the Christian values that we hold to care for one another, to be our brother's and sister's keeper.

It seems like I've set up a straw man to argue against - I have to be missing something from 'Her' side of the conversation, but can't imagine what it is. Someone, help me out in the comments section.

$0.02

Lent, Week Three

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from March 26, week three, and is based on Psalm 95

the first time you see the ocean

      marvel at its vastness,

            its power

or stand atop a mountain peak

            with a 360 degree view of

      everything below you

have you wondered at the apparent

      symmetry and similarity between

            atoms and solar systems?

                  the universe’s micro and macro

      or the patterns replicated throughout creation?

            fibbonacci’s addition swirling around

                  flowers and seashells

the first time, and every time,

            we stop in wonder

      we meet our God

            God, right there, right in front of me,

                  as if I see  through a glass clearly

***

water, evaporating & condensing & falling

      simply finds the lowest place – and

            there’s so much of it

obviously the ocean’s big

plate techtonics

      move the rocks around – of course

            some places are higher than everything else

& given physics,

            why wouldn’t the

      micro, the macro, and the obvious

            all hold together in the same pattern

what works for one works for another

and the wonder is explained away

      no longer face to face with God

            we think we know, understand,

      the world around us

***

Or,

what if we delight in

            the explaining

      delight in the vastness of the divine

            an ocean containing the singular

                  drop of my own existence

      delight in the beauty of

            360 degrees of creation,

                  above and below

      delight in the delight

            the creator surely takes

                  in our exploration of the

            caverns & heights & hills

            the sea & the dry land

***

We stand, most appropriately,

      alongside rather than in opposition to

the God of the universe

Come, let us sing to the Lord.

Lent, Week Two

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from March 19, week two, and is based on Psalm 121

Maybe it’s tax time

      maybe it’s when you’re looking for a job

      maybe it’s just before a test

            that you’re not sure you’ve studied enough for

      maybe it’s just after you’ve said something

            to a dear friend

                  that you desperately want to take back

maybe it’s when your kid’s in the hospital

      or when a parent has just died

at some time or other

      it’s likely that each one of us

            has felt the desperation of

                  ‘what do I do now?’

            the desperation of

                  ‘I can’t take the next step’

            the desperation of isolation, stagnation, and resign

at some time or other

      it’s likely that each of us has been there

the old spiritual echoes the psalm

      ‘Where could I go, but to the Lord’

in our God

      we can find comfort

            from one who has known everything of our life

in our God

      we can find comfort

            from one who has journeyed through our life

                  the celebration and the desperation

      we can find comfort

            from the one who journeyed beyond our life

                  and into our death

      we can find comfort

            from the one who,

                  having moved through our death

                        came out victorious on the other side

Where can we go but to the Lord.

      Amen. 

Lent, Week One

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from March 12, week one, and is based on Psalm 32.

There’s truth embedded in this psalm

      truth about our human nature

            truth about who we are

            truth about how we make our way through the world

we love, so much, to be right

      to be without fault

            to be blameless

      and when we can’t be faultless,

            we love to at least appear to be

And it eats us up

it tears us up

it rots us from the inside

      like a relational conflict ignored for generations

            that festers as a family feud

                  which no one understands any more

            but still it festers

      until we acknowledge

            where we ourselves fall short of the glory of God

                  appearing, unfortunately but necessarily,

                        no longer without blame

at which point we are open to receive

            instead of condemnation

      we receive respite

            we receive relief

                  we receive grace upon grace

      and a solid place to stand

            from which we find ourselves compelled to share

                  that which we undeservingly

                        have ourselves received

      a return to the Lord our God.

            Amen.

Ash Wednesday

What follows is the text which I shared during Ash Wednesday worship this year. What came out of my mouth was not exactly what you see, and what came into the ears of the hearers was even more vastly different ... such is the nature of homilies/sermons, that G-d's Holy Spirit works in the space between speaking and hearing. 

***

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God,
      and from our Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen
 Today, in stark ways, we’re reminded of our mortality – ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
      As we collect ourselves together as community, we’re reminded that none of us,
            not one,
      will escape that return to dust.
 Those who are older,
            and those who are sick in significant ways
      will likely return to dust sooner than the young and healthy.
But even that’s not always the case –
      we all probably know of young and healthy people
            who well before they should have.
 The truth is that, no matter who we are,
      each of us even in this moment is approaching the ashes,
            the ‘ashes to ashes’ ashes,
                  and also the ashes here in worship
      and we approach ashes together –
            old and the young together;
            ill and the well together;
            parents and children together.
 The mark on our forehead, which we’ll receive in a few moments,
       serves as a stark reminder that the wages of sin is death –
            we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
      And at the same time,
            the dusty mark on our forehead that we’ll receive
                  traces the seal of the Holy Spirit,
                        which always is there on our forehead, ever a reminder of our baptism.
 So we approach the ashes today, and we approach our God,
            claiming the promise of our baptism;
 and we approach our God echoing the psalmist:
      Have mercy, O God,
            according to your steadfast love,
            your abundant mercy
      we know we transgress and trespass
            sin, and fall short of God’s glory
 Today we’ll approach this altar twice
      once, to be reminded of our mortality
            our sin, our brokenness and our need for God’s mercy
 and a second time to receive into our very bodies
      the promise of wholeness
            and of forgiveness & mercy
                  and of new life
 Blessings to you, and to all of us, as we enter this holy season.
      May we encounter God in new and surprising places and ways.
 In the name of Christ. Amen