I-YOUniverse

Recently I had my big toenails removed, so I started the day daubing hydrogen peroxide on the wounds. Then, letting my toes air out, I brewed some coffee. I experimented, for 15 seconds on High nuking a square of Dove dark chocolate in a third of a cup of coffee. Then I read a few psalms, 11-14, and John 6, “I am the Bread of Life.”

I’ve divided my NT & Pss into sections: gospels, epistles, psalms, ps 119. Three or four times a day (ideally) I read first a psalm or two, then either a gospel or epistle chapter. Each time I finish ten psalms, I read a page of ps 119. (This system doesn’t do justice to the Hebrew Bible as a whole.)

To a degree I put my brain in neutral as I read. Trained in the critical method, I have all the tools for vivisecting the Word at the ready. But this isn’t that. This is simply soaking in the Word, letting words and phrases I’ve known all my life wash over me—being still that I might know.

I check on day’s events through msnbc.com, mostly, reading at random for a few minutes. What’s happening I don’t understand, unless it’s as simple as it seems: the Selfishness at the heart of Capitalism run amok. How else could you explain a man who thinks making $500 million reasonable while his company vanishes in debt?

Can you afford Hope in such a time?

Or do we now have proof that both Communism and Capitalism are unworkable economic models, and there isn’t a good one out there?

I’m not a good enough economist even to know how to ask the question.

Nor do I know enough about political science to know what to make of recent events. We’ve elected an eloquent, informed, idealistic man to be President. (Oh, yeah, and that other thing.)

Will we let him govern?

Or will we play the game so popular in Washington D.C.: in rare event something good occurs, take credit for it; spend most of your time and energy in negative mode, blaming everything on everybody else. The bibble babble of Democracy grinding to a sound byte, while Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee point fingers and say “‘Twas he.”

Or, amazing things may happen.

Maybe it’s the chocolate.

Maybe it’s eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Christ.

Maybe it’s Hope.

The invisible coffins of our honored war dead arriving at Dover AFB. The Pentagon banned photographs like this one.

Monday 3 November 2008

Dear George:

in a few hours, Americans will begin voting for your successor as President of the United States.  Actually, early voters have banked millions of votes already.

You are remarkably absent from the campaign.  From invincible to invisible in four short years!  You should give lessons. Or maybe Dick Cheney should.

As a fellow sinner, however, I cannot gloat.  But I hope you’ll reflect on your experience, and maybe learn something from it, although in office you have shown a remarkable inability to learn from your mistakes.

The first observation I’d make is that you took office, almost with a halo, a literal anointing by some Christian leaders to your position.  Mr. President, that’s scary.

I profess to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  By that careful choice of words, I mean to strip away historical accretions which have encrusted faith.

Your election represented the peak of political power exercised by the religious right.  Much of the country has rejected that viewpoint, not because people are not Christian or do not respect those who are Christians, but because the religious right smells bad.

It stinks of pride, looking down on others not so blessed as itself. It seeks to rule without consent of the governed, except the inner circle of the chosen few.

My prayer is that the new President will realize he must win the support of the approximately 50% of voters who didn’t vote for him.  You never bothered to do that.  To you and to your party everybody else was invisible.

The second observation I’d make is that being invisible has lots of advantages. It gives you a chance to recognize that you aren’t the center of the universe.

And, it gives you privacy in which to repent of your sins.  If that sounds harsh, Mr. President, I don’t mean it to be.  I have to repent of my sins many times a day. 

Now that you’re invisible, you won’t have the White House press corps dogging your every step.  So, if you have to backtrack, it’s no big deal.

When you’re invisible, you can actually be righteous, rather than simply appearing righteous all the time.   

My third observation is the last.  (Being a preacher, I’m used to three points and a poem.)

It’s hard not to blame you for the incredible mess we’re in:

• The war in Iraq: you lied to get us in it (I’m not sure if that was on purpose or in ignorance);
• you snubbed the other nations of the world with arrogance America will be paying for for a long time;
• you abused the loyalty of our troops and have worn our military to sub-operational levels; the steady stream of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base is invisible, but the anguish  grieving hearts glares like a nuclear conflagration;
• the US economy and world economies are in meltdown.

At least you got your vacations in every August.

It’s not all your fault, of course.  But some of it is.  Your job as President was to make things better for ordinary people and for the world. 

Mr. President, how do you think you did?

Sincerely,

John

In his endorsement of Barack Obama. General Colin Powell referred to Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a young American patriot, age 14 on September 11, 2001.

One in four people in Texas believe Barack Obama is a Muslim!

Barack Obama’s a Christian!

But!

A book I read that touched me deeply was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He wrote that a turning point in his life came when, as a child, he told a teacher he’d like to become a lawyer. The teacher laughed and said, “Negroes can’t be lawyers!”

From that early disappointment followed years of wandering in dead end paths, until he became part of the Nation of Islam. Later, his religious experience broadened into mainstream Islam. When he went on the Hajj, and mingled with Muslims of every skin color, it was a transformational moment for him.

General Colin Powell’s comments endorsing Barack Obama included the observation that Obama isn’t a Muslim, but what if he were! Why shouldn’t any child born to American parents grow up thinking she or he could be President?

The earliest statement of the American dream I learned was, any boy can grow up to be President.

Fifty years ago I didn’t think about a girl growing up to be President. 

The 2008 election has caused us to examine our most deeply held ideals. Exactly who can claim the American dream as her or his own?

For me the American dream is not making a $100 billion. It’s all people having equal worth before the law and (for me) under God. All people having equal opportunity.

One of the holiest places on the planet for me is the Abraham Lincoln birthplace near Hodgenville, KY.

You can walk down to the spring where the Lincolns drew water. You go down into the earth which the water has hollowed out through the years. The boundary oak that marked the property line was still standing when I pastored at Rolling Fork Baptist Church near there. A short walk away in a climate controlled marble shrine stands the small one room log cabin where Lincoln was born.

I’m sure in my lifetime a woman will be President. Maybe an Hispanic man or woman. Even an openly gay man or a lesbian.

Soon members of Congress will take the oath of office, swearing on the Holy Qur’an. So who knows?

In America, any child can grow up to be President.

Maybe in my lifetime the time will come when we won’t use labels to divide or exclude, but to celebrate and enrich the vast mosaic that is America.

The 17th century Roger Williams is one of my heroes. He was, briefly, a Baptist, so Baptists claim him. But he found being Baptist a little too restrictive, and ended his life as a seeker.

With the best theological training he was qualified to pastor one of the fine churches of Boston. But he turned them down. He learned Indian languages and contended that the English had no right to take Indian lands.

He founded the colony of Rhode Island, where no religion was established, and all religions could be freely practiced. In the 17th century he spelled it out: that included ”Christians, Jews, Turks, and atheists.” 

At the end of his life, he built a trading post which provided financial security. But he used that money to finance a return to England and a renewal of the Rhode Island charter. Neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut would have liked to be rid of their troublesome neighbor.

A century later Rhode Island refused to ratify the constitution, without a guarantee of religious freedom. So the first amendment goes back to Roger Williams.

The Bible climaxes with this description of the heavenly Jerusalem:

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day–and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

Rev 21:23-26 (NRSV)

To the extent that America celebrates the beauty of all colors, all cultures, all persons, it’s a little bit of heaven on earth.

I seldom address politics, but in this once in a century moment, I’ll make an exception.

I literally want to talk to you about the election— talk since I’m dictating my comments.  Many readers agree with me politically but there may be some who do not.  It’s you that I want to speak to heart to heart. 

Honoring our troops

First, I want to mention our troops. Is Obama against our troops?  I don’t think so.  As General Colin Powell said, the war in Iraq began on the wrong assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  This proved to be false.  The war in Iraq has worn our brave forces nearly to the limit, has depleted our weapons and munitions to dangerously low levels, and costs us $10 billion a month, although the Iraqis are sitting on a surplus of oil revenues.

Obama wants to honor and conserve our forces and to focus on the war in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is.  He is not willing to shed one drop of American blood wrongfully. But, as a senior Pentagon official said at the outset, the Iraq campaign squandered our military resources in a cavalier fashion.

Divide and conquer with theological weapons

For several decades politicians in denominations and in the country have successfully used theological issues as weapons to divide and conquer the people of God. 

What’s important to understand is how good people have been manipulated.  Political operatives used your strong convictions virtually to coerce your decisions about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Republican Party, and the United States Congress and the Presidency.

The 2008 presidential election is not chiefly about unrelated theological or social issues that people feel strongly about.

Economic meltdown

The main issue is economic. 

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, the primary economic theory was to cut taxes, mainly for the very rich, who then would spend lavishly, money trickling down to everyone further down the pay scale.  While accusing Democrats of being “tax and spend liberals,” extreme right Republicans became “borrow and spend” puppets of big business.  In seven years the national debt doubled, from $5 trillion to $10 trillion! Before long, the United States could be another Enron, with costs like the war being off the books just as Enron’s major deficits were.

Another tenet of this philosophy is deregulation.  Self interest and the free market would supposedly assure fair play and honest dealing.  The economic meltdown last month proved this philosophy to be wrong; executives acted in self interest, giving themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while their companies collapsed. Reagan practiced “trust but verify” with regard to the Russians; he should have done so with his business tycoon buddies as well.

Obama’s plan means lower taxes for people making less than $250,000 a year.

We don’t live in a Jeffersonian world any more

In the age of Thomas Jefferson, governments were the biggest fish in the pond. Today, however, many governments are small by comparison with multinational corporations.  The Jeffersonian ideal of smaller and smaller government doesn’t work when larger sharks patrol the pool.  Without a strong government to exercise reasonable regulatory powers, huge business interests run rampant over the rest of society.

Powell: the constricting of the Repiblican Party

General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama was based partly on the Republican Party’s being hijacked by extreme right wing conservatives who use the cloak of religion to gain and keep power.  He said the party has become so narrow, he felt uncomfortable in it.

John McCain: honorable, impulsive and unsteady

John McCain has served with honor.  Throughout his service, however, he has been impulsive.  By choosing Sarah Palin, rather than Tom Ridge, for example, McCain illustrates the problem with his leadership.  By first canceling his campaign, flying to Washington, DC, failing to solve the economic meltdown, then resuming his campaign, he demonstrated an unsteadiness unsuited for the White House. At age 72 his future health is a concern.

A transformational figure: Barack Obama

Barack Obama can unite our country. In a once-in-a-century crisis (Greenspan), Obama remained calm, well-informed, and disciplined. He is, in the words of General Powell, “a transformational figure.”  I believe his service is rooted in a profound Christian faith.

Join me in voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  Pass this post along to a few friends as well.

Let’s talk

I’d welcome the chance to discuss your views, even if they’re different. If you can change my opinion, fair enough.

(BTW, I only have a few readers as a matter of fact.  I appreciate you a lot.)

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

 Martin Luther King Jr. 28 August 1963

 The sad truth is, if the Democratic nominee for President this year were anybody white, the projected margin of victory in the polls might be 30+ points. But, Providence may be heavily weighted on the side of justice and equality. We may be about to elect a black man President.

Is a vote for Barack Obama a vote against our troops? No. It’s a vote against a war of choice, a war in which for the first time in its history America acted as the aggressor. Oh, you say to me, the situation in Iraq cried out for justice. Just as it does in a dozen countries in the Western hemisphere, which we have ignored for decades.

The military tradition of submitting to civilian authority, of serving with sacrifice and honor, still shines. But Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement clearly weighs in against those who would continue to send Americans and their resources into a country that is about to cancel our status of forces agreement.

The great challenge now facing Obama is to govern. Sadly he will have to be twice as good as a white man to be accepted. Some will never accept him.

Churches need to pray for him. We need to step up in this time of crisis, providing social support to a population in turmoil, who have never been in desperate straits before.

This is a Matthew 25 moment. “Inasmuch as you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it to me.”

Churches can run support groups for the unemployed. They can operate food and clothing ministries. They can hire people for very nominal wages perhaps to run ministries.

Glenn Hinson wrote a study of how the early church evangelized the world. They did so through their charities. They simply out-loved everybody.

We need to do the same.

Electing a black man, as we’re about to do, please God, is not the same as allowing him to govern. It’s not protecting him from the nuts like Ashley Todd, only these have rifles. It’s not yet making good on America’s promise that here all are equal.

But it can be.

And moderate progressive Christians need to get off our duffs and do all in our power to make it happen.

In 1988 Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush used the image of black convicted felon Willie Horton to arouse the basest racial feelings of the country. We may be seeing a similar attempt unfolding.

THE FOLLOWING PROVED A HOAX BY PITTSBURGH POLICE! 2:41 PM 24 Oct 2008

In crucial swing state Pennsylvania, a McCain campaign worker from Texas Ashley Todd reported that she was held up by a 200 pound 6′4″ black man at an ATM. When he saw the McCain sticker on her car, he allegedly knocked her down and carved a backwards B in her face.

She delayed reporting this to the police, and refused medical attention. The wound is very shallow and is a mirror image, as if self-inflicted. Police have given her a lie detector test but have not released results. Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard said, “We’re looking at all angles.”

AP reports, “no police photo had been taken of the woman Wednesday, but by Thursday afternoon a purported picture of a woman with a “B” scratched into her cheek was circulating on the Internet.”

The NY Times, endorsing Obama today, wrote: “Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism.” There is no solid proof as yet that this is a political maneuver, however.

It has only been 80 years since black men were being lynched in the United States. Virulent racial hatreds can be easily stoked up. But the fires of hate will burn all that we love about this country.

Lord God, you endured campaigns of lies and hatred. You were dismissed by the powerful of your day because you came from the back country of Nazareth and there were rumors about your father. O Lord, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is the messiah. I pray that the man of your choosing will be elected. (If you want my advice, I’ll be glad to give it. —Maybe not!) I pray, Lord, you who love all people equally, that you would lead us past the ugly scars and wounds of racism past and present. Hear the frank confession of white privilege that I have enjoyed. Help us treat all persons with equal love. And Lord, if this is a hoax, have mercy on those who stooped to this level. May it be exposed as such before the election. Lead us into the light. Amen

 PROVED A HOAX BY PITTSBURGH POLICE! 2:41 PM 24 Oct 2008

“For indeed our God is a consuming fire,” Hebrews 12.29 (NRSV)

Our morning Bible study prayer group read Hebrews 12, for the second or third week in a row.  We found ourselves focusing on this verse, because not many people think of God as a consuming fire today.  “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” the famous sermon by Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards belongs to a different century.

Yet, we all agreed (some with tear-filled eyes) that there is consuming fire around us.  It may be a struggling business that for no fault of your own is sinking with the times.  It might be a family drama, filled with conflict.  No one has less power than parents, who must watch as nearly adult children make tragic choices.  It may be entirely intrapsychic pain, a tug-of-war within that leaves the self invisibly bloody and spent.  God is a consuming fire.

In the Hebrew Bible, God as consuming fire went before the people removing from the land inhabitants, whose wickedness had reached its limits. In Daniel 3, the faithful Hebrews were cast into a fiery furnace, which did them no harm and burned off the ropes which bound them. In 1 Corinthians 3 God is a fire, which consumes building materials such as wood, hay, and stubble. 2 Peter foretells that on the Day of the Lord, the elements will be dissolved by fire.

We found ourselves wondering where were such fire-tested souls today.  Perhaps they were evident during World War II—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, the future pope Karol Wojtyla.  I identified one man in the room as having walked through the fires in recent times.

Cartoons depict prophets carrying a placard which says,  “The End is Near.”  But many mainline preachers don’t preach about Armageddon much these days.  Scientists do.  They describe a mass extinction event, evident in the fossil record, and observe how many species are going extinct today.  For example, only about 30,000 wild lions remain in Africa.  Others research the possibility of a meteor strike like that which spelled the end of the dinosaurs, while still others concern themselves with various aspects of global warming.

“Our God is a consuming fire.”

When you stare directly into the sun, it blinds you temporarily.  Thomas Kelly writes about people who gaze upon God and become God-blinded.  They are not guided by the world or the things of this world, as most of us are; instead, they are guided by God, the pillar of fire.

What a conflagration might occur if the consuming fire of God burned in me!  So many things I value would disappear in the smoke of a sacrifice of praise!  So many things that bind me would be loosed!

On 2 Nov 1965 32-year-old Quaker Norman Morrison set himself on fire in front of the Pentagon; and 0n 9 Nov 22-year-old Catholic Workr Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte did the same thing before the UN. Both consciously imitated earlier and ongoing Buddhist protests of the Vietnam War.

If you reject these grisly acts, nevertheless you must respect the depth of commitment which motivated these men.  In the same way, many young soldiers give their lives for their country.  They will return home bearing scars that will never heal.

You wonder.  We complain when God is an inconvenience.  What will we do when we come face-to-face with all consuming fire?

Some commentators on PBS were discussing the gloves-off approach taken by the McCain-Palin ticket and the Republican party in the last week. They pointed out how dangerous it is. It’s a very old strategy useful for killing off an undesirable while not becoming ritually unclean.

We might call it activating the fringe.

 First, you never get your own hands dirty. In fact, you may reject mud slinging and violence, sticking to the high road most of the time. Your lieutenants and gofers set the stage, creating a climate in which violence is tacitly approved of, and persons you may not know assume responsibility for execution.

White church folk have used this method effectively for years in the South. They are too nice to deal directly with the Negro problem. But they teach that the Bible says descendants of Canaan are cursed to perpetual servitude.

How did Canaan come to equal Negro? Doesn’t matter. You’re dealing with innuendo, mood.

They present miscegenation (a word that goes back only to 1864 America) as a threat to white Christians, especially white Womanhood. Centuries of sexual relations between white masters and black slaves cast shadows of fear and guilt over the former oppressors’ psyches. Ethnic jokes lighten things up, but like bees leave their stingers beneath the skin.

Nice people signal at a subconscious level that anyone who does something to deal with these trouble makers is serving God and race.

That’s all there is to it. It works with uppity Negroes. You know the other word. But I won’t use it here.

This atmosphere of racial threat triggers a response at the fringe of society from the likes of James Earl Ray.

The same approach works effectively with fearful Protestants, facing a Catholic President.

Or with real he men dealing with a young gay man Matthew Shepard, tortured and abandoned, one of countless gay and lesbian persons who met hate face to face.

Then, there’s little need to mention Jews, six million of them.

What’s all this got to do with McCain-Palin? While denouncing negative campaigning, the Republican ticket has begun a concerted effort to assassinate Barack Obama’s character.

• Sarah Palin describes him as a traitor and terrorist, friend of a Weatherman. The crowd boos and calls “Kill him!” Obama was eight years old when this individual protested the Vietnam War in unconscionable ways that have nothing to do with Obama.
• Then, surely not by accident, the man introducing Palin includes Obama’s middle name “Hussein” equivalent to Adolph or Judas.
• The RNC runs a political ad snipping two or three words from an Obama comment, reversing his actual meaning, claiming that he accused our service members of atrocities.

The nomination of a black man for President by a major party would have been unthinkable not many years ago. There are still individuals on the fringe who will justify violence against him by the irresponsible attitudes and actions of so called “nice” people.

This reckless strategy amounts to putting a loaded rifle in the hands of some Lee Harvey Oswald out there and training its sights on this extraordinary black man. We ought to let the RNC and John McCain know it is unacceptable.

Because we not only have to get Barack Obama elected President of the United States. We have to make sure he lives through his terms in office.