No blog posting this week…except to muse briefly on the state of our election system – where some people must stand in line for hours in order to vote.  I’m glad that so many see this election as the most important election of their lifetime.  I know I do.  But while there is mention of the massive voter interest in the press, and mention in passing of the lines, why aren’t all those “pundits” and columnists and editorial writers screaming?

 

Whether we support Senator McCain or Senator Obama or a third or fourth party candidate, our blood should be boiling over the need for some to camp out in order to vote.  I don’t know why in some parts of the country so few voters can be accommodated at a time.  But clearly there are places where this is true.  Shouldn’t polls, in these cases,  be open 24/7 in order to make sure that no legitimately registered voter is robbed of her/his right to vote?

 

Should a person have to give up four to five hours or more?  Should a person who cannot give up that much time be disenfranchised?  And if the lines are like this now, what will happen on November 4^th? 

 

We are giving banana republics a bad name.  And it ought to stop. 

 

I’m lucky enough to live in a county and state where this kind of disenfranchisement isn’t happening.  But it shouldn’t be happening anywhere.  There ought to be a national standard: a standard that not only guarantees that we will be able to vote, but also guarantees the accuracy of the vote count.

 

I’ll be back to Interfaith next week.  I promise.

United Nations?

 

Today was United Nations Day.  There was a lot going on.  You may have missed it.  And that’s a shame.  The Charter of the United Nations begins…

 

We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small, to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom …

 

There are, I supposed two ways of looking at this.  One is that sixty-three years later the hopes of the UN remain only a dream.  The other is to celebrate the dream and to work to make it real.

 

I always have mixed feelings on UN day, because I not only see but feel both of these.

 

Somehow I have to put this into a sermon for Sunday.  But I want to do more than just celebrate the U.N..  I want to tie it to the U.S..   The words of Matthew strike home.  I’ll need a more accurate quote for Sunday, but for now, as I remember it, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 

 

A world divided against itself cannot stand either.  That’s why the dream of the United Nations.  That’s why, with global poverty as well as global warming, we so desperately need a functioning and not dysfunctional United Nations.

 

But I think also of what is happening in this country, right now.  The politics of hate that I wrote about last week continues unabated. 

 

I am filled with a deep disgust and a deeper sadness.  But the congregation needs neither my disgust nor my sadness.  It has, I’m sure, enough of its own.  What must we do?  Our children are at stake.  Throwing up our hands and “walking away” aren’t an option.  So what are we to DO?  What is there that is positive and life-affirming that we can build on? 

 

Hope.  I am energized by the politics of hope.  But I also remember what Francis Bacon said.  "Hope makes a good breakfast but a poor supper."  I have always taken that to mean that we must start with hope.  But if all we end with is hope, then we haven’t gotten very far.  Starting from hope, we need to build.

 

What do we build on?  What do I, as a minister, build on?

 

I need to remember lunch today.  It was grand and wonderful.  I met with three wondrous old friends, comrades in arms from the early 1990’s, when we took on an “impossible” campaign in our county and won it.  I think our greatest hope is to remember what we can accomplish together.  Together is such a wonderful word.  And I’m back to the United Nations.  We must never forget what we can accomplish together. 

 

Together.  If we can work together the dream lives.  And that too is how we live Interfaith.

The Politics of Hate

 

Being humans, we have this unfortunate desire, perhaps even need to divide ourselves.  I’ve discussed that before.  Today I’m going to be somewhat guilty of that, dividing us between the people who remember the 1960’s and those too young to remember.

 

I remember where I was (a high school English class) when the news came that President Kennedy had been murdered.  I remember where I was when Dr. King was murdered, where I was when Bobby Kennedy was murdered.  The one lasting effect to this day of these assassinations and others, immediate and personal, is when I see a flag at half-mast.  My first reaction to this day is always, “Who have the murdered now?”

 

I’m not going to discuss the presidential election today except for how it directly affects our spirit.  More specifically, the despicable and truly dangerous road that Senator McCain and Governor Palin and some of their supporters have taken in recent days. 

 

I really don’t know Governor Palin, but I have followed Senator McCain’s career for years.  At heart he is a good man.  And he knows better. 

 

When I was growing up, we were taught, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”  By the time I’d graduated from college this had been replaced for many by “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

 

Some other time, perhaps, we can talk about how that belief  has led to the massive lack of ethics that, among other things, has led us to the Savings and Loan scandal, and now to the economic meltdown we are experiencing.

 

But for today I want to focus on the “winning at all cost” campaign by an otherwise decent human being: John McCain.  The vicious, defamatory “robo-calls” now cascading across the country, the “red meat” speeches, particularly by Governor Palin, but also by Senator McCain, trying to tie Senator Obama to terrorists.  And the entirely to be expected reaction from the most rabid of the McCain/Palin supporters to that kind of demagoguery. 

 

This afternoon I heard a Minnesota Republican who currently serves in the House of Representatives, Michelle Bachmann, call for the press to run an “exposé” of the Anti-American, left-wing Democrats now serving in the U.S. House and Senate.  So now we’re back to the 1950’s and Joe McCarthy? 

 

John McCain, a man who has spent his life in service to his country, seems now systematically setting out to destroy it in an effort to “win.”  His only tactic appears to be to divide the country and demonize his opponent.  From him, from his campaign, from the Republican Party (with a few notable and noble exceptions) spews forth the politics of hate.  The politics of fear. 

 

Many have decried this campaign style, made an art form by Lee Atwater and “perfected” by Karl Rove.  But there is today an added dimension and that dimension is violence.  And it’s déjà vu all over again. 

 

I hope I’m wrong, but I really don’t think Governor Palin cares if there is violence.  But Senator McCain truly has put his country first many a time.  I believe he truly loves this country.  Senator, do you understand what you’re doing?  It is as if your advisors have told you that the only way you can win is by putting a bullet into republic you love and you have become so overwhelmed by the “need” to win that you’ve said “Ok, do it.”

 

Senator, our economy is in meltdown.  We are involved in two wars.  Our medical system is broken.  Our middle class is withering.  The poorest among us are going under.  And this is what you campaign on?  Why? 

 

Senator, you are one of “us.”  You remember the witch-hunts of the 1950’s.  The ruined lives.  You remember the assassinations of the 60’s.  You remember those flags at half-mast.  How can you do this?  In the name of all which we hold holy, how can you do this?

The Next Generation

 

With all the turmoil in the stock market, with increasing nastiness in the presidential election, it was such a joy to meet with a inquisitive group of young people last Sunday.  They call themselves YES, Youth Exploring Spirituality.  They herald from the East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue, a little southeast of Seattle.  They travel to various places of worship to participate in differing religious ceremonies, and then talk to religious leaders about their faiths.  This Sunday they came to the Interfaith Community Church.

 

Lots of good, intelligent questions, from inquisitive, intelligent youth.  I had been a while since I'd had  worked with youth, and, quite honestly, I'd forgotten the joy of it.  I think in part they were curious about a Jewish, Unitarian Universalist who is an Interfaith Minister.  They came on a Sunday when I was specifically wearing my Jewish “hat.”  It was not my usual Interfaith service but specifically a High Holy Days service.  For many in the congregation, as well as the youth, it was an introduction to what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can mean.

 

During the service we spoke of the need not only to ask forgiveness, but also to forgive.  Even to forgive God.  I told the story of Rabbi Elimelekh, who sends his students out to discover the meaning of Yom Kippur by observing a tailor.  This tailor has not only kept a book of his transgressions, for which he is truly sorry, but an even larger book of God’s transgressions! – the pain, illness and heartache experience by the tailor, his family and his community.  The tailor says it’s Yom Kippur, so he will forgive God if God will forgive him.  The students are, of course, aghast.  But Rabbi Elimelekh tells them that the tailor caused great joy in the heavens. 

 

This is not, of course, a uniquely Jewish thought.  I recall a lovely couplet by the poet Robert Frost. 

 

            Forgive, O Lord, my little joke on Thee

            And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

 

But the point is that forgiveness heals, and sometimes we must forgive even the Universe if we are to heal and move on.  It can be hard.

 

We also spoke of the importance of “we” in Judaism.  Community.  The idea that we share our successes as well as our transgressions: so the litany of apologies ritually spoken at Yom Kippur are all about what “we” have done, or left undone.  Not what “I” have done, or left undone.

 

It was gratifying that the congregation really got it.  As did the visiting youth.  Afterwards was when I got a chance to visit with these wonderful young people.  We sat around and talked a bit about Judaism.  I tried to explain how my path had taken me to where I am.  I tried to put into words that tolerance of each other isn’t enough.  We must respect each other’s spiritual paths.  I think they got it. 

 

And, as mentioned, they had plenty of questions … and I did the best I could.

 

There is so much wrong with the world.  There is so much hurt and so much that needs fixing.  Days like last Sunday are important to my mental health.  I am so grateful that YES –U as they call themselves came a-visiting. 

High Holy Days

 

On Sunday I will be leading a High Holy Days observance.  It’s different from the usual service I lead.  Normally, my role is as an Interfaith Minister.  On Sunday, I will be leading the service as a Jew.  Not a Rabbi, at least not in the sense that one speaks of a Rabbi these days.  Once upon a time, Rabbis were not “ordained.”  But for better or worse, Christianity, and particularly Protestant Christianity, has had a direct effect, not only on Rabbis but on Jewish, and particularly Reform Jewish worship.  But that is another story.  But I will not be acting as an Interfaith Minister.  I will be there as a Jew.

 

I was asked just yesterday what keeps me Jewish.  My path has been perhaps an odd one.  While I have long felt called to Interfaith, I have never felt anything but Jewish.  There are times when I wonder, “Why do you ask me this?  You don’t ask an African American what keeps you black?”  There is hardly a day that goes by in this white, Christian nation that I am not in some way reminded that I’m Jewish.  But while there is a strong dose of born Jewish, always Jewish (it is an ethic, a culture, and a way of life as well as a religion), there is more to my ties to Judaism than that.

 

There have always been for me three pillars upon which my Judaism is based. 

 

The first grabbed me while I was a child in Sunday school.  My natural skepticism for any organized religion was running strong.  But when we read about Moses, atop Mt. Sinai, telling God, “No, you can’t do that,” when God gets extremely angry and is thinking of destroying the Hebrews below, I was immediately reminded of Abraham.  God is ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  But Abraham argues with God.  What if there are fifty good people there?  Will you destroy them along with the evil ones?  And at the same moment I recalled the story of how Jacob becoming Israel – “he who wrestles with God.”  And it hit me that Judaism gave me “permission” to “wrestle” with God.  Judaism had a tradition of saying to God, “I don’t understand what you are asking me to do and until you explain, the answer is NO!”  No expectation of mindless obedience.  A God who expected me to use my brain.  Love God, yes.  Blindly obey, no.  That I could live with.

 

The other two pillars are holidays.  Holy days.  Passover and Yom Kippur.  Passover, for me, is a day to remember that we humans should be free.  All of us.  We should be free of the literal bonds of the slave in the field, and also free of the mental bonds that make us slaves to tradition, that blind us to different people and different ways.  Passover is a day to contemplate freedom and to celebrate freedom.  I spend the day meditating and cooking.  And the night of the Passover Seder is without doubt my favorite night of the year. 

 

The other holy day is Yom Kippur.  The High Holy Days are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the ten days between them.  But I never got into Rosh Hashanah.  I was fine celebrating the New Year on January 1^st.  I didn’t need a second, Jewish, New Year.  But Yom Kippur is different.  Yom Kippur is often called the “Day of Atonement.”  It is that, but for me it is so much more.

 

In Catholicism, “Confession” can come every week.  In Judaism, it comes once a year.  And I must not only confess to God, but to those to whom I have done an injustice (if I haven’t already confessed and asked for forgiveness).  Confession is good for the soul.  And it is good to get it off my chest and know that a new year is beginning.  But early on I expanded Yom Kippur.  I spend the day thinking not only about the past but the future.  Yom Kippur is the day to ask myself: last year I thought I was on a particular path.  Am I still on it?  If not, why not?  And is it still the path I want to walk?  And who is the “me” that is walking that path?  And is this the me I want to be? 

 

I don’t think it’s particularly helpful or healthy to question oneself daily or even weekly.  But once a year, it has been a good thing to stop and see the path I’m on, and whether it’s taking me where I want to go; and also to question if the me who is going there is the me I want to get there.

 

Passover is a serious but very joyous holy day.  Yom Kippur is a serious and sometimes earth shaking day.  Those two days, and the knowledge that the God of my heritage expects me to question, keep me Jewish.