Appreciating Our Youth

 

I don’t get to deal with our youth very often, but it is always so energizing and hopeful when I do.  Yesterday, during the social time after the Kwanza/Chanukah service, I got into a discussion with an intense and thoughtful young woman.  I’m horrible with ages.  I’m guessing she was about fifteen (and I do hope that doesn’t insult her!).

 

She had been reading about differing religious paths (hers is the United Church of Christ), seeing similarities and wanting to talk about them and what it might mean.  Such intelligence and intensity in her eyes.  She will have much to offer the world.  For my part, I found myself responding party as a father, partly as a minister and partly as a teacher.  I hope I didn’t overwhelm her – sometimes, despite myself, I do go into what I think can be a rather annoying overdrive!  I hope I was able to answer her questions in a way that made sense.  And I hope I was helpful.

 

I know she helped me.  I’ve been dealing with writer’s block regarding my Interfaith book.  I’ve been chipping away at that block for a good two months.  Maybe more.  But many times it has felt like the writer’s “block” was the size of Gibraltar – an I was attacking it with a small hammer and chisel!  Suddenly, as I spoke to this intelligent, inquisitive youth, it was as if I’d found a pass through that impenetrable mountain of a writer’s block.

 

I am eager to take up pen (well, ok, keyboard) again.  So I write my weekly blog on Monday to clear a path to get back to the book (by happy coincidence, no sermon to write this week).  It feels good.  The ideas are flowing.  …  I wonder if she’s available if the road gets blocked again?!  J

Chanukah and Kwanza

 

I already blogged yesterday.  This is a quick p.s..  This Sunday I’m leading a service at the Interfaith Community Church to honor both Chanukah and Kwanza.  It should be a very special service.  It would be worth making an effort to come.

 

I’ll be leading the part of the service dealing with Chanukah.  But I felt uncomfortable leading the Kwanza portion.  Happily, a friend and intern minister Kelle J. Brown has agreed to come and share the pulpit with me.  She will lead us in honoring Kwanza. 

 

This will be special and  I am really looking forward to it … and so very grateful that the roads appear to be clearing!!  I’m ready to move beyond “Snowbound in Seattle!”

Some Holiday Thoughts

 

As I write this, huge, fluffy snowflakes are falling.  I mean HUGE.  Like falling, white, puffy cobra hoods.  And so many days of snow.  I am reminded of one of my favorite Christmas hymns (In The Bleak Midwinter).  “Snow was falling snow on snow, snow on snow!”  Too much snow, perhaps.  Not a few of us have turned into Grinches. 

 

I read just the other day about how many people are complaining that Seattle won’t use salt to “de-ice” the streets faster.  Green is fine up to a point, but darn it, we feel inconvenienced and we want salt!  It reminds me of why addressing global warming is so difficult.  The Arctic is melting, as is Iceland.  Literally.  And yet a mere few weeks of unexpectedly icy streets have convinced many that such a small thing as not further unhinging the Puget Sound is too high a price.  When Al Gore put forward his “Inconvenient Truth” many people were fixated on the truth.  But I think the more important part may be inconvenient. 

 

In so many ways, there’s only so much inconvenience we’re willing to tolerate.

 

At the same time, over the radio comes the mind-boggling announcement that a baseball player has just signed another contract exceeding a hundred million dollars.  A hundred million dollars, for playing baseball.  And, of course, all the CEO’s who receive ten, thirty, fifty million dollars a year.  Some folks are crying out how this can happen when the company in question is failing?  But I’d rather ask, how can this happen period? 

 

And how can the Congress hand over 150 BILLION to Wall Street, no questions asked, but insist that 15 Billion is too much to loan the struggling auto companies unless labor  gives up more up front? 

 

Is any of this connected? you may well ask.  I think so.  At least since the Reformation and Calvinism, and really long before, there has been a connection made between wealth and God.  We no longer hear (at least not TOO often) that if people are poor it’s because God is punishing them; but that was the thrust of many of our religious communities not that long ago, and it certainly is alive and well in our Congress. 

 

We have a country that is teetering on the edge of economic catastrophe.  Yet the idea that those who are making a million, or ten million, or a hundred million should pay a bit more in taxes seems “anti-American” to far too many.

 

Today, Christmas Day, I'm reminded that Jesus taught us to think of others, and to work to end poverty; he taught that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter God’s kingdom.  Judaism teaches that the righteous must care for those in need.  So does every other major religion, as does Humanism. 

 

Does it not strike us just a little strange that so many stores rely on the rush to buy at Christmas?  Not that I have any animus towards our many stores all over the country, but what does it say about us, about our culture, that these stores need a huge binge of buying at Christmas to survive?  What does it say about us that we are such a consumer nation that if we aren’t massively consuming, people start going out of business left and right?  This, while our numbers of homeless keeps increasing – even as our number of millionaires, indeed billionaires, increases.

 

Now I’M beginning to feel a bit like a Grinch. 

 

Let us enjoy the warmth of Christmas and Chanukah and Kwanza and the Eid of Adha and the Solstice.  Let us embrace the invitation to love that these holy days offer us.  Let us indeed gather with our families and our friends and celebrate, truly celebrate, joyously celebrate these beautiful, holy days.  And let us not forget that each of us is related to the other.

 

May however we perceive the sacred lead us to engage the world, endure inconvenience, and leave this planet better than we found it; so that our children and their children, and children wholly unrelated to us, may enjoy the blessings and wonder of life.

Struggling With Interfaith

 

As I write my book on living Interfaith, and more to the point as I talk to people about it, I realize there are two major points of resistance.  One I expected.  The other I didn’t.  I’ve recently been grappling with that second point of resistance.

 

The first point, the expected one, comes from those who strongly believe that their religion has THE answer.  There is one truth about God and how to worship God.  There is only one truth.  And this person knows what that truth is.  This is the paradigm of “right belief” that I’ve been writing about for several years now.  “Right Belief” has been the foundation stone of our religious practices for two to three thousand years.  It is found both in Theism and in Atheism.  Some are militant about it.  The more beneficent among the militants are out to convert the world, because they love the world and only their “right belief” can bring salvation (or truth).  The less beneficent will happily blow up, or torture, or, and at the very least, look down on with derision any and all who may view the experience of God differently than they do.

 

There are others who cleave to this paradigm of “Right Belief” as well, yet also strive to be tolerant.  They are certain that their religious beliefs alone hold the right answer to the question of God.  But like a patient parent, or a kindly nurse with a slow adult, these people try to withhold judgment.  They truly and profoundly want to be loving and caring of these people who “got it wrong,” just as their religions teach them to be.  Generally they are open to “interfaith cooperation” in the sense that just because people of another religion have “got it wrong,” doesn’t mean the those of “right” religion can’t work with them to bring down the numbers of homeless and hungry.  This has been the foundation of interfaith cooperation, and much good has come from it.

 

Both of these groups of “right believers” I recognized and was at least modestly prepared for.  But over the past year or so, and increasingly as I begin to speak more and more about how we might actually LIVE an Interfaith life, I have encountered another group.

 

These folk are generally open to Interfaith.  They are not only “open” to but indeed themselves believe that the sacred has manifested itself in many differing ways – that Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Native American Spiritualities, Humanism, Hinduism and so many others are reflections of how so many of us, in our differing cultures and experiences, have experienced the sacred.  Yet they too express strong resistance: usually not to the idea of Interfaith, but more to the practice of it.

 

I have been grappling with that one for a while.  I can’t say I’ve come up with “the right answer” J  But I think I’ve begun to understand at least one major fear that underlies it.  This was a fear I had not expected.  Not that it is in the slightest way an unreasonable fear, it’s just that I hadn’t seen it coming.  The fear, in its essence, is this: if we actually live in an Interfaith world, how do I keep from losing my own faith?  And more importantly, how can I instruct my children in my faith, in an Interfaith world?

 

I have some nascent ideas, but I don’t want to be flippant.  I want to ponder this more.  No answer today, or even ideas about possible answers: just the realization of another very important question.

Displaying Hate for Christmas

 

If by chance you’ve been following the kerfuffle in Olympia over the religious and anti-religious displays, there actually are some interesting things to note among the nonsense and vitriol. 

 

In case you’ve been on Mars, there are some holiday displays at the Capitol.  There’s a nativity scene, and a menorah, and a holiday tree, and a statement by an Atheist group.  It is, I believe, crucial to understand what the Atheist group stated in its display.  “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.  There is only our natural world.”  That is a clear statement of belief – or non-belief.  But, the words don’t stop there.  The display continues, “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

 

The Democratic Governor and Republican Attorney General put out a statement, “The U.S. Supreme Court has been consistent and clear that, under the Constitution's First Amendment, once government admits one religious display or viewpoint onto public property, it may not discriminate against the content of other displays, including the viewpoints of nonbelievers," 

 

Some, it should be noted, took issue even with the “holiday tree.”  They consider this part of what they see as a “War” on Christmas.  They want the tree called a Christmas Tree.  Another group wants a sign that says “Santa Claus will take you to hell.”  No I’m not kidding.  But I digress.

 

The answer of the Catholic League appears to have been, let the Atheists say what they will but make them put it somewhere else.  No thanks.

 

I shake my head and realize that my frustration in all of this lies with the wholesale lack of common sense from almost all sides.

 

I personally think the Atheist sign was in deplorably bad taste.  It was in bad taste NOT because it put it’s own beliefs forward (“There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.  There is only our natural world.”), but because it used the opportunity to blast someone else’s beliefs (“Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”). 

 

Try this one on.  Imagine, just imagine if a sign next to the nativity scene said this:  “Jesus our Savior is born.  Anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus will burn in hell.”  There would, I HOPE, have been  a huge outcry and a demand that the sign come down.

 

Too often, in news reports, I’ve heard simply about demands being made to take down an Atheist sign.  I, personally, would not want to demand the sign come down – not a Christian, Jewish Buddhist, Islamic, First Peoples or Atheist sign.  Atheists have every right to their beliefs as those who belief in God have in theirs.  What I WOULD hope is some leadership from the Governor and Attorney General.  All beliefs welcome; but do not disparage any one else’s beliefs.  Can it really be that hard???

 

To my way of thinking, the Atheists who put up that sign have aligned themselves with intolerant fundamentalists from all religions and non-religions.  “My way or the highway.”  “I’m right, you’re a fool.”  I reject that narrow-mindedness.  I reject it in Christians.  I reject it in Jews.  I reject it in Muslims.  I reject it in Atheists. 

 

To sum it up, it’s not the un-belief of these particular Atheists that’s the problem.  It’s their intolerance and thinly disguised hatred for any who don’t believe their particular “gospel” that sadden me.

 

Some day I would really like the human race to wake up to its humanity. 

 

Your thoughts?

Getting Out of the Revenge Business

 

In Washington State, a man scheduled for execution this past Wednesday was given a stay.  The U.S. Supreme Court lifted one stay of execution, but the Washington Supreme Court has granted another.  I don’t know the merits of the court arguments.  Nor do I know if indeed Darold Ray Stenson is guilty as charged.  What I am concerned with is the whole idea of state sanctioned murder – or, if you prefer, the death penalty, or capital punishment.

 

We need to keep our citizens safe.  Dangerous people need to be off the streets.  And extremely dangerous people need to be kept off the streets permanently.  But how can we say we value life if we’re willing to take it?  Capital punishment IS state sanctioned murder.  It is the cold, calculated taking of a human life.  Toward what end?  How does this advance the sanctity of life?

 

Endless studies have shown that it is far cheaper to keep someone locked up for the rest of his or her life than it is to go through the endless hoops and appeals necessary to overcome the legal obstacles to killing that person: so it certainly can’t be an economic decision. 

 

Listening to the impassioned pleas from commentators and most especially family members of those who have lost loved ones makes it clear: the essential motive behind state sponsored murder is revenge.  If it is, then let’s call it what it is and examine what it says about us.

 

The idea of “You take a life, you lose your life” comes from the code of Hammurabi, roughly 3700 years ago, “An eye for an eye.  A tooth for a tooth”  But at least as long as 2000 years ago, Jesus was arguing against it (e.g. Matthew 5:38).  And Hillel warned us not to take vengeance.  More recently, it was Gandhi who reminded us that “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”    

 

Yet all too much of our system of justice is even today meant to gain revenge, not to achieve justice.  Or, more to the point, we define “justice” as commensurate vengeance.  Think about it.  The essence of our legal system is that “justice” is defined as commensurate vengeance.  Depending upon how heinous we consider the crime, the judge meets out what is thought to be appropriate revenge – Jesus, Hillel and Gandhi notwithstanding.   

 

Is that really what we want?  We live in a democratic republic.  If that’s truly what the majority of us want then so be it.  But I really would like to see a truthful, full and open discussion of the matter.  Because there are alternatives – alternatives commensurate with the teachings of Jesus, Hillel, the Buddha, Gandhi and so many other great spiritual leaders.

 

Specifically, we COULD base our justice system on rehabilitation, rather than revenge.  Oh, I know, we frequently talk about our system as if we actually aim for rehabilitation, but talk to people who actually work within the system.

 

If we were serious about rehabilitation, we’d insist that anyone who goes to prison must graduate from High School before being released.  If we were serious about rehabilitation, we would NEVER allow first-offenders anywhere NEAR repeat offenders.   If we were serious about rehabilitation, we’d insist that there be real counseling for all who are imprisoned.  But as I write this I know that many will react, “But that’s coddling the inmate!  We don’t send people to prison to be coddled!”  And we don’t!  That’s the point.  Right now we send people to prison to extract revenge.

 

[I realize that vengeance is not the only immediate reason people end up imprisoned.  Sometimes, for example,  we are trying to enforce a political decision – such as selling alcohol is legal, but selling marijuana isn’t – but the bottom line is you go to prison because society takes vengeance for a person’s violation of that decision.]

 

I would really like to see us discuss this most basic of human values.  Have we truly not progressed beyond “An eye for an eye?”  Let’s talk about it!  So many of our citizens are in prison.  Are our prisons for rehabilitation or revenge?  And if they are for rehabilitation, then we really ought to act on it.