Sunday, July 8, 2018

To live within promise - we cannot be alt-f(right) or christian f(right)

Ah, I have started referring to those who see themselves as the white saviors of the land by tweaking some words they often use. Even though a one one-time devotee to the white supremacy movement has strongly urged people to never use the alternative labels for white supremacy - alas I found a way to corrupt their labeling preference. He said that all the labels like alt-right and nativists - for example - are labels white supremacist have put out there to soften what they are. They want us to use their words to cover up who they are: white supremacists.

After he laid out his history in and then his movement away from white supremacy thought and life, I considered putting his suggestion into my working vocabulary. So I have been using white supremacist much more. But now, I found my way to confront the beast of white supremacy and their racist antics by pointing out the power that keeps it alive. Therefore, my substitutes for white supremacy will be the alt-f(right). A similar change will work well for the religious folk who have an interesting way of making their faith white, exclusive, judgmental, and accusatory: the christian r(fright). The power of fear is great - but it is not the final word (read the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures).

The more I listen to people in both f(right) groups (yet, often their devotees overlap one another), I hear the voice of fear and then the anger that fear generates and then the threats that anger ignites and then the threats that are meant to exclude and demean and objectify. The christian f(right) has become a master of taking the words of love and grace and endless forgiveness and using them in a conditional manner. In that way, fear rather than love, becomes their gift to the world - but it is a nasty and corrupt gift. It is wrapped well in words of love - but, please note, whenever love is forced to flow through filters like if you... or when you... or unless you... their use of love may be the love they use to control their own little world - but it is not the love that is to be the image of our lives to which the Scriptures give witness.

The alt-f(right) masterfully tells us how 'those other folks' are making it impossible for us - to be us. And yet, with all their alt-f(right) words and action they are indeed being just who they are - fright-full racists who have never learned to see the world through more lenses than the one that was given to them at birth. Therefore, a story line outside their polaroid snapshot of only those who were able to fit into their family picture, is a foreign story and therefore a story to be ignored. But, when  those other story lines cannot be ignored because they are filled with the lives of neighbors and fellow citizens and those longing to a part of the melting pot of this country, the alt-f(right) freaks out. They gnash their teeth. They try to tell us and show us how strong they are but their fear-filled emperor has not clothes.

The alt-f(right) and the christian f(right) are unable to see the coming of that peaceable reign of life that is referred to as the Holy City coming down to earth in John's apocalypse. They are blind to the creativity of God who takes humanity - the whole spectrum of folks who often do not even look or act as though we are one people - and they attempt to demonize those who are created in the image of God's Peaceable Reign - but not their image. The f(right) must be nurtured into a life in which we need not fear - we need to touch and love and welcome and listen and share and offer up out lives so that the other may live in peace with us - as one of us. To resist fear we must be present with open arms. That is not easy - that has even proven to be dangerous - that can be life-changing for all sides.

It is not easy to resist a world built by those who can only hear and live by stories from the far f(right). The risk can be great. In addition, it may even mean confronting those who claim to be the opposite of the devotees of the world of f(right). Yet within their multicultural - open arms posture - and rants (like mine) they still find that f(right) finds a way into our living and talking and condemning.

To resist the f(right) that longs to rule all of us - takes work. It is work that demands our attention every day - listening again and again - saying yes and saying no - offering something new when we are living as people content with what has been. I do not want our country to be run by people who cannot see beyond their skin color or ethnic background or cultural patterns or the way they think it has always been (which is usually a non truth). That, takes work. I find it also means we live within the realm of promise not one of control. Damn, that's hard. Yet we are meant to put our whole humanity into it so that we will become (all of us) truly human. For many of us, it is almost impossible to do that - yet we must.
TRRR

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Facing the faces we have learned are right and good - and racist

Is the church really a people who bring new life to the world? Maybe I need to ask if your congregation is a gathering of people who bring new life to the world? Then again maybe I need to look in the mirror and ask if I am a part of the church - of our humanity -the brings new life to the world?

Even in retirement - and more so when I served as a pastor in a parish setting - it seems as though we are too often involved in the sacred exercise of keeping things as they are. Obviously that is not true. Many folks will point out how much the church has done to change the world. Then again, just like the steamboat that keeps on rollin, the character of our society keeps on the path of keeping on the path of what has been - and with that - following the path of how it can keep on keeping on just as is - that is often the violence of a humanity that wants nothing to do with the peaceable Reign of God - whether religious our secular.

What is the new life we bring to the world? Is it a uniform and universal stance against racism? Not yet. More and more, it seems as though we speak well of the end of racism yet the church too often fades into the wall when race is brought into a conversation trying to uncover the ongoing game of racism - a game in which we - are the active pieces on the board. I am working my way though Tim Wise's book White Like Me. It is a life story that open up the subtle yet powerful way that we white folks are sucked into a false reality - a reality that closes off the wide wonderful spectrum of the diversity of our humanity. Wise presents an honesty and painful personal history that too many of us white folk try to dismiss - too, too easily.

When recalling a story of how his very, liberal thinking and living mother - having had too much to drink - said, Goddamn nig...  He shut her down. It was a point of painful recognition. When I read it, it made so much sense - painful sense. Let me quote something Wise wrote:
Racism, even if it not your own but merely circulates in the air, changes you: it allows you to think and feel things that make you less than you were meant to be. My mother, by proving her own weakness and exhibiting her own conditioning, taught me that one can never be too carful, can never enjoy the luxury of being too smug of believing oneself so together, so liberal, so down to earth with the cause of liberation that it becomes impossible to be sucked in, to be transformed. 

Then he writes; People never hurt others in moments of strength and bravery, or when we're feeling good about ourselves. If we spend all of our time in places such as that, then fighting for social justice would be redundant - we would simply have social justice and be done with it, and we could go swimming, or dancing, or whatever people do. 

Within our diversity - within our world that draws lines between neighborhood - within the places we claim as safe as we point at those that we see as dangerous - within the wonderful way our humanity is expressed in different colors and languages and life experiences, there is one truth that too many of us are afraid to hold onto and not lose our grip: we are one. But that, that truth, is something we have learned, somehow, is not true. Where in the hell did we get that? Well, we were born into it and we drank its poison even as it was hidden within the love of wonderful family and friends. Today, we must not accept poison or lies. We must be vulnerable people who question. We must be  people who know how to bend and bow and not make others into our image - but listen to the story of their humanity that is as human as ours - maybe more so.

We have come out on the other side of of another Independence Day. We, especially people of faith, need to divest ourselves of the stuff that has given us so much. So that - we will be open to the humanity of those we have been taught - however subtlety - is not like ours. Until then, the same old power of death will lead us - we will draw lines - we will move away - we will talk about them - we will see ourselves as the blessed norm. Yet, the norm has never been blessed. It has always been the power of the beast that the Lamb - through its love - dismantles through sacrificial living.
TRRR

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Please, continue to inspire me

When we are seduced by fear, by what will come, it is easy to restrict life by closing in our minds - closing in our circles of acquaintances - closing our doors - closing off our hearts - closing our borders, and making up boundaries that we come to trust as the way our lives will be saved. 

When we are seduced by fear, we search for ways to be saved - saved from them - saved from all that is different and unknown - saved from harm - saved from the influences of that which is new or previously beyond our experience and our desires. In all these ways, we are fooled into believing that being saved has to do with keeping life as we want it.

When we are seduced by fear, we lose the vision of how scripture uses the word saved or save. Fear attempts to twist our minds and hearts into trusting that God saves us from a scary and troubled world - saves us from those powers out there - saves us from the life that is here and now - saves us from a Hell of a place - saves us like fragile figurines that are quite lifeless.

So, when fear attempts to seduce us, we must remember that we are saved for a life that faces trouble - opens our hearts and minds - risks harms way even when it means stepping out of our safety net to rescue others - greets and protects the alien - sacrifices what is, so as to enter what might be - and even breaks wind at threats of Hell. It is within this kind of a saving adventure that religious lines are able to be crossed and the brutality and bigotry and condemnation that upholds those lines can be exposed for the violence they proclaim and produce. 

When fear attempts to seduce us, we are invited to turn and face the lies that attempt to keep the world around us within the grasp of the many beasts of violence. Such beasts, never want to be seen as beasts. They want to be seen as upright - pure - law abiding - keeping the world safe and sound. In the face of such beasts, we are invited to pull the veil back on such images that attempt to color the world with the lies of self-righteousness. In other words, we are invited to get off our butts and act contrary to any and all laws - norms - society assumptions - and religious mandates that adhere to the violence of the culture. That, for instance, is why the great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures were great. They uncovered the brutality of the acceptable and that which was considered holy and above reproach. We also saw such action from Jesus as he walked through the living lies of the religious and cultural establishment of his day that were sold on and were selling fear and death rather than saving folks for a boldness of life that is vital to crossing all boundaries and borders and walls in order to being peace - shalom - and wholeness to all people. 

When fear attempts to seduce us, we are invited to, toss off the threats that come from the beasts around us and that live under another rule - another way - another power that promises some kind of salvation - a promise that has never been fulfilled throughout history. The beasts around us are like foxes - able to trick us into their ways - always bringing about violence and death and control and more fear. Yet, I am overcome by the Hen. When the beasts and  foxes come dressed up as old-time religion or patriotic warriors in order to have their way - the Hen does not follow. The Hen gathers its young - places them beneath her and shelters them. The Hen will not be seduced. The Hen will not follow. The Hen will protect the future by being a nonviolent witness that sits down - resists - takes the hit and gives the future a picture of life that fears not. That is life that is not undone or seduced by fear. That is life that sees a gift in bending to serve all - no matter what the cost. That is life that needs no affirmation from the structures of the day - for those structures keep everything as is. That Hen life is life that knows that no power - no beast - no well-mannered rule - will bring about the well-being of all. 

Fear is attempting to win the day around us even today, and unfortunately, it is so easy to be seduced and to keep things as they have always been. That always seems safe - yet, such safety is a lie that offers comfort supported by endless lies.  That is why people are so taken back by the words of visionaries who are able to speak of another way to be truly human. That is why just a few words from a prophetic voice are able to turn our heads and, at times, our hearts and, at times, the whole way we step out into the day at hand. 

I have found that it is not easy for a self-described coward, to speak about the boldness of a Hen and the need to confront lies and speak in words that offer a new world and a new life. Yet, with the voices of discrimination and hate and intolerance and self-absorption and fear attempting to seduce us yet again, I know I must face my fears and become the unending love I claim to hold dear. Today, I was driving along and I was quite overwhelmed with fear. I started to think that my voice should become softer - my presence less noticed - my advocacy for and with the least among us more controlled. I became so upset with myself I wasn’t sure what to do. I felt threatened and disposable. That can be enough to make ordinary folks, like me, into a piece of the beast that thrives on fear and anxiety. It sure had me by the chest while I was driving. But then, I thought of you - and you - and you - and you - and you - and those others I know only by the stories I hear. I need stories of Hens who do not give up - never give in - resist unto death - offer up new life. So, continue to inspire me so that fear will have no power to seduce me.

TRRR