The Last Veteran's Day - A Dream

The Year: November 11, some time in the future
The Place: A VFW Hall

The old veteran closed the door on the VFW. It was the last time he would ever do this special act. There was no point. He was the last veteran, and today was the last Veteran’s Day. The VA Administration had closed years ago and the VA hospitals had been turned back to their local communities. It wasn’t that people did not appreciate his service, or recognize his sacrifice (although truth to be told, he had just had a desk job). The people and the government had not turned their backs on their service men and women. The reason was simply that there were no more military veterans.

Decades ago, the people of the United States had simply and consciously decided they were not going to initiate any more wars. After long consultations between former soldiers, academics, politicians and just plain regular folks, the people of the United States came to the conclusion that waging war was just not an effective way to spread peace, encourage democracy, secure human rights and provide so called “national security.” Instead some regular folks had started talking about encouraging peace and democracy by sharing their national resources and expertise, and building bridges of understanding rather than the hostilities and hatreds caused by war.

Blogs, tweets, and text messages had proliferated on the Internet, and a new idea began to emerge that maybe there was another road to peace other than war. Websites, List serves and Social Networking sites were formed where people shared their ideas of how to build a more humane and safer world. Slowly, at first imperceptibly, the tide of public opinion began to change. Eventually entertainers, celebrities and media pundits started chanting the mantra of “wage peace, not war.” The politicians, sensing the winds of change, began claiming they had come up with “a new idea for a new century” and all of a sudden leaders started talking about the benefits of peace.

Now don’t get me wrong, the change did not come without great struggle. First of all, the nation’s history had been written around the theme of wars won and heroes created. All the great presidents in the first two centuries had come to fame in part because of their conduct in time of war, either as soldiers or leaders or both. Words like “freedom” and “country” could not be without a simultaneous mention of war. The language of war and battle infused every area of life from education to business to sports to religion. The imagery and ethos of war was at the heart of American culture, and there were many staunch patriots, both liberal and conservative, who could not conceive of being an American without reference to war. The change had come at a great shift in values and perspectives.

Even more difficult than the cultural transformation was the change in economic thinking. So many of the nation’s service, manufacturing and financial institutions had been built around the military's demand for war supplies. The makers of planes, cars, guns, food, and all the materials that went into those items had become dependent on the nation being at war with someone somewhere in the world at all times. And of course whenever there was an economic down turn, as happened in 1929 and 2008, the economy could always count on the military to provide impoverished men and women with no viable vocational prospects to join up and fill the ranks of the troops needed overseas. After the tide of public opinion had begun to turn, there were reports that came out that the CEOs of some of the major world corporations had actually held secret meetings trying to manufacture wars just to keep their businesses afloat. The corporations with major military contracts lobbied hard in Congress and spent billions of dollars making their point that war was good for the country. It created jobs and made heroes out of otherwise normal men and women.

However, the ones who had the hardest time were the politicians who had spent so much time trumpeting the power and prominence of the United States in the world. “God Bless America” had become the unofficial national anthem, and was used to pump up the crowds when realistic solutions to the nation’s problems seemed too difficult for these men and some women of leisure to work on. As long as there was war going on, they didn’t need to tackle the need for health care, better schools, responses to global warming and the like. They could cozy up to the lobbyists, get their fat checks, and basically do little to nothing to really improve life. The politicians had it made, and this change of the nation’s mind was hard for them to adjust to. Some didn’t, and were heard long after they had been voted out of office, mumbling “but I love my country” as they shuffled down the halls of the special politician respite care facilities that had been hastily constructed after so many of them basically had emotional breakdowns.

What turned the tide is that the regular folks, who were suffering under the neglect of their elected officials and abuse by their corporate leaders, finally got fed up. Historians debate what actual “tipping point was” but most agreed it came as a result of the confluence of several events that occurred near the end of 2009. President Obama decided to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan, a war that was killing more and more US soldiers each day, and making the Afghan people less secure than when the soldiers arrived. Bankers were touting that the recession of 2008 was over and giving each other huge bonuses, while one in 10 people were out of work, and one in eight lived in dire poverty. The president’s efforts to pass a comprehensive health care bill got mired down in political name-calling. Small businesses struggled to make ends meet. Young people, especially those just out of college found it difficult to start their careers. People everywhere just got tired of the lies, the hypocrisy and frankly, the bullshit coming out of their leaders.

So they hit the streets. They wrote letters. They walked into corporate headquarters and protested at bankers meetings. They marched on Wall Street, on Pennsylvania Ave, and on major streets in cities and towns throughout the country. They started emailing and texting their friends and family, and things began to shift. For a long time life in the US was chaotic. At times the police and the National Guard had to be called out to calm folks down. But then the police and guardsmen began deserting, not wanting to quell a movement that they themselves were in agreement with. There were reports in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston that police officers actually put down their guns and joined the marchers. There was even a governor’s wife in Minnesota who led a protest on her husband’s office at the capital. It was crazy, scary and exciting time.

After it was clear that Obama’s decision to send in more troops was wrong-headed, he reversed himself and the war in Afghanistan was terminated. The president ordered out most of the troops and instead sent teams of teachers, doctors, social workers, business consultants, community developers and engineers into the country to help rebuild what the soldiers had destroyed. Halliburton, Boeing and some of the other huge military contract companies began to shift focus and started building supply ships, and cargo planes to take seeds and tools to the impoverished parts to the world. Over a period of several years the World Bank experienced a complete change of leadership, and the new folks in charge started using words like “sustainability”, “eco-friendly” and “localized economies” rather than “growth”, “bottom line” and “globalization.” The change didn’t happen overnight, and for a long it seemed like nothing was happening, but as people looked back they realized the shift started when people got fed up.

And then the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of the nation’s military branches, who had build their careers and professional identities on the need to conduct war, made an admission that shocked the nation. They asked for and received a prime time slot on national television. One by one these military leaders shared in graphic and often painful detail what war was really like. Each one shared his personal horror story of war, and then together they confessed their angst for sending men and women into the face of certain death for causes that rarely were clear and objectives that were never worthy. They talked about the lies and propaganda that were manufactured to justify their actions, and they asked for the nation’s forgiveness. They announced that they, the warrior heroes of the nation, were giving up their stations as military commanders, and were going to live more wholesome, productive lives.

Shortly after that, the recruiting stations closed. Because there were fewer soldiers, as time went on there was less need for veterans services. So little by little VA hospitals and other programs began to close simply because they were not needed. Then, one day in the spring the President announced that the next November 11 would be the last Veteran’s Day, simply because there were no more veterans.

Today was that day. The last veteran closed the door to the VFW hall, and smiled wryly. His granddaughter ran up and grabbed his hand as they walked together toward his car. He said to her “Want some ice cream?”

“Can I have chocolate cherry cheesecake with whip cream?”

He smiled “You can have anything you want. It’s a good day!”

God and Guns

One of the things that Heeding God’s Call has done has sought to make the buying, selling, owning and using of guns an issue of faith. This expression of the gun violence prevention movement, which started here in Philadelphia, has drawn its base from the religious community, which has in turn given the movement respect and credibility in the wider community. However, by no means does that mean that the religious community is of one mind when it comes to the role guns do and should play in our society. Any Google search of “God and Guns” will turn up a host of websites and YouTube videos dedicated to the integration of God, Patriotism, Libertarianism and Second Amendment rights. On the other hand, a recent AP article reported that in Detroit pastors are carrying pistols into their pulpits and have organized armed “ministries of defense” to protect them and their parishioners during meetings together. I myself know pastors and Eastern University colleagues in Philadelphia who are not shy in admitting their ownership of a gun for their own safety.

While I am not against owning a gun per se (for instance I have many friends who are hunters), I am troubled by the intersection of faith and an instrument of violence, especially when that instrument’s sole purpose is to shoot, injure and possibly kill another human being, even in defense. This is the only use for handguns. At issue for me is not simply whether a Christian is justified in using a gun against another person either in war or in self defense, but rather the mistaken belief that the capacity to inflict violence of any kind against another person somehow makes them stronger and morally justified.

This “myth of redemptive violence” as Walter Wink calls it essentially believes that if I am wronged or injured by another’s use of violence, I am justified in getting even. This myth of redemptive violence is at the heart of nearly every cop show and “kick-ass” movie out today. This same myth dominates US foreign policy and has been the cause of all the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the myth goes in US foreign policy, if we can somehow catch and kill Osama Bin Laden, the other leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the world will be safer. What this line of thinking ignores is the verifiable reality that violence only breeds more violence whether on a city street or a mountain pass in Afghanistan. In fact it can be logically argued that the heinous 9/11 attacks that ushered in the “war on terror” were a response to U.S. military actions in the Middle East. Instead of pointing fingers as to who was to blame, we would do better to recognize that the pattern of spiraling violence feeds on itself, and no one wins, and no one is justified.

Moreover, fighting violence with violence does not work. In the article on the Detroit pastors, one of them was quoted as saying, “…the Scriptures are clear that civil authority is part of God’s plan…In our country it says in due process that you may bear arms to protect yourself. While we should be committed to trusting God, that doesn’t prevent us or command us to be totally passive.” By calling upon people of faith to take a non-violent approach I am in no way opting for passivity. The dichotomy between bearing arms and passivity is a false one. What people of faith have is the power of numbers and moral conviction. We don’t act in isolation expecting God to miraculously protect us from violence; instead we use the power of the message of love and justice working together in community to provide an alternative model of security and conflict resolution. While I appreciate the feelings of insecurity that lead people to pack a gun for protection, study after study shows that such practice makes our communities and homes less safe rather than more.

That’s why I continue to work alongside my brothers and sisters in Heeding God’s Call. While we don’t have all the answers, the power of our combined spiritual commitment is a source nonviolent power that can heal and provide an alternative to the discredited myth of redemptive violence.

A CALL TO ACTION - Heeding God’s Call goes to the PA State Capital in Harrisburg on November 19, 2009

The PA House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony on HB 40 at the State Capitol in Harrisburg beginning at 10am on Thursday, November 19. Please plan to join your fellow faithful there to help bring some sanity to this issue. !

Background: The ‘Castle Doctrine,’ established in common law and statute since medieval days, grants a legal right to use force, even lethal force, against threatening invaders of residences. However, under current law in PA and almost every other state, a person who feels threatened in a public place has a legal duty to attempt to flee. Lethal force may be used only as a last resort.

HB 40, the gun lobby’s ‘Shoot First’ bill, would turn this on its head. Namely, HB 40 would grant a legal right to use lethal force, including gunfire, against any person felt to be threatening, virtually anywhere. The operative phrase, of course, is ‘felt to be threatened,’ which opens a huge can of worms and danger. All a shooter would have to do if ‘Shoot First’ becomes law is claim she/he ‘felt’ threatened in order to avoid liability for harming or killing another, threatening situation or not.

This is, of course, craziness of the first order and would replace the law and order of a civil society with a ‘Shoot First Ask Questions Later’ mentality more akin to the mythical Wild West than to 21st Century America. Again, all so the gun lobby’s patrons in the gun industry can sell more guns.

So, Heeding is in the midst of organizing a trip/meeting/etc. in Harrisburg for all concerned faithful, to oppose the abomination in God’s eyes that is the ‘Shoot First’ bill, to make our views known and to remind legislators that we and they have a religious duty, whatever the faith tradition, to seek civility and peace, not the fear and violence promoted by the gun lobby.

For more information contact me (drickb@aol.com) or Heeding God’s Call (info@heedinggodscall.org)

There is Something Wrong With This Picture

This week had a lot of good news for Wall Street. The Dow Jones indicators topped 10,000 for the first time in many months after dipping below 7000 at one point. Then because stocks were on the rise, the economists declared “the recession is over”. Then we heard that multimillion dollar bonuses were back for the big investment companies. Finally it appears that the financial bailout actually created more wealth and less competition for some of the country’s biggest investment firms Goldman Sachs and JP MorganChase. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate hovers near 10% (and that’s only counting the people who are looking; the real unemployment rate is probably closer to 17%), city governments are cutting back services, university systems such as California are having to raise their tuition significantly, and the Federal government looks at a multi-trillion dollar debt.

There is something wrong with this picture. How can the recession be “over” when only the wealthy and powerful are making their money again? My issue is not just that some people are making money while most are still struggling, but rather that the system that got us into the mess last year has not been fundamentally altered. It is a system that favors the powerful at the expense of the weak, and that concentrates the resources of the nation in the hands of a few while the many struggle. If Goldman Sachs is making a bundle, then they should pitch in for health care for every one in this country, and their wealth should be spread to better not just the wallets of its top execs but the people in the communities where they operate.

Ralph Estes argues in The Tyranny of the Bottom Line, that corporate “success” should not merely be measured by the profit margins and financial returns to investors, but on the social and environmental impact on employees and vendors, and the communities where companies operates. By that measure Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are dismal failures and the recession is far from over. While they were given bailout money to make affordable loans to people, they instead have used that money to trade on the stock market, and then passed the earnings on to themselves.

E.F. Schumacher argues in Small is Beautiful that we need to move from an economic model that is constantly focused on growth to an economy based on sustainability. The subtitle of Schumacher's book is "Economics as if people mattered." What a novel thought! The extreme capitalist model on Wall Street and in the business sector constantly measured growth, which in a world of fixed resources means loss for others. Thus, we get the obscene disparities between the haves and have-nots not only in this country but even more so around the world. Instead we need to create an economic model where they economy serves the needs of communities and individuals and is built on a commitment to community sustainability rather than individual gain.

There are some companies that have begun to get the idea that they are part of the community rather than predators on the community. There is a growing movement of socially responsible businesses that see their mission beyond their own bottom line. A company can do good and do well at the same time. The executives there may not run off to the bank with a multi-billion dollar bonus but the employees of those companies are paid well.

I am not an economist, but I am also not an idiot. Don’t tell me that the economy as we now have it is working. We have tried that slight of hand far too many times. The financial and economic system itself must be drastically altered so that we have an economy where if one suffers, all suffers, and if one succeeds, all succeeds. That is what community,justice and being socially responsible are all about.

Reflections on the Closing of a Gun Shop

On Wednesday, September 30, Colismo’s Gun Shop on Spring Garden St. in Philadelphia closed its doors for the last time. Once ranked by the Brady Campaign as the fifth worst gun shop in the country when it came to allowing straw purchases of illegal guns, this was a major victory for the gun violence prevention movement in Philadelphia. On September 22 while a group of us from Heeding God’s Call were meeting to plot our next move against Mr. Colisimo and other gun shops, the U.S. Attorney’s office was finalizing its case against Mr. Colisimo and on that afternoon, they charged him with making false statements and failing to keep accurate records with regard to straw purchases. The next day, September 23, Mr. Colisimo’s attorney announced that he would plead guilty to the charges and that the store would close. Those of us from Heeding God’s Call had no prior knowledge that such action was being taken. Over the next few days there were several articles and op-ed pieces celebrating Colisimo’s closing and praising of “religious activists.” We were surprised and elated, and our efforts were vindicated.

As one of those activists, I have been prompted by these events to reflect on what all of this means for the faith community and the gun violence prevention movement, and how God may be working in and through our efforts. From very early on I (along with several others) have had the sense that the gun shops such as Colisimo’s are merely the most visible expression of a hideous and distorted spirit of violence at the heart of North American culture. At our trial in May I spoke about the incongruity and tragic irony that the city’s district attorney and the police department put efforts into arresting us and thereby protecting an illegal gun dealer like Mr. Colisimo. Only a twisted sort of logic would move the city officials to pursue charges against us when their own officers were being killed with these illegal guns ( five in the last 2 years) and who every day were called into situations where illegal guns were in play. Such experiences convinced me that we are contending not just against isolated individuals buying and selling illegal guns, but with a system under the influence of what both sociologists and theologians called institutional “powers” - an indication that the these systems have taken on a mind and life of their own, and are at their heart are evil.

At the heart of these twisted powers is the National Rifle Association (NRA)and the gun manufacturers, such as Smith & Wesson, and Beretta (just to name two). Throughout the period where we were taking action against Colisimo’s, we never heard or saw any concrete indication of the NRA’s influence, and yet we could sense it just below the surface. Moreover, during the same period while we were picketing and protesting in front of Colisimos, the NRA was able to influence the passage of a bill that allowed guns to be carried into National Parks, reaffirmed the Tiahrt Amendment that restricts the dissemination of information to the public about illegal guns sales, and bullied a number of politicians (including Pres. Obama) into not passing a federal ban on the buying and selling of assault rifles. They have even sought to discredit local politicians that have come out in favor of the Mayor’s Code of Conduct that we asked Mr. Colisimo to sign. If the NRA were truly on the side of responsible gun ownership, one would think they would support a bill such has been proposed that requires individuals to report when a gun they own has been lost or stolen. Yet, at every turn the NRA has been at work to oppose any and every law seeking to regulate the sale of guns, and have bullied and lied their way through the public arena.

I am overjoyed that after only eight months of modest pressure and publicity, we were able to contribute to the closing of one nefarious gun shop, but I am also aware that this victory, is only one small step. I have received words of praise from a variety of people and places, some of them quite unexpected, and all greatly appreciated. However, I, like all of us at the heart of this effort, am acutely aware that our work will not be done until children can play in city parks and on neighborhood sidewalks without their parents fearing for their safety.

We will not be done until those persons all up and down the straw purchasing process are “outed’ and made accountable for their greed and lack of civility.

We will not be done until the NRA members turn on their own leadership and challenge them to be on the side of real safety and sanity, and not allow their numbers and money to be a cover for the gun manufacturers’ complicity in the illegal gun market.

We will not be done until politicians, including our Nobel Peace Prize winning president, are willing to take a stand against the NRA and refuse to trade their character in for political contributions.

We will not be done until the cultural link is broken between freedom, patriotism and gun ownership.

For this reason people of faith who care about safety, who deplore violence and who believe we serve a God on the side of social justice, must step up and move out against the powers of violence at the heart of our culture. Through my involvement in this movement, I have seen and heard some dreadful and depressing stories, but I have also met countless courageous people living in violent neighborhoods who continue to pray, march and work for peace on their streets. Likewise, I have met committed folks from outside the cities and violent places, who have taken this cause on as if it were their own. The spirit that holds us together, I choose to call the Spirit of God; others might name it some other way. What is clear is that we are engaged in a struggle of universal proportions that requires as many voices and hands as can be gathered.

Vindication and Affirmation For Heeding God's Call

Yesterday (Sept 22), a group of us who have been leaders in Heeding God's Call met to plan and strategize as to our next actions in the local gun violence prevention movement. A significant part of our conversation centered around what are next moves should be in relation to Colismo's Gun Shop, the store that has been the focus of so many of our actions over the past 8 months. Little did we know that while we were meeting the U.S. Attorney's office was charging Mr. Colism with falsifying statements and failing to keep accurate records. On a practical level, it appears that our activities may have called attention to this particularly notorious gun dealer, and moved the process along in bringing him to justice. On another level, today feels like a vindication of our efforts, and an affirmation that God is indeed working in and through our efforts.

You may read the whole article at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20090922_ap_fedschargephiladelphiagundealer.html

Feds charge Philadelphia gun dealer

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia gun dealer that has been the target of religious activists is now charged in federal court with making false statements and failing to keep records required by law.

The U.S. Attorney's Office announced charges against Colosimo's Inc. after business hours Tuesday. A man who answered the phone at the business said "What can I say?" to a reporter seeking comment and eventually hung up. Owner James Colosimo has previously said he follows all laws in his business.

Activists have targeted Colosimo's because of the number of guns sold there that end up being used in crimes. The owner has said that's to be expected from a high-volume dealership like his. He has said he believes he has saved lives by selling guns to police departments.

Racism at a Deeper Level

Former President Jimmy Carter raised a lot of hackles this week when he suggested that much of the intense opposition to Pres. Obama and his health care plan is racist in nature. He noted that as a Southerner, he can sense the “belief among a large number of white people and not just from the South that a black man is not qualified to lead this country.” I applaud Pres. Carter’s outspoken assessment. As expected, the mention of the R-word sent people off on all sorts of tangents, and even prompted Pres. Obama himself to disagree with his predecessor. Regardless of what he thought personally, that was a smart political move by Obama to rise above the name-calling.

However, Carter’s assessment should not be lightly dismissed. First of all, he has lived in the South during an openly racist time in its history, and has been around the world seeking to mediate conflicts of all sorts. A man of his stature and experience does not make such statements lightly. I felt much of the same sentiment when I left a town hall meeting a couple of weeks ago; among some in the crowd there were attitudes of elitism, classism and racism that was palpable. Furthermore, some of my African-American friends have quietly acknowledged to me the same feeling, as have some of my white friends. However, until Carter spoke up, many of us didn’t have the courage to say it, given the polarizing nature of the health care debate, the political climate of the country, and the general discomfort many feel when the topic of racism comes up.

I do not know what former Pres. Carter may have meant by the comment, but I can speak to my own thoughts. As offensive as some of the signs at last Sunday’s “Tea Party” march (comparing Obama to Hitler being THE most offensive), I have attended enough events where similarly deriding signs regarding George Bush were present to know that signs in themselves are not the issue. The mistake many make is that we equate racism simply with making openly racist statements or gesture. Most culturally sensitive people today know that such statements will only get them in trouble, so those racist statements may be thought but not spoken.

No, the racism I sense is at a deeper, subliminal level and has more to do with white people’s sense of identity than the actual words we say. Several years ago I attended the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Training sponsored by the Mennonite Church, at which I was introduced to racism represented by the image of an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is the overt racist acts and statements most people associate with racism. However as the saying goes, such acts are only “the tip of the iceberg,” the symptoms of a much deeper condition. In the middle layer of the iceberg is the power structure that inherently favors whites in many aspects of society’s institutional life. One only has to look at the well-publicized inequities in criminal justice cases, public education, housing, health care and the like to show how society’s structures privilege whites at the expense of people of color. (This is an assertion that I know many whites might dispute, but I am not addressing that issue here). However, at the base of the pyramid is racial identity, which gets to how we whites were shaped by family and culture to think of ourselves in comparison to other racial groups. It is at this most basic level, that I sense many white people are reacting unconsciously and irrationally to President Obama. His very presence as the most powerful leader in the country and perhaps the world does not fit with our identity as white people.

In thinking of this most basic level of racial identity I refer to myself as a “recovering racist.” I was born into a racist culture, and racist perspectives shaped me before I was cognitively able to examine my beliefs and values for myself. Like a crack baby born addicted because of his mother’s addiction, so too I was born into a racist culture that said whites were more important, smarter, more worthy, worked harder than others, and therefore deserved their privileged place in society. As much as I might deride such thinking on one level, on another level it is hard to walk away from the comfort I have believing I am better than others. Like an addict seeking to break free of his addiction, I must every day confront the vestiges of racism bred into my cultural DNA.

Now let me be quick to add that I grew up in a home where racist attitudes and statements were never tolerated. In fact we children were often told not to think of ourselves better than others, and I can remember more than once when my mother chided me for such attitudes. We had African-American students living in our home thru a program called A Better Chance. Yet I grew up in a culture where African-Americans were generally portrayed either as Little Black Sambo, Aunt Jemima, or Amos-n-Andy on the one hand, or an angry rioter, a shiftless bum or an illiterate thug on the other. I grew up in a culture where we made decisions by saying “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a N____ by the toe…,” where community variety shows had white men in black face, and where little black porter statues were place on people’s front lawns. Furthermore, until the Cosby show, I never saw a media image where African Americans or any other person of color were anything remotely like the white people we saw on TV. Whether they were black, Hispanic, Japanese, or Chinese, we had derogatory names for them that we used freely and without thinking.

These subtle and not-so subtle images portrayed a clear message: “We (whites) are not like them (blacks).” As the racial and ethnic consistency of our society has increasingly diversified, the threat to white people’s place as the dominant group has intensified. Projections are that by 2040 or so, white people will make up less than 50% of the population. For a nation that 200 years ago basically saw itself as a country of European transplants, this is a major identity shift. We whites got accustomed to being in control, to being the standard by which all things are judged, and to being in the driver’s seat of society’s rules. Obama as president is a visible reminder that the racial and ethnic power balance has shifted, and that being white does not make one feel as secure as it once did.

Obama’s prominent and capable performance as president has stirred understandable differences of opinion which are not racist in themselves, but which sometimes are fueled by a deep-seated white fear and insecurity. What I felt at the town hall meeting may be similar to what former Pres. Carter was alluding to when he said the opposition is fueled by the fact that the president is an African American. That doesn’t mean that all opposition to Obama is inherently racist. However it also doesn’t mean that just because people refrain from making openly racist statements or gestures that they are not racist. Racism is so deeply embedded in our psyches that it is not so easily expunged.

Many folks felt that with Obama’s election we had crossed some multi-racial threshold in this country. Somehow by electing a black man to be President, we could now rest easy, pat ourselves on the back, and say "we really ARE an inclusive country." However, instead I think what we have seen is that as Barack Obama has assumed his role with directness and decorum, something deep within the white soul begins to tremble at the change that is coming and life as we whites have known it will not return no matter how hard some may try.

What Do Conservatives Want?

OK, OK – You got my attention. I had regarded you as some small lunatic fringe, who did not represent the heart of the Republican Party. However, last Saturday, you were able to gather 100,000 people in Washington, D.C. You have done a good job of disrupting several town hall meetings in the past couple of months. You have been able to make people wonder if the government can really afford comprehensive health insurance for all Americans. I know you don’t like any thing that comes for the Democrats, and you especially don’t like Barack Obama. I’ll ignore the pictures that show Obama with a Hitler moustache, the signs that call him socialist and a facist. I’ll assume you haven’t read up on your history lately to know what those words and symbols actually mean. Even so, you’ve got my attention – I understand what you DON'T want. My question is what is it that you DO want?

As I have said in other places in this blog, I find the terms “liberal” and “conservative” to be relatively meaningless and misleading labels. Yet this is what folks call themselves. I also realize that most of those who will read this blog would not consider themselves anything close to being conservative. But to those of you who do, or those of you whose friend, parent, or co-worker resonate with the sentiments that were expressed in DC over the weekend, can you give me a clue as to what you are FOR, rather than just what you are AGAINST?

Do you really buy the Glenn Beck line that Barack Obama “hates white people?” Do you actually believe Rush Limbaugh when he says that there is “no health care crisis in this country?” Are you really so callous as to relegate 30 million of your fellow citizens to have no health care protection, when they could be your child, your parent, your friend, or your co-worker? Do you think anyone would set up death panels like Sarah Palin said? And all of this while health insurance companies, doctors and lawyers make off like bandits ripping all of us off. Who do you think has put up $40 million in advertising money to defeat health reform. According to Bill Moyers of PBS, that’s what the health insurance companies are spending in advertising to keep their comfortable position.

I want to believe that so-called conservatives are well-meaning people with decent ideas and a concern for their fellow human being. I want to believe they are people who care for something more than just lower taxes, smaller government, and the right to carry a gun anywhere at anytime. I want to believe that there are “compassionate conservatives” that Marvin Olasky talked about. If there are, that’s who I need to hear from because the conservative message has been hijacked by a bunch fear-induced ranters, and it does not make sense. If Joe Wilson, the representative who publicly called Pres. Obama a “liar” during his speech to Congress, is the best they can do, the Republicans and the conservatives are in worse shape than I thought.

So, Conservatives, whoever you are – help me out here, because I just can’t figure out what you are FOR, except for tearing down everything that might make it a bit healthier for everyone in our country.

Is This Democracy? I Don't Think So

When I was growing up in the 1960’s my father and I would often have vigorous discussions and debates (some called them arguments) about the issues of the day. This was the era of Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, the Women’s Liberation movement and so much more. My father was and still is a staunch moderate Republican who believes that Ronald Reagan was America’s greatest president in the modern era. While he laments the moral conservatism of his party, he supports its generally pro-business perspective. I, on the other hand, was and still am left of center on most issues. So, as you can imagine we had and still have some pretty steep differences on many issues.

Yet, despite those differences, our discussions were (and are) always civil, controlled and respectful. In fact on occasions when my mother, who generally sided with Dad, got emotionally worked up, he would ask her to excuse herself. Debate in our house was about expressing your position logically and respectfully, and then listening to the other. Dad modeled respectful discourse, the ability to disagree agreeably. As I have grown into adulthood, I realize it is one of his greatest gifts to me.

The other night, my wife and I, attended a town hall meeting on health care sponsored by our Congressperson, Joe Sestak. Rep Sestak is a tireless worker, a retired military man, and a moderate Democrat. He began the session with a few personal remarks, and then proceeded to field comments. The pastor of the church where we were meeting implored people to be “humble and respectful,” but when the questions started that request was quickly forgotten. At points Sestak acknowledged that he and members of Congress had not explained themselves clearly, and that was why he was there that night. Several times he expressed his desire to hear people's concerns, and address their questions. However, when he tried to explain aspects of the bill, people in the crowd just shouted “liar.” They accused him of not considering their views, even as he stood there attentively listening to their diatribes. I don’t know how he did it, but he maintained a cool and respectful demeanor in spite of much hostility (I guess that military training is good for something!). Most of the questions became opportunities for people to vent their fears, their veiled hatred of President Obama, their anger at undocumented immigrants, and their disregard for the 47 million Americans without health care. While most people, like myself, were there to learn what actually was in the bill, we had to do so through the din and noise of the hecklers.

Despite the belligerent disrespect of the questioners, I came away with a better understanding of the bill, and the reasons to support it. I also came away with a much higher regard for Rep. Sestak. However, I also came away quite discouraged about democracy as it is practiced in America.

You see, I believe strongly in democracy, in the right of people to have a voice in their government. In fact I believe in democracy, not just every 4 years, but work consistently to create spaces where community folks can come together on a regular basis to address and resolve their problems in their communities. I applaud the work of groups like Everyday Democracy that have created materials and guides for communities to come together around issues they face in their communities. I wish every state had the caucus system like Iowa come election time. These are opportunities for people to come together in the spirit of grassroots democracy to discuss and resolve the issues of the day.

However, I could not carry on such an effort with the hecklers in that crowd the other night, not because I disagree with their position, but because there is not the environment of respect needed for healthy dialogue. Media talk show hosts, like Rush Limbaugh on the Right and Bill Maher on the Left, have turned political discussions into shouting matches and name calling. What gets reported in the mainstream news is not the issues, but the nature of the fights over the issue. Notice, for instance, how reports of the town hall meetings generally are not about what is said on the issues, but about the guns people bring, and the shouting people do. The media is more interested in the fight than what the fight is about. And now lots of people have followed suit and brought this attitude into the town hall meetings.

I still believe in democracy, but I left the meeting with a heaviness about our ability to live together in an increasingly pluralistic, multi-cultural society where everything is not going to go my way. It seemed the other night that a lot of folks had decided to build their bunker or fortress and just start firing away over the wall with no respect for the humanity of others, or the willingness to listen, consider, and seek to work together in spite of differences.

Perhaps, Dad, we need to gather folks around a big table, and show them how democracy is really supposed to work.

War Abroad, War At Home

The Sept/October issue of PRISM, a journal of Evangelicals for Social Action, contains an article I have written on the link between militarism abroad and gun violence at home. Check it out.

Guns, Health Care and the Meaning of Democracy

A sideshow to the ongoing debate about healthcare reform is the fact that protestors have now begun to show up with guns. If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch Chris Matthews’ (Hardball) interview with William Costic [I believe that was his name, but am not sure], the man who started the gun-toting process by bringing an unconcealed weapon to the Obama town meeting in Portsmouth, NH last week. My good friend Bryan Miller of Ceasefire New Jersey wants us to consider such acts as just plain “craziness.” However, I don’t think we can so easily dismiss them, for as Bryan goes onto explain if they are crazy, they are a very well orchestrated and organized group of crazies. As I listened to Mr Costic explain his views to Chris Matthews,I heard a man with a world view informed by a hyper-vigilant, individualistic, libertarian logic. When asked if he thought Social Security or Medicare were mistakes, he said “yes.” He openly admitted to voting for Ron Paul in the last presidential election. He spoke out of a very well thought out and largely coherent perspective.

These are the folks (mostly unknowingly) indebted to and informed by the political philosophy of the late Robert Nozick, who saw the government’s role in maintaining justice as protecting basic individual rights, and otherwise staying out of people’s business. Nozick considered taxes “robbery” and paying them “forced labor.” However, Nozick was no dummy; he taught at Harvard throughout most of his career, and his ideas are deeply embedded in the American psyche especially when people talk about individual rights. Before we dismiss these gun-toters as a “lunatic fringe,” we need to recognize that they have a coherent worldview, however distant it may be from our own.

Behind and beneath all the rhetoric about health care, gun rights and the like is a struggle over what it means to be a citizen of this country. The fears are being stirred up the media and corporate manipulators, but at the same time they are more than simply fears about people's financial future. I believe they are fears of a seismic shift in what it means to be an American citizen. I could not be further from the worldview of people like William Costic not only on the issue of guns, but also on what “rights” should be protected, and who gets to decide that. Yet, I have known people like him, and I sometimes despair of the widening chasm in our civic life between people like Mr. Costic and myself.

The fact that people can go to these town meetings, shout down the speakers, and then say it is their right to be “heard” in a democracy, seems bizarre to me. People don’t even know what they are talking about. For instance, I heard one protester berating his representative to keep the government away from my Medicare. Your Medicare comes from the government, dummy! Democracy relies on an informed public; that’s why the public education system is so vital to the health of a democracy. A democracy occurs when people can talk across their differences in a respectful manner. Democracy is not just about “being heard” but about hearing others as well.

Passing a meaningful health care reform bill will neither solve the dilemma nor end the tension. However, it raises again the fundamental questions about what it means to be citizens in a democracy, and even what a democracy truly is.

Democracy used to be defined by the old New England town hall meeting, where the citizens of the community would come together to discuss community issues, and then make decisions together. Today “democracy” has become a political weapon used to spread Western corporate interests around the globe. “Democracy” has become the media circus we have seen in these so called town hall meetings over the last month. Regardless of how the health care reform bill is resolved, the deeper questions remain as to what our “rights” are and should be, and what values and truths are worth fighting for, no matter how difficult and painful the struggle.

In Search of Heroes on the Underground Railroad

During this week of August 9-15 I have been travelling through southern Ohio studying the pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad (UGRR). This trip was prompted by a small note in my family history I had found, which indicated that two of my ancestors, William Silver (1798-1881) and his son Albert R. Silver (1823-1900) of Salem, Ohio, were involved in the anti-slavery movement and most likely allowed fugitives from slavery to stay hidden in their homes enroute to freedom in Canada. I went on this trip to try and get a feel for what it would have been like for them and for others involved in the anti-slavery cause. As such I set out to learn as much as I could about the anti-slavery movement in Salem and throughout Ohio, to learn about what fugitives from slavery had to go through to find their freedom, and the routes they took through Ohio.

In the course of this week, I learned about the little town of Ripley, Ohio, a town on the banks of the Ohio River, which was a major entry point for fugitives escaping from Kentucky into Ohio. I went to Ripley to learn about two of their citizens, Rev. John Rankin and John Parker. After visiting their homes, learning more about their stories, and walking the streets of Ripley. I wrote the following reflection on why I had come to this little river town.

After visiting the home of Rev. John Rankin, abolitionist, leader of the UGRR, and a Presbyterian minister, I realized why I am on this trip; I am in search of social justice heroes, mentors and models from history. Rankin is such a man. As a “station chief” in the UGRR, he provided shelter and guidance to over 2000 fugitives (I can no longer call them “runaway slaves” after this trip) from 1821 to 1865. He did so publicly through his sermons and writings, especially “Letters on American Slavery” published and distributed in 1826. He did so covertly and illegally thru his leadership role with the UGRR. He was an activist and a public intellectual, a man of faith and political conviction.

He did so at the expense of his career; he was driven from a church in his native Tennessee; and he did so despite having a wife and 13 children. He did not use his family as an excuse for inaction and “playing it safe.” He did so at the threat of his life; “Wanted” signs in Kentucky offered a reward for his death.

In a search for mentors, we need to realize that seldom do they operate alone, even though we will put them on a pedestal; I don't want to do that.For every Rankin, there was a congregation and host of others that supported him, cooperated with his efforts, and followed his leadership. He was able to operate as he did in Ripley because the people of Ripley shared his convictions and commitment to action.

Rankin was white, and one thing I have learned is that the commitment and conviction was far greater and deeper among blacks, both slave and free, than most whites, even those of Rankin's character. For every John Rankin, there were also several John Parkers. Parker was a former slave who came to live in Ripley after he purchased his own freedom and moved from Alabama. He ran an iron foundry and had two patents. Parker was a “conductor” of the UGRR, meaning he ferried people across the Ohio River from the shore of the slave state of Kentucky to freedom in Ripley. Parker also had a family, and yet did not shrink from action. Despite numerous threats to Rankin, the danger to Parker was much greater – first because he was black and second because he was not a religious or a public figure. The culture being what it was then as now, Parker’s punishment would have been much greater than Rankin’s; the difference between then and now, in pre-Civil War America the Fugitive Slave Law clearly stated greater penalties for blacks, rather than being covertly rationalized as they are today.

This trip has given me new insights into what it takes for people of all faiths, colors and backgrounds to work for and achieve social justice. We all play our part.I cannot be a John Parker, but I can be inspired by John Rankin. I am blessed to be in the privileged position to be a servant of social justice; may I learn from John Rankin and not squander the opportunity.

Heath Care, Individual Rights and the Common Good

I must admit I am mystified by the vehemence and the vitriol that appears to be getting stirred up over the proposal to develop a universal health care system. Providing access to health care for everyone in this country seems like a no-brainer, and something long overdue. It seems to me that the debate should be how we are going to change the current system, not whether or not we should change it. However, I seem to be mystified a great deal these days because I also can’t figure out the logic that would resist a ban on the sales of assault rifles, or limit sales of handguns to one per month or require that people report when a gun is lost or stolen.

However, like the debate in this country over guns, emotions and perceptions rather than logic seem to be at the forefront of the health care debate, which point to some deep tensions and some nefarious manipulation beneath the surface in our culture. I saw a CNN video of a man screaming at a town hall meeting with PA Senator Arlen Specter and he was accusing Specter of taking lobbyist money for supporting Obama’s health care plan, when it’s the lobbyist money that is being poured into fight his plan. I saw another Fox News clip where O’Reilly was criticizing Obama’s body language as “defensive” and “angry” at a town hall meeting when he was joking about his critics. Well duh, you’d be pissed off too, if you were being falsely accused of things you never even dreamed of. All sorts of rumors such as people not getting treatment or being forced to euthanize themselves or their loved ones are being put forth as “truth;” the whole thing is bizarre to me.

At a deeper level I suspect two things are going on. First, the critics of the universal health care proposal seem to be playing up the tension between individual rights and common rights, or what is sometimes called the common good. There are somewhere between 45-50 million people without health insurance today. With rising unemployment, and tighter employer budgets those numbers are only getting higher. There are also millions of people who are “under-insured” meaning the health insurance they have is woefully inadequate. At the same time there are lots of people, like me, whose health insurance is very adequate, and provided in part by my employer. Eight years ago when I had hernia and prostate surgery, I was well cared for. Likewise my wife has had outpatient surgeries twice this year, and has been quite adequately cared for by her employer-provided plan.

Personally, like the majority of Americans we don’t need better health care. However, my individual plan will probably have to change in order to make it possible everyone in this country to enjoy the right and benefit to the health care I enjoy. I might have to pay more, or even have my taxes raised (although this has not been proposed for my tax bracket). On the other hand, my daughter has just graduated from college and was booted off our family plan; she has no health insurance and neither of her employers are providing it; with universal health care, she would not be left exposed. The individual plans available to her are ridiculously expensive and inaccessible to her.

As her father, I am hoping she stays healthy, but am quite aware I may have to “cover” her if something happens. Now I suppose I could protest and say that I have no obligation to my daughter since she is an adult, but what kind of parent would I be? What kind of person would I be? Expand this tension to the entire country and we see this tension between the health care haves and the have-nots.

At play is my individual right to health care versus the common right of all to health care. A focus on common rights (rather than individual rights) says that it is the common right of all people to have access to health care. The pundits will stir up emotion by calling it “socialism” and developing scenarios where people with serious health issues won't be able to see a doctor for months on end, but in the end, it is really about community and common decency. However, this tension plays out in so many ways in our society over things like taxes, driving gas-guzzling versus hybrid cars, and regrettably even so called “gun rights.”

However, nefarious corporate forces seem to be stirring up this tension and creating the kind of chaotic circus atmosphere I saw at the Specter town hall meeting. Recently (July 17) Bill Moyers reported that the health insurance industry, including companies like CIGNA and Aetna are spending a half million dollars a day in advertising, political contributions and lobbyists to defeat the president’s proposed changes to the health care system. We like to think we are a democracy where people get to have their say. However, those with money get access that the rest of us don’t have, and spend millions of dollars to confuse people, so that you get a man screaming at a supporter of health care reform (like Specter) and accusing him of taking lobbyist money, when it is the lobbyists efforts he is trying to overcome. Despite our efforts to expand democracy over the world (however ineffective), we don’t really have a democracy in this country, we have a money-ocracy, where big money supports corporate interests, drowns out common sense and stirs up tensions that should be manageable.

Back in the book of Genesis, Cain asked God if he was his brother’s and sister’s keeper. God’s silence implied that yes, he was, and we are. What good is the most advanced health care system in the world if 50 million plus people can’t access it? How can other countries far less “advanced” than us (we could have a whole discussion about what “advanced” means) have resolved this tension. My individual rights do not eclipse the common right of all to have access to health care. I only hope that common sense can prevail. Given the current confused and politicized state of affairs, that will be a tough sell.

The Option for the Poor and the Long Defeat

The term “preferential option for the poor” is a term bandied about by theologians and educators alike, especially those who have an interest and commitment to bettering the life conditions and opportunities of those who benefit least and suffer the most in our society and world at large. I have often used that term, and see myself as one committed to the addressing the issues of poverty, injustice and oppression in our world. However, when I read about Dr. Paul Farmer, the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains, I gained a deeper understanding of just what saying I am committed to helping the poor really is committing me to.

As Kidder portrays him, Dr. Paul Farmer is an infectious disease specialist with both an MD and PhD in anthropology, who has committed his life to serving the health needs of poorest of the world’s poor. His home base is rural Haiti, where he has served as a clinician for decades while sharing his experience and expertise regarding AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases at the highest levels and some of the most desperate localities in the world. The organization he founded with a few other like-minded individuals, Partners in Health (PIH), has a record of addressing some of those most pernicious diseases in some of the world’s poorest and oppressed places.

Farmer’s accomplishments alone cause him to stand out, but his radical commitment to the poor has translated into an approach to life and work that puts all of us who consider ourselves to be progressives and social justice activists on notice. For Farmer poverty is not an “issue,” but real individual people to whom he has made himself a servant. Even after gaining international renown for his breakthrough work on medical diseases, Kidder describes how Farmer walked 11 hours through the rough Haitian terrain to check up on one patient and his family from his clinic in Cange, Haiti. When asked if that was time well spent when he could be consulting around the world, Farmer replied “I am a doctor, he is my patient, that’s all that matters.”

More than that Farmer has not gathered to himself the material advantages of being a doctor and of being a globally-renowned figure. He often travels to meetings around the world with one rumpled suit bought for him at a thrift store. Wherever he goes he seeks out patients who may be in need of his services. Moreover, he judges the effectiveness of his program and of any national or international health policy, on how well it benefits the poorest of the poor. For that reason Farmer regards the Cuban health care system, with lower infectious disease rates than the United States to be one of the best in the world despite it supposedly Communist leanings. Poor people are served as well others – that system works. One can only wonder what he must think of the current debate in the US around universal health care, and whether or not we can “afford” to make sure 50 million uninsured Americans are covered. My guess is that Farmer would be extremely critical of the capitalistic assumptions underlying the debate and suggest that the health care system itself is bloated at the top by insurance companies, drug companies, physicians, and lawyers all fighting for their big piece of the pie, while the poor go untreated.

While Farmer has been successful at one level in providing insights into ways countries can address the infectious disease problems in their countries, serves on the faculty Harvard Medical School, and regularly consults with international health organizations, he recognizes that taking the option for the poor or the “O for P” as he calls it, is a long and frustrating struggle. Near the end of the book, Kidder quotes Farmer saying:

“I have fought my whole life a long defeat…I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory…You know, people from our background ….we’re used to being on a victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our back on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat” (p. 288).

To work on behalf of the poor requires personal sacrifice and a commitment to the long defeat with a few victories scattered in. Fighting the long defeat is not just volunteering or doing “pro bono” work every once and a while. Rather, it is to see one’s well being and destiny tied directly to real people with real needs who have been beaten down and neglected by the very systems that purport to help them. I thank Dr. Paul Farmer for helping me see that the option for the poor is a meaningless idea without putting my life behind it, and taking time to consider ways in which we may have allowed our lives to undermine our own rhetoric.

Climbing Mount Katahdin

Every summer one of my goals is to climb a mountain. In some years I have had to stretch the meaning of the word “mountain” to achieve that goal, by climbing a hill that for some reason had been given a “mount” in front of it. However, the last two years I have climbed real mountains such as Croagh Patrick in Northwest Ireland two years ago and a peak in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina last summer. This year I took on the ultimate test: Mt. Katahdin in central Maine (although central Maine feels like the edge of civilization). While only 5267 feet tall (by Rocky Mountain or Alps standards that is only a hill), Mt. Katahdin rises straight up from a valley basin. The only way up is to climb incredibly steep grades for 2 miles or more.

First, I had to hike 3.5 miles up a trail with a slight grade just to get to the base of the mountain at a basin called Chimney Pond. From Chimney Pond I began my ascent on the Cathedral Trail, a nearly vertical climb up huge granite boulders stretching for 1.7 miles straight up. Not only was I challenged physically, but I felt tested mentally, as if often did not appear to be any place to grab with my hands or push up with my feet. After 4 ½ hours (two hours hiking in and 2 ½ hours climbing up), I made it to the top.

When I got there about twenty other people were also there having come up from a variety of paths: two Canadians who came up Cathedral trail ahead of me, a bunch of teenagers and middle-agers, a family of 5 (including a seven year old girl), and group of four women who had completed their goal of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in chunks over a period of 17 years (Mt. Katahdin is the northern end of the AT). From the peak I looked over the valley from which I had come and on the other side to the valley to the west. I saw the infamous Knife Edge, a 1.5 mile narrow ledge leading across to another peak. I saw Chimney Pond two miles below and I saw the lakes and valleys bond. I was tired but ecstatic.

After I had been up on the peak for about 30 minutes, a rain storm whipped up (some later reported the rain had even turned to small pellets of hail), and I began to feel my temperature drop. Not wanting to get hypothermia, I started what for me is the more difficult dimension of climbing, the descent. I headed down another way called the Saddle Trail, so named because of a broad plateau between Baxter and Hannigan peaks that looks like a saddle from below. After crossing the plateau, I began going down a run of loose rock, which the forest ranger said was easier than going back down Cathedral Trail.

Easier, yes, but easy, not at all. Loose rock made slippery by the rain made for a slow and at times treacherous descent off the mountain. Fortunately, there was no one on the trail above or below me because often loose rock cascaded down the run when I stepped on it. After two hours of slipping, and sliding, I was off the mountain, and then began a 4 ½ mile trek and slow descent back my car. In the valley the rain was falling much harder and what had been a trail going up was largely a mud bath coming down. Eventually, 9 ½ hours after I had started that morning, I arrived back at my car.

I have often wondered what it is about climbing mountains that attracts me; my college roommate who lives in Montana, writes for hunting and fishing magazines and spends days at a time in the wilderness, would call me an “Oh wow, the mountain guy.” I know that part of what attracts me is the mental and physical challenge of it. Several times while climbing the boulders of the Cathedral Trail, I thought to myself, they should never let an amateur like me on a trail like this. Mountain trails ought to be rated like ski resorts rate their trails (Easy, Difficult, Most Difficult, Expert). Yet in spite of my obvious limitations, I pushed past them, achieved something I was not sure was possible, and proved something to myself.

Part of what attracts me also is the total focus that climbing requires. Going up I had to think about every hand hold and every place I was going to put my foot. Going down, I had to think carefully about every step I was going to take lest I twist a knee, sprain and ankle or take a fall. When I got back my room, I noticed I had scrapes all over my leg. I had not even noticed them or my blistered toe, because my mind was so completely focused on the task of climbing up and then down.

Also, there is something concrete about climbing mountains that is refreshing. I spend so much of my time in the realm of ideas and speculation; it is nice to have something tangible to point to as an accomplishment. While ambiguity and critique is a big part of what I do in my work, a mountain is something I can say, “See, there it is and I climbed it.”

I suspect that perhaps part of what drives me to climb mountains is because overall I have lived a fairly privileged and comfortable existence, and I find exhilaration in pushing myself to the edge of survival. People I know who grew up poor, or are poor, generally don’t do things like climb mountains, even though it is a relatively cheap form of exercise, because they have had to scrounge out life to survive each day. Yet for me, climbing mountains pushes me to a place I don’t often go. As I was climbing up the boulders of the Cathedral Trail, I thought, you know, I could die up here. Weird, I know, but somehow it fills a deep need within.

No doubt there is something deeply spiritual about mountains for me. The psalmist wrote: "I lift my eyes to hills, from whence comes my help” (Psalm 121.1). Mountains in some mysterious way remind me of my humbleness and the grandeur of God. Thomas More (Care of the Soul) says that there are inner drives and longings that emanate from deep yearnings within our souls. For me, climbing mountains does something for my soul.

Frankly I am not sure why I get off on climbing mountains. All I know is that when I got back to my car, I felt a huge sense of relief and satisfaction, having tackled one of the most challenging climbs I have ever attempted, and having lived to climb another summer.

The Case for More, Not Less, Religion in Schools

A recent conversation with my daughter and a possible pending Supreme Court case have gotten me thinking about the need for more religion in our public schools. Donna Kay Busch’s case initially caught my attention because it happens to involve the Marple Newtown School District my children attended. Apparently, in 2005 Ms. Busch’s son wanted to have his mother read from his favorite book during “All About Me” week at his local elementary school. However, when his mother came to read out of the Bible, the principal and the school district said no, basing their argument on the separation of church and state. Ms. Busch took her case to court, which she lost at both the District and Appeals court level. She and her lawyers have until August 31 to decide if they will appeal their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope they do.

Now given the fact that Ms. Busch is being represented by the Rutherford Institute, there may be more in the details of this case than meets the eye. The Rutherford Institute is a Christian legal organization that has its roots in the writings of Samuel Rutherford and Rousas J. Rushdoony early proponents of the Christian Reconstructionist movement. Christian Reconstructionism’s stated goal is the implementation of theonomy, the application of Christian Biblical principles in the policies of government; in my view they represent the worst of religion-controlled government the Christian faith can offer. They are the “Puritans - take 2.” Thus, I grant that this case may not be the case to make the case for more religion in school.

However, on the surface I see no justifiable reason why this mother, and any mother or child, should not be allowed to bring their religion to school. Moreover, I believe schools should encourage and promote discussion about religion rather than stifle it. My daughter, Esther, a recent college graduate who majored in religion, made a strong argument to this effect. She expressed frustration that her degree did not enable her to teach religion at the public school level, when a deeper understanding of religion is critical to understanding and addressing many of the problems our nation confronts around the world in places such as Israel, Iraq, Iran, India and many African countries. Her point was that religion plays a huge role in the way people think, make decisions and interpret the world, as well as how governments and nations choose to operate. The current crisis in the Iranian elections is only the most recent example.

In the United States we operate in a schizophrenic manner when it comes to the role of religion in our lives. On the one hand, our presidents finish their speeches with an obligatory “May God Bless America,” and our children pledge allegiance to a “one nation under God,” yet we dare not try to actually talk about what such phrases mean once the school bell rings. Our politicians must walk this tightrope of affirming that they have some sort of religious faith and then pledging that that faith will in no way influence their decision making. In his most recent book, Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama made exactly that point. After taking a chapter to share his own spiritual journey, he finished by saying that a political leader’s religious perspective should not influence one’s policy making. How could that be? If religious faith is that which shapes our worldview and personal values, how can it not affect our decision-making? Who are we kidding? Doesn’t it make more sense for us to be open about our values and the religious systems that shape them, and examine them just like we might examine the evidence from a science project or an historical event?

Perhaps in this regard former President George W. Bush was more honest. He regularly referred to the influence his religious faith had on his decision-making and sought to make federal funds available to religious organizations promoting the common good through his faith-based initiative project. In Oliver Stone’s depiction of Bush in the movie “W.”, Bush’s conversion to Christianity, his sense of “call” to run for president, and his practice of ending White House meetings with a moment of silence were clearly portrayed. Regardless of one's view of Bush’s theology or his politics, Oliver Stone makes clear that religion played a significant role in the way George W. Bush saw the world and to understand George W. Bush one had to understand his religious worldview.

The same could be said of many world leaders. The same could be said of cultures around the world ranging from Iran to Japan to South Africa to Brazil and even the United States. Shouldn’t students be exposed to all the major religious faiths, and even atheism, as a way of understanding the different worldviews from which many of the world’s peoples operate? If students only learn about religion in their place of worship, how will they ever come to a wider appreciation of the diversity of religious views? Expecting an evangelical church to present a credible case for Islam, is like asking Ford to explain all the benefits of a Toyota; it ain’t going to happen in a church or a mosque, but it could happen in school.

Now I am quite aware of the difficulty making religion more a part of public education in a fair and equitable way. The question of who decides what should or should not be taught becomes quite tricky. The ongoing debates over whether or not creationism or evolution ought to be taught in biology classes is a case in point. However, when the framers of the Constitution included the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of religious expression, it was aimed at keeping the government from regulating religious expression and not aimed at keeping religion out of the public square. The First Amendment was designed to keep the government out of the church, not the church (or mosque or temple or ethical society) out of the school. Given the increasing religious pluralism of our society (e.g. there are now more Muslims than Episcopalians in the U.S. and Los Angeles is one of the most diverse Buddhist cities in the world), and the increased need for all people to know and appreciate various worldviews, it only makes sense to encourage study and discussion, and yes, even reading religious texts in schools.

As a starting point secondary school history and social studies classes ought to incorporate a study of religion into their curriculum. In many cases it would simply be a matter of including what has been “cut out” of the existing story. For instance, how can one talk about the European exploration and conquest of North America, or the American Revolution or the Civil War or the Civil Rights movement or 9/11 without talking about the significant influence of religion in those events? Certification for history and social studies teachers should include at least one course in world religions. Local religious leaders could be asked to speak in classes about their particular brand of faith. (Ironically, 15-20 years ago this was the practice in the Marple Newtown School district where the Bible reading case is being contested.) At the primary level religious holidays and events like “All About Me” could encourage families to share their cultural traditions, including those that are religious. Parents who object to such events could have their children “opt out” just as they can for sex education classes. Altogether, these kinds of common sense moves would create an environment for dialogue and mutual understanding rather contention, suspicion and fear. Spirituality and religion has a huge influence on the lives of many people, even those who consider themselves non-religious. Attempts to honestly examine belief systems, values and worldviews can only help create citizenry more knowledgeable about the people and world around them.

Hope and the Culture of Violence

Over the last several months leading up to my arrest in front of Colisimos gun shop and then the five months after that leading up to my trial, I have been made acutely aware of how deeply embedded violence is in U.S. culture. While I was already quite aware of the role violence plays in our culture, being involved in an effort to stop the flow of illegal guns has shown me how irrational the arguments of the NRA and the gun lobby can be. I have come to see more clearly that the struggle in which we are involved has touched a nerve deeply rooted in our cultural DNA. J. Denny Weaver (Anabaptist Theology in the Face of Postmodernity, 2000) has shown how from the very beginning of our nation there has been a clear belief in the link between freedom and guns. A simple search on Google or YouTube of “Freedom and Guns” reveals how prevalent such a belief still is today. In a recent NY times op-ed piece Bob Herbert even suggests that the recent shootings in the Holocaust Museum, Pittsburgh and Wichita, are linked to the NRA-inspired surge in gun purchases since Obama’s election, out of fear that Obama will impose stricter gun control laws.

However, I think the issue goes far deeper than guns or the NRA. We on the progressive end of the political spectrum are as culpable the conservatives we like to lambaste. While the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller was an expression of violence gone wild, so too are the daily abortions he and others like him commit. While the violence on our streets is a concern, so should be the thousands of murders we witness on our favorite TV shows and movies. While we rightly decry violence against police officers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities, what about the violence against innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that is unfortunately (we say) a part of our military strategy? What kind of culture makes it more attractive for poor inner city kids to choose the military and the possibility of dying in war to the staying in their neighborhood and facing the possibility of dying in that neighborhood? While we are not alone in the world as violent, dangerous place, how many weapons large and small are manufactured here and sold to be used in those other places? We wonder about how certain criminals can be so inhumane, and then we put them into a criminal justice system that is so violence-saturated that often people come out more violent than when they went in.

Sadly, religion, especially Christianity, has been a contributing factor to this culture. The pogroms against Jews, the enslavement of Africans and subsequent systematized racism that followed, and the virtual elimination of millions of Native Americans – all by Christian (Protestant and Catholic) Europeans – testify to the debilitating and denigrating role religion has played in the perpetuation of violence against others. A simple YouTube or Google search of “God and Guns” reveals how alive that link still is today. The absurdity of this link was taken to an extreme recently in a Kentucky church that actually had a worship service dedicated to allowing people to openly carry their handguns.

This culture of violence is literally killing us directly and indirectly. We are painfully aware of the direct cost of violence as we watch the evening news. However, Dan Groody (Globalization, Spirituality and Justice, 2007)illustrates the indirect cost by talking what military spending could be used for. If the world redirected its military spending for one day, malaria in Africa could be eliminated. Two days spending could provide the health services to prevent 3 million infant deaths a year. A week's spending could provide education for 140 million children in the developing world. When we examine these costs of violence, we have to ask: what must change?

While the United States is not alone in its addiction to violence, it is too easy for us to either rationalize it, feel overwhelmed by it, or try to simply deny it. Professor John Horgan routinely confronts fatalism in his students regarding the inevitability of war. My guess that a poll of most Americans would reveal that while they favor limits on gun purchases, they are resigned to the fact that the laws probably will never change, and that those of us who try to fight the NRA and the gun lobby are like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Certainly there is good reason for skepticism when common sense laws get thrown about courts, as happened in Philadelphia this week. There is reason for despair when a “one handgun a month" law can’t get passed in PA, but the Congress can pass a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons into national parks. There is reason for frustration when those in the pro-gun lobby continually create confusion and fear by stating that attempts to control the sale of any guns, is tantamount to control the sale of all guns.

There is no question that our cultural addiction to violence remains strong, and yet I remain imminently hopeful not only that gun laws will change, but that we are at a time when the futility of violence and the absurdity of the gun lobby’s arguments are showing them for what they are. I am hopeful because there are many countries in the world, especially Europe and parts of Asia, where societies carry on quite civilly without the need to show bravado through violence.

I remain hopeful because a change in our culture’s addiction to violence will either consume itself or we will change.

I have hope because I believe in a God of Justice and a God of history.

I have hope because I I believe with Paulo Freire that change is difficult, but it can happen.

I remain hopeful because as I study the movements for social change such as happened with civil rights and against nuclear arms, I can see there was a time when it seemed that things would never change. And yet today we have a black man as president who talks about his commitment to abolishing all nuclear weapons; who would've thunk it?.

I remain hopeful because our cause is right and just, and stands on the side of Truth and “Truth crushed to earth is still truth and like a seed will rise again” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

The Widget Effect - Take 2

My last blog responded to Jonathan Alter’s article on a recent report of The New Teacher Project called The Widget Effect. I got curious and decided to read the report myself. I found that Alter fairly summed up the report accurately. Essentially, the New Teacher Project notes the lack of viable systems for evaluating teacher effectiveness in public schools. As such one finds that the overwhelming majority of teachers (90+ %) are given “satisfactory ratings. This practice not only fails to weed out ineffective teachers, but also neglects to recognize and reward truly good teachers. Furthermore, administrators are not adequately trained and equipped to determine which teachers are doing an effective job in the classroom and which ones are not. Thus, teachers are regarded as interchangeable “widgets” which can be equally effective in all situations. This “widget effect” simply perpetuates a sub-par educational system

As far as it goes, the report identifies a realistic concern. As a parent, I was quite cognizant of which teachers seem to “get through” to my children as students, and which ones seem to miss them altogether. While over all I was pleased with the education my children received, there were a few teachers I would have loved to have seen sent their “walking papers.” Likewise I have worked in and with schools, where teacher effectiveness has been a valid concern, and there did not seem to be an easy way to separate the good from the bad, or to get rid of the bad. So as far as it goes, the report makes a good point.

The problem is that this study is narrowly focused on a politically attractive symptom (teachers), and in the process completely ignores the wider context in which the problem of public of education must be discussed. As I read through the report, I saw nothing about the wide range of social and economic circumstances affecting student performance. I read nothing about wide disparities in per student funding created by the antiquated system of funding schools through property taxes. There was nothing included about the total ineffectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act, in which “learning” is equated with test taking. I read nothing about our culture’s misplaced priorities that pays professional athletes, lawyers, doctors and corporate CEOs on one scale and teachers, social workers and childcare workers on another. I also did not see a word about developing curriculum that honors the diverse cultures from which today’s students come.

I share The Widget Effect authors’ concern for raising the bar for our nation’s educational system. However, it is both irresponsible and misleading to assume that teachers operate in a social, political, economic and cultural vacuum. The legendary Brazilian educator Paulo Freire stated that all education is political, and that effective teaching must help students to “read the word and read the world” around them. In other words effective teaching is that which enables both teachers and students to address the major issues and challenges of our world, by treating knowledge not as a commodity to be measured, but rather a problem to be solved. What is needed is not simply a better teacher evaluation system, but rather a whole scale reorientation of values and perspectives on what the meaning and purpose of education truly is. By simply focusing on one aspect of that challenge, The Widget Effect oversimplifies a complex problem, and makes teachers a scapegoat for a failure that all of us in U.S. society have contributed to.

The Problem with the "Teaching Effectiveness" Argument

This brief article was prompted a recent Newseek column by Jonathan Alter (June 15) in which he urges President Obama to push his agenda for teacher effectiveness by funding those programs with “good track records at turning around poorly performing schools and training teachers better.” At the same time he urges Obama not to give into teachers unions and “educrats” who like to spread money around evenly across a wide range of programs, even if some of them show no distinguishing marks of being “successful.”

As far as Alter’s argument goes, I agree that there needs to be greater teacher accountability and greater emphasis on looking for effective models of education outside the current norms of public education. However, Alter, like many of his ilk, is short sighted when it comes to the complexity of the teaching-learning process. While he criticizes “the widget effect,” which suggests that all teachers are equally competent, he seems to assume a corresponding “widget effect” when it comes to students. Moreover, he makes the assumption that everyone knows what “good teaching” is and how to measure it: with the results of a standardized test. These are two assumptions I do not share and must challenge.

My oldest daughter teaches in an alternative school for students with behavioral and emotional problems. These are students who have been removed from their regular public schools because of disruptive and incorrigible behavior. Some days she can spend a better part of her teaching time simply trying to get her students to focus on their lessons. Fortunately, in her school there are a whole host of support services that can help her when a student gets out of hand. She is there to help students not only with math, English and so on, but with managing their lives. Her goal is that after a year they will be able to return to a regular classroom. Apparently, her school has a good track record on doing that. Even so my daughter has often said that if her effectiveness was judged on her students’ test scores, she would be out of a job.

However, one of the political reasons these students are sent to her school is that their test scores bring down the sending school’s average, thus depressing their overall “success” as a school. Her students, once they are in her school as “special ed” kids, aren’t factored into the overall average.

Another young teacher I know is not so lucky, because he teaches math in a Philadelphia public middle school. On a recent visit to the school he confided that nearly half of his students don’t live with their parents, but instead are in foster homes or with relatives because mom and dad are strung out on drugs, in jail, or participating in any number of self-destructive behaviors. As I watched him perform a simple lesson, I could see he was not only teaching them algebra, but also basic concepts like courtesy and respect. However, unlike my daughter, his school did not have all the support services, and thus he was on his own. At the end of the year the standardized tests will reveal him to be an “ineffective teacher” because most of his kids will score well below acceptable levels. While he would agree he has much to learn, in my book he is a hero for teaching on the front lines of difficult school, a place where many “successful” teachers dare never tread.

Having been a teacher myself for nearly 12 years, and having helped many others as a faculty developer, I have had my share of great teaching moments where students really got the subject material I taught them. Yet, I have also bombed. While, I always ask myself how I could have done better, I also recognize that often my “success” is determined by not only by my teaching methods and the academic preparation and motivation of my students, but also a whole host of factors outside the classroom such as family, health, finances, job, and so on. Not only that, each student learns in different ways, bringing in different experiences, and processing information in their own special way. Moreover, there are socio-political factors such as class, race, and social power that enter into the subject matter that is taught. My point is simply students are not uniform “widgets,” and success is far more elusive than most policymakers and columnists would care to admit.

If the Obama administration wants to raise the effectiveness of education, the focus cannot just be on teachers, nor on schools. The problems in education today, are much wider and broader than that. Columnists like Alter and many politicians want simple, sure fire solutions to problems like education. They want simple measures like standardized tests to determine “success" and ‘effectiveness.” However, the task is far more complex and therefore does not lend itself to “silver bullet” answers.

Instead of berating teachers and their unions, the policymakers need to draw on the expertise and passion of the many dedicated educators in our schools. By and large teachers go into their profession because of their love of their subject and of students. Yes, there are bad apples that need to be weeded out. However, by and large teachers offer a valuable service for which they are grossly underpaid, and vastly under-appreciated, no thanks to people like Jonathan Alter.

Recognizing the Lens Through Which We Experience the World

Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh made fools of themselves this past week when they called Supreme Court judge nominee Sonia Sotomayor “racist” for her comments that her background as a Latina from a lower income background might reach a better judicial decision on matters affecting poor people “than a white male who has not lived that life.” Gingrich later retracted labeling the judge herself as “racist” and instead said it was her “words” that were racist. Either way a lot of conservatives (and probably a lot of white people in general) still miss the point of her statement.

Most of us who have grown up white in this country were led to believe that with practice and critical thinking we could reach “impartial” and “objective” decisions on matters of consequence; and so we ran the world that way. The irony and problem was that all the impoverished people of color around the world were asking: “How come when those white people make impartial, objective decisions, it always seem to end up going in their favor.” What all the other folks saw that we whites had (and still have) a hard time seeing is that we were as biased out of our own background and self-interest as any other group. We had deluded ourselves into thinking we were able to “rise above” our own prejudices to see things objectively.

Once when I was on jury duty I was in a jury pool for a young black man who had been accused of breaking and entering a store. As I looked around the 40-50 of us who were being interviewed for the jury, there were only 2-3 black persons, and all middle or upper middle class, and I thought “this is not a jury of this man’s peers.” I was shortly dismissed from the jury pool, so I don’t know who ended up on the jury, but I am sure that man did not see a reflection of himself. That jury was not able to make an “impartial” decision about that defendant. Our middle class upbringing influenced us to see that man in a certain light: young, black, poor, and probably guilty. My guess is the young man’s true peers would have viewed him differently and used different adjectives to describe him. We can do the best we can to be “fair” and “impartial,” but the fact is that all of us see the world in a certain way because of our background

I appreciate Sonia Sotomayor’s candor about the impact her life experience has on her judgment because it forces all of us to consider how our judgments, values, prejudices and preferences are shaped by our life experiences. Just like Sotomayor, it is not that we don’t consider facts, principles and (in her case) the law, but the lens through which we view those “objective” elements is literally shaped by how we were raised, who we grew up with, the experiences we have had, and the socioeconomic conditions in which we lived. Given her background Sotomayor will provide a valuable addition to a Supreme Court that currently reflects the backgrounds of only a small segment of the U.S. population. Like the President who nominated her, Sotomayor brings a new set of eyes to a role that requires a diverse set of opinions and perspectives.

For me, Sotomayor’s comments don’t strike me as prejudicial at all, but rather remind me that I need to listen more intently to those whose experiences and backgrounds are vastly different than my own, so that perhaps I might be able to see and have a feel for life experiences that I missed or from which I was spared. I don’t begrudge my privileged background except in the ways it may have inadvertently damaged or diminished others, but I won’t know how others are or were affected until I step back and realize I need to listen first, and speak second.