Dear family

The last Wednesday morning I felt such disconnect between sky and soul was Sept. 12, 2001. Today, as then, dawned sunny, clear and warm, a climatological feat for early November in southern Wisconsin. Both then and now, the cloudless sky masks a mood of despondency.

Regardless of where our Electoral College takes us, we are a troubled lot. I'm no political scientist, but tell me if this seems true:

"Conservatives" disdain "liberals" because of their perception of government overreach, hyper-regulation, infringement of personal freedom, and bureaucracy run amok. This seems to be a reasonable perspective held by rational people.  

"Anti-Trump" voters disdain "Trump supporters" because they can't comprehend how reasonable, rational people can support an elected official who is politically incoherent, openly conspiratorial, intentionally divisive, and narcissistically incapable of recognizing truth. This seems to be a reasonable perspective held by rational people.

The identifications in "scare quotes," to me, indicate why there is no compromise. We're not having the same conversation. 

Those who identify as conservatives dismiss Trump's errant behavior because he has coalesced their anger against the common enemies he has contrived: the political establishment, media and science. He declares himself the unequivocal kingpin against those foes. 

Those who identify as anti-Trump cannot fathom how their friends and family support a president whose behavior would not be accepted in civil conversation at their own family dinner table with their children watching.

Am I wrong about these two characterizations?

There are, of course, dedicated statesmen and stateswomen who can vigorously debate governance according to reasonable progressive and conservative principles. 

But when a conservative sees a Biden T-shirt, they think: Liberal elite snowflake. 

When an anti-Trumper sees a MAGA hat, they think: How can you support this cruel, obnoxious braggart?

[This is where the economy is offered as justification for the current president's qualifications for office. It is worth studying economic growth during the presidencies of Truman onward. Can we agree the economy itself is neither Republican nor Democrat?]

I don't know how to bridge these divides. 

If "politics" denotes the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups, governing the relationships among individuals in a society for their common good, then politics are certainly debatable but not inherently vitriolic.

Bob Hood used to say (I'm told) that a person needs the chance to draw their neck in gracefully now and again. Ann can correct my misquote. The idea is to create a space of quiet reflection before re-engaging conversation.

In history, an interregnum was the period between regimes following a particularly difficult reign.

We as a country need an interregnum. We need a timeout. A chance to draw our neck in gracefully.

I have spent equal time in disbelief and anger the past four years. Today, I am simply crestfallen. It's not because anyone has won or lost. We don't even know the outcome yet. 

It's the realization that if we don't change ourselves, it won't matter much who wins.

Gasping for Air, Grasping for Words

Whether we have awakened this morning to a city in smoke in ashes, or we sit saddened and stunned by the images we’ve watched these past six days from the relative security of our homes, we are tired.

We are tired of violence, tired of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. And we didn’t begin with much in our emotional reserves, because we are tired of the coronavirus, tired of quarantining and the social disruption we have endured these past 2½ months.

George Floyd
Photo: WTAP-TV

This morning, we are all the members of the choir of the Bible’s book of Psalms as we cry out together: “How long, O Lord? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” [Psalm 13:1-2]

It will be hard for us to shake the images of our cities burning, of shattered glass and neighborhoods overtaken and freeways closed and the angry shouts emanating from Minneapolis all across this nation.

But I have been called into accountability this week by being reminded the image that matters most is the one that began it all: an officer’s knee pressed for minutes on end upon George Floyd’s neck, which ended with the death of a 46-year-old black man who was being apprehended for reportedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

Listen to the words of former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak:

“Sleepless and mortified, my heart melts in real-time as parts of the city I love so deeply burn away. Knowing these neighborhoods as I do I see way too clearly what is going up in smoke. ...

“It is nearly impossible to get these horrifying images out of our heads, but we must, because right now our eyes have to stay focused on one single image:

“A human being, staring calmly off into the middle distance, while his knee suffocates another human being. Our repulsion should boil over as we see this is a white police officer, who took an oath to protect and serve that person on the ground, who is a black man, who we know would not be treated like that if he was white.”

The complexities of the protest and civil unrest that have followed Floyd’s death are beyond what we can address in these few minutes this morning. They are worth our attention, our conversation, our sorting out.

It should be noted that what we have seen the past several nights are not just the protests of disenfranchised people of color who have viscerally experienced the death of an unarmed black man. The violence has, by credible accounts, been stoked by random trouble-makers as well as right-wing agitators, many of them white, who have driven to our city centers to literally ignite the flames of racial conflict with senseless looting. They have helped destroy, in fact, small businesses and livelihoods of the very persons of color who have already been sickened by George Floyd’s death.

A former St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter, Linda Owen, remarked: “In one week we've gone from flyover country to the center of some kind of existential battleground, and we're not even sure who the combatants are.”

The confusion of recent days ought not diminish the genuine anguish crying out to be heard. For those of us who are white, it is perhaps a time to listen more than speak.

How fitting that today in the Christian church is Pentecost Sunday. In the early church, Pentecost was once the second greatest celebration of the Christian year, following Easter. It was the day to commemorate the Holy Spirit coming down upon God’s people.

 It is the story of the 2nd chapter of Acts. Not long after Jesus’ resurrection, the people had gathered in one place for the spring harvest festival, when suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible, in fact, says the Spirit appeared as tongues of fire. The image of Pentecost Sunday is often fire, and songs are often sung on Pentecost of the church being on fire for the Lord.

Maybe our normal celebrations of Pentecost are too tame. Maybe today we see that fire is not a docile symbol of some warm and fuzzy feeling but is the presence of something that easily escapes our control. Fire that can both warm our hearts as well as express the rage that lies within.

After the incomprehensible killing of a black man and the violence that follows, it's cliche for a white preacher to invoke the words of Martin Luther King Jr. King would have understood Pentecost. He was an ordained preacher who earned his Ph.D. at a Methodist seminary.

The images of this past week don't look much different than they did in 1967 when King wrote in The Other America:

"I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."

To be black in America, to be a person of color amidst the privilege of whiteness, is to be gasping for a language in which to be heard. The miracle of Pentecost becomes that those upon whom the Spirit landed as tongues of fire began to understand each other, though they came from different places and spoke different languages. It was a miracle of hearing. Lord, in your mercy, we ask again for the miracle of hearing.

I will venture that many people hearing my voice share the same privilege I do. We go through each day giving little thought to our personal safety based on the color of our skin.

If I had walked into a store and for some reason was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, and if I became scared and ran, it is a near certainty that my pursuit and capture would not end with me gasping for life.

As George Floyd gasped the words, “I can’t breathe.”

The same words Eric Garner gasped while in an officer’s choke hold before his death on New York’s Staten Island in 2014.

As Parker Palmer writes, “I can’t breathe” are words that thousands of lynching victims in this country might have said as they died, words that freedom-seekers now living in limbo south of our border could say as they watch their dreams and sometimes their children die.

“I can’t breathe,” Parker continued, might have been the dying words of the 100,000 + American victims of COVID-19 just before they were intubated, deaths that have hit communities of color the hardest.

Palmer concludes by saying, if you or I walked down the street and heard a stranger say, “I can’t breathe,” we’d dial 911. We’d stay with the stranger until help arrived and do anything we could, the Heimlich maneuver, or CPR, or a hand to hold. We would NOT walk on by as if nothing were happening.

We can’t walk by now. The church considers its birth to have occurred on the first Pentecost. The church’s source of life is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is also known through Scripture by its Hebrew name: Ruach. It means breath.

To all who gasp for breath, let us all, you and I, listen to anyone who says, “I can’t breathe,” and be whom Christ calls us to be to them.

Let us pray, for:

The family of George Floyd, as they grieve privately, even as their loved one’s death has incited a public mourning across this nation.

The complex and bewildering tangle of racism, the evil weed sown long ago in the garden of humanity, that entwines and entraps us.

White privilege, which is so prevalent that we take it for granted and don’t even think about it.
Institutionalized racism, that although laws ended segregation and discrimination in the 1960s, these changes did not go to sufficient death to transform the systems and institutional structures that are responsible for the misuse of power.

Recognizing that conflict is inevitable when diverse peoples come together, and that it is not conflict that is our greatest problem but our inability to resolve it as people of God.

That dismantling racism is about tearing down and building up. That there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven, as Ecclesiastes tells us.

It is exhausting work, O God. Give us the will, give us strength, give us breath. The breath of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

This message was preached on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020, to the online community from Milton (Wis.) United Methodist Church, after a week of rioting across the U.S. following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Thank you to the Rev. Allie Scott for sharing the words of Parker Palmer. Prayer adapted from Understanding & Dismantling Racism by Joseph Barndt, © 2007 Fortress Press.

Getting my heart in the right place

I confess I have not always been as faithful as I would like during this time. I think I’ve been faithful to God and my call, but I have fallen prey more often than I would like to the negativity and division I see in the world.

Like the apostle Paul, I find myself doing the things I ought not do. Like reading comment threads on political posts and news stories, or talking back to the television. (I suppose Paul actually didn’t do that.) Too often I become jaded at human nature, to the detriment of my spirit.

My shock at how partisan we are is actually a naïve reaction, because it’s a biblical narrative as old as time. We all get to choose whom we serve, whether it is political party, lowercase gods, or ego. Opening ourselves in relationship to the holy humbles us, because it opens us to one another.

The platform we are privileged to share on social media gives us an inordinate entitlement to being “right,” which is far from a humble impulse. My confession is that too often, I succumb to that temptation: to be persuaded of my own “rightness” and seeking to align myself with those who perpetuate that elevated bit of self-absorption. Which is much different than opening myself humbly to my fellow sojourners in life.

Sitting here this evening, on my screened-in back porch with birds singing and dog at my side, knowing Ann is out with her horse on the trail, I am brought to a place of uncomplicated gratitude. Tonight, at least, it matters less whether you or I are on the right side of history than realizing our common good is inextricably linked to one another. Whether I am right or wrong will matter less than whether I live with empathy and compassion.

Postscript:

As friends have suggested in response, we are still called to stand up for the right and good. My faith tradition has always made that clear. To paraphrase a former professor, caring for one another is an art.

There is a place for righteous anger, and a time to act on it. For me, it's become imperative to tend to my heart and evaluate its motives. Anger and hate can too easily become roommates, and when that happens my heart's home becomes a cluttered mess.

The cardinal virtues in 2020

We have endured pandemics and plagues throughout history. We have never had the scientific ability to address them as we do now.

However, we’ve never been as acculturated to expect immediate results as we are today. Patience is not our virtue.

Viruses are ignorant of cultural expectations, and pandemics are not brief house guests. They overstay their welcome.

The 1918 influenza (e.g. Spanish flu, which actually began in Kansas) lasted for 15 months. That is the short end of most pandemics.

We have unprecedented science and knowledge to address Covid-19. We have historically unmatched financial resources, albeit unequally distributed.

Do we have the will? Plato (and the Bible) stated the case still relevant today: can we appeal to the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance and fortitude for such a time as this?

The Bible recasts those virtues as faith, hope and love. The greatest of these ...

I miss worshiping with my congregation. But ...

Thankfully, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declined the request Sunday (April 5) of Republican legislators who called for the resumption of in-person services for Easter and Passover.

But to the hubris of the suggestion in the first place: No. No on so many levels. Not the least of which is that the first rule of our faith is to do no harm. Do we miss worshiping together? Emphatically yes. This social distancing is a devastating blow to our expression of Christian community.

Is the church essential? We certainly believe so. But it is idol worship to assert that our desire to be together trumps the necessary precautions asked of schools and other entities to protect our public health. A loving God would not wish us to flaunt our faith in arrogant disregard for the vulnerability of our communities.

These lawmakers' ill-advised statements leave those of us seeking to responsibly minister to our faith communities having to reiterate again and again the need to listen to public health officials and stay home. "Do no harm."

The request of these lawmakers also is disturbingly on trend with the false narrative spun in the halls of government: That one party represents God's interests, and that the other is antagonistic to faith.

That Republicans would feign to speak for people of faith at such a precarious time is only the latest calculation designed to appease right-leaning voters in the name of religious values.

That Democrats disengaged from the conversation decades ago leaves them maddeningly ineffectual if not sadly silent in such public dialogues.

None of this should be surprising, any more than the president's disingenuous pining for the churches to be "packed" on Easter as a way to disguise with a religious cloak his contempt for science and knowledge.

We are, after all, entering Holy Week. When the Galilean sage Jesus so challenged the self-interested motives of government that it led to his death. Every time we worship the government, especially when it claims to speak for God, we unwittingly join the angry mob in rooting for the wrong savior.

We will, with deep sadness, not worship together this Easter Sunday. Not because we don't believe God will protect us. But so that God will save us for all the good that needs to be done during and after this time of pandemic.

Rev. Steve Scott, Milton United Methodist Church, Special to the Journal Sentinel, Published 9:09 p.m. CT April 5, 2020

When systems theory negates grace

We have done well to learn and adapt systems theory to groups of human interaction: family, workplace and church, for example.

Thanks to Edwin Friedman and others, we understand our behavior is shaped by those with whom we interact. An assertive adult may become passive as the child they once were when reunited with family at Thanksgiving. An introvert among peers may emerge gregarious among those older or younger. A conflictual personality in one setting may be serene in another.

Systems theory allows us to gain deeper understanding of the groups in which we work and live. It can help us see where change is needed and understand why it's resisted. (Systems tend to preserve themselves more readily than adapting.)

image by Emaze

It's specious, however, to blame everything on "the system."

"The media are dishonest." "Government is corrupt." "The church is broken."

Yes, systems can promulgate (or protect) dishonesty, corruption and brokenness. But it's superficial, and too easy, to blame everything on the system.

"The church is broken," for example. Yes, the church too often falls far short of Jesus' command to welcome, teach and heal in his name. But to blame everything on "the system" is like saying all politicians are crooks. I've had both politicians and preachers in my family, so I guess I take exception.

Whenever I hear someone begin "The church ..." or "the media ..." I'm on alert that an expression of pain and frustration is to follow. I need to listen. I need to honor the person's experience. But by "the church" do they mean all of Christendom? Am I to blame the entire enterprise, given my knowledge that most of the church members I know are doing their best?

I resonate with Lillian Daniel, who wrote Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To. I don't mean to negate real experiences of real pain caused by neglectful or harmful practices by the church. Even, or especially, those perpetuated by systems of embedded power and privilege by the few over the many.

(I listened to the stories of too many victims of clergy sexual abuse to not be horrified by "the church's" tendency to cover-up sin and crime. But it's intellectually lazy of me to castigate every priest, even as I weep with the victims.)

Recently, a colleague was unfortunately slighted in a most untimely way by a promised action that wasn't acted upon. I resonated with their disappointment. But that disappointment, vented in a public way, became a denunciation of "the system."

"The system," in fact, included me. And others who worked very hard. And a ball was dropped. Quite unfortunately, I might add. The "process" suffered from a most untimely glitch. Is the "system" broken? That's the easy assertion, when we take systems theory to the point where the complexities of human interaction are reduced to a matrix of inevitable right or wrong behavior.

We need to take responsibility when our "process" fails. But when we blame everything on "the system," we leave little room for understanding the dynamics of human error, forgiveness and grace that govern our relationships with each other.