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We’ve Got To Build A Better Politics

February 11, 2016

Yesterday, President Obama spoke to the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield. I have been to the Old Capitol Building with its marvelous statue of Abraham Lincoln (see the picture from 2013) several times rallying for responsible gun control legislation. The President was returning to the scene of his beginnings in politics to plead for a return to compromise and, most of all, civility in politics.

This is perhaps nowhere more sorely needed than in the Illinois State Legislature, mired in a battle with the new governor which has resulted in an unprecedented state budget impasse. If you think politics in Washington DC are broken, come see us in Illinois! I have just completed a term as Assisting Bishop in Chicago and live in the Quad Cities which span the Mississippi so I keep up with political goings-on both in Iowa and Illinois. We are affected by both!

Among the areas highlighted by President Obama as needing immediate attention:

Limiting influence of big money in politics.
Changing the way congressional districts are drawn.
Making it easier for voters to register and cast ballots.
Engaging in more respectful political discourse.

Some have criticized the President for calling for changes in Illinois he has not been able to implement nationally, but I would submit that because of his frustration about much that has been left unaccomplished in his administration, he sees more clearly than most what now needs to be done. I hope he will continue to work at these goals after his term in office is complete.

And, I hope whoever is elected President will begin immediately to address these issues. According to reports from Springfield, Democrats stood and applauded when he called for making it easier to register and vote; Republicans did the same when he mentioned redistricting reforms. So there can be bipartisan support for some of these things.

We just need to be sure that whoever we elect POTUS, is willing and able to work in a bipartisan manner. I concur with this quote from President Obama:

“This situation we find ourselves in today is not somehow unique or hopeless. We’ve always gone through periods when our democracy seems stuck, and when that happens, we have to find a new way of doing business. We’re in one of those moments now. We’ve got to build a better politics, one that’s less of a spectacle and more of a battle of ideas, one that’s less of a business and more of a mission, one that understands the success of the American experiment rests on our willingness to engage all our citizens in this work.”

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We confess to you AND TO ONE ANOTHER

February 10, 2016

Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in thought word and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. (Page 267, The Book of Common Prayer)

So begins the “Litany of Penitence” Episcopalians use on this Ash Wednesday. As much as I value the forty days of Lent as a season for prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, I must admit to increasing discomfort with our focus on begging for mercy from God, often seemingly groveling before the Holy One as “miserable sinners” not worthy to “gather up the crumbs under (God’s) table.”

Our sins don’t hurt God nearly as much as they hurt one another and ourselves. How much better if we said these words from our General Confession to each other, to the ones we have actually hurt and wronged by our thoughtless and selfish behavior:

“…I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart; I have not loved my neighbor (either). I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. For the sake of…Jesus Christ…have mercy on me and forgive me…”

I think we need to spend a whole lot more time this Lent asking one another for forgiveness and seeking to amend our lives for those many ways we have sinned against one another. Including the broader, actually more important, categories than we usually confess, such as those included farther down in that same Litany of Penitence:

“…all our past unfaithfulness, the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives…our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people…our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves…our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work…our waste and pollution of…creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.”

Yes, we have plenty of need for a season of “penitence and fasting.” Let’s just have the courage to confess our sins and ask forgiveness of the ones we have actually wounded — one another.

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A Tuesday That Is Really Fat

February 9, 2016

Every Shrove Tuesday I think of Bill Sanderson. He was a priest in a neighboring parish in Cocoa Beach, Florida and was in a clergy, lectionary-study group with me for six or seven years. We also played tennis together several days a week for some of those years.

I think of Bill on this day because he was something of an iconoclast and, on Shrove Tuesdays, Bill and his parish eschewed the usual “pancake supper” and held instead a steak and wine dinner. His point was, if we’re going to fast, let’s really fast and if we’re going to feast, let’s really feast.

The parish I attend now does something of the same thing. While sticking to the traditional pancake supper, they feature really good, live jazz music offered by the Manny Lopez trio, a local celebrity and his friends. The mood is entirely festive and an appropriate way to feast before the fast begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday.

As Christians, I’m afraid we’ve really leveled out and tamed the annual cycles of feasting and fasting. Very few of us give up anything particularly significant for Lent beyond desserts or chocolate. And, with the possible exception of a few champagne receptions after the Easter Vigil, we don’t even celebrate together with much gusto.

All this is, I think, to our impoverishment. Of course, we don’t “have” to fast. We certainly should not do it to earn God’s favor or punish ourselves with some kind of penance. But, denying ourselves something, saying No to ourselves in small things can in fact strengthen our spiritual muscles so that we can say No when it is really important in life — No to cheating on our taxes…or on our spouses. No to drugs. No to revenge and violence.

Nor, I suppose, do we “have” to feast. Only if we want to celebrate the incredible gift of this fantastic universe and the beautiful “earth, our island home” on which we live. Only if we are grateful to have awakened this morning to another day of living and moving and having our being together as colleagues, friends, and lovers. Only if we recognize that none of this comes to us because we have earned it. But only because

God is good…all the time! All the time…God is good!

And that calls for a Celebration.

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Beethoven’s Seventh and the Superbowl

February 8, 2016

We had an enjoyable night at the symphony last weekend. Our fine conductor, Mark Russell Smith, has done an outstanding job with our Quad City Symphony over the years and their hard work has certainly paid off. An Edvard Grieg all-strings suite (the Holberg) was a charming Baroque-like dance and featured violist Livia Sohn did a splendid job with Samuel Barber’s energetic Concerto, Op. 14.

Maestro Smith introduced the second half of the program by reminding us that it was Super Bowl Sunday and that we should, at the end of the concert, ponder the question, “Which takes more energy: The Super Bowl halftime show or Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony?” Chuckling, he suggested, “You know the answer to that!”

Besides the fact that neither this year’s Super Bowl game nor its halftime show lived up to expectations, I think Mark’s observation is correct. I have loved the driving rhythmic motives of Beethoven’s Seventh since college days and I can honestly say I have rarely heard it better performed than last Saturday night. Four standing O’s suggest the audience felt the same.

During the intermission, Susanne engaged a couple of young women sitting near us, a new mother on a Mom’s night out with her younger college friend. They had played stringed instruments in school and were thoroughly enjoying themselves. But when Susanne asked them how many of their friends liked classical music, one of them looked around at the milling audience and said, “It is sort of like being in a nursing home, isn’t it?”

I thought, “Yeah, and like being in my church most Sundays!” I wonder if there is a connection between the lack of interest of so many younger people in church and their absence in church? Since my church at least seems to major in pretty traditional music and hymnody, the connection seems likely. Yet, we hear from so many of them that just featuring “contemporary” music and dumbing down the liturgy is not what they are interested in. They want us to be authentic…and to walk our talk out there in the real world.

Maybe if we really did those things, younger folks might hang in there with us long enough to experience the soul lifting involvement with a fine organ, choir and the full congregational participation that liturgical worship, at its best, can provide.

There’s as much energy in that as in even a good Super Bowl halftime show!

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In The Light of His Glory and Grace

February 7, 2016

Turn your eyes upon Jesus/ Look full in his wonderful face; And the things of earth will grow strangely dim/ in the light of his glory and grace.

I remember singing the words to this sweet (maybe even saccharine!) hymn in a dimly lit chapel at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Winter Park, Florida as a young teenager. We would always close our youth group meeting with a quiet service of Compline in the little chapel. The two texts we would sing were, invariably, the Nunc Dimittis and this little song.

For all its simplicity, the words convey the central theme of the Transfiguration which we celebrate this Sunday, and perhaps the central claim of the Christian faith. Which is: that when we look at Jesus of Nazareth, we can see all we need to know about God.

Our complicated trinitarian dogmas enshrined in fourth-century creeds attempt to tell us a whole lot more about God than that and they were noble attempts to explain the unexplainable and define the indefinable. But they often do more harm than good when they are seen as a kind of theological litmus test for ‘true believers.’

The God of the universe, the Source of all that is, the Ground of our very Being is far beyond anything we can fathom or get our minds around. But our claim, as Christians, is that — just like Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration — when we turn our eyes upon Jesus. And look full on his wonderful face. Then the things of earth (including our need to say more than we need to say about God ) will grow strangely dim. In the light of his glory and grace.

When we look at Jesus, we can see all we need to know about God.

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What Does “Walking Together” Really Mean?

February 6, 2016

Much has been made in recent weeks about the Anglican Primates’ meeting and their decision to continue to “walk together” as a world communion despite disagreements, chiefly in the area of marriage equality. I join many in affirming that decision and yet, given the “consequences” suggesting that the Episcopal Church be excluded from sending representatives to certain global church forums, I wonder what “walking together” really means in this case.

In a recent press release from the Vatican headlined Pope extends new olive branch to China, “the pope explained that his view of dialogue is one in which neither side compromises or carves out its foothold, but both decide to ‘walk together’ respecting differences.'” The phrase “walk together” is obviously what captured my attention, but the fact that it is book-ended by “neither side compromises or carves out its foothold” and “respecting differences” is what is really important.

If the Bishop of Rome can foresee walking together with an officially atheistic nation, respecting the vast differences but not seeking to compromise or carve out its foothold, surely sisters and brothers in the Anglican Communion can find a way for its various Provinces to do the same.

Otherwise, what indeed does “walking together” really mean?

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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

February 4, 2016

Several months ago”Spotify” began making available the entire Beatles corpus, as usual free of charge and available through their Ap on smart phones or whatever. Since then I have spent some enjoyable and nostalgic hours listening to some of this music from my youth, happily “shuffle playing” the songs so that I never really know what to expect next.

I will never forget the first time I heard a Beatles’ song on the radio. I must have been about fifteen and tooling around Orlando with my best friend in his car. It was likely “She Loves Me” or “I Want To Hold Your Hand” – not by any means their finest but enough to get me hooked for life. I had been pretty deeply involved in the coffee house, folk music scene, even playing in a very amateur folk duo with another friend. But this was something totally different.

Listening to them again, consistently after so many years, I am amazed at their evolution as musicians, at the sheer variety of musical styles in which they were comfortable. You get this sense particularly when hearing songs that were never really best sellers, but which may have appeared on an album somewhere down the play list or maybe even never made it on the world stage.

This can range from classic, early-twangy rock and roll, to dreamy ballads, to what sometimes sounds like 1920s honky tonk, to the circus band of Sgt. Pepper, and of course to the psychedelic, drug influenced meditations of their later years. Listening carefully can also reveal their reflection of the 1960s/1970s culture of which they were so much a part.

They struggled with how to fit together the “flower child” social revolution; the drug scene; the Indian mysticism of George Harrison, John Lennon’s poetic, darker side; Paul McCartney’s genius…and of course the adulation, the money, the rocky relationships between them. But somehow, through it all, this blue collar team from Liverpool captured something of a generation in flux, the birth pangs of — if not the Age of Aquarius — then at least the dawning of a new consciousness in a generation that is still influencing and impacting the world today.

The Beatles did not create that consciousness, but they accurately reflected it in all its glory and confusion, its sins and its redemptive qualities. It is truly, more than the Rolling Stones’ or other representatives of the British invasion, the music of my generation.

It is good to hear it, in its entirety, once again.

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Biblical Leadership

February 3, 2016

As I read Psalm 72 this morning, I thought about how it is a really pretty good summary of what might be called “biblical leadership.” At least, these are the qualities the psalmist sought in the “ideal king.” In this political season, when so many are wearing their faith on their sleeves, perhaps this psalm might be a good reflection piece for us all:

(Verse) 1 Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the King’s Son — so what does justice and righteousness mean here? Read on:

2. That he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice — so, “rulers” are to treat poor folks “rightly” and with justice.

3. That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, and the little hills bring righteousness — assuring economic security and justice for all is part of the role.

4. He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor — sounds like “a preferential option for the poor” to me. Beware, oppressors!

7b. there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more — rulers are to be peacemakers.

9. His foes shall bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust — yes, there is a “commander in chief” role here, in our broken world.

12. For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, and the oppressed who has no helper. 13 He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; he shall preserve the lives of the needy. 14. He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence, and dear shall their blood be in his sight — sounds like the ideal leader has compassion for those in the realm who are victims of violence and mourns every loss of life (maybe even with tears).

15. Long may he live! And may there be given to him gold from Arabia; may prayer be made for him always, and may they bless him all the day long — best wishes and adequate support must be given the ideal ruler. And it wouldn’t hurt to offer our prayers and blessing as well!

Interesting how much more attention is give to the leader’s concern and actions for the poor than to “national security.” Both are there. It’s just that justice is at the heart of the people’s security. Or, so it seems to me.

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Ready for a Change?

February 2, 2016

“Well, the good thing is, we don’t have to hear about the ridiculous Iowa caucuses for another four years,” tweeted a (perhaps snobbish) Californian this morning. Well, I understand the rap on our caucus process — rural, “flyover” state, mostly white, only a relatively small percentage of folks turn out, etc, etc, etc.

But, if you stood in the midst of very average, but extremely knowledgeable people of all ages (and, believe it or not, colors) in church basements, elementary school libraries, community centers, and saw their passion — and yet patience — with the admittedly messy process, I don’t think you would call it “ridiculous.”

Not unless you want to ridicule good people who are trying to make our democracy work. Iowans don’t claim to have the last word in this, or any, political season. But, we do have the first. There are all kinds of other contests, big state and small, north and south, primary and caucus. It will all shake out in due course. But, for now, we have had our say. And, to a person, the candidates are grateful for the way they are treated and the seriousness with which Iowans take their politics.

As to this year, the only surprise for me was Rubio’s surge. Our conservative evangelicals were sure to pick Cruz. Trump still brings out angry, disillusioned people who apparently will vote against their own best interests. I would have thought a Kasich, or even Rand Paul surge more likely than Marco, but there you have it. Now, if he could only return to his optimistic vision, personal story, and show up occasionally for Senate votes, he might be a real contender.

I knew Bernie Sanders would do well with our “lefter-than-average” Democratic base, but was surprised how well he did. If only he really could lead a “revolution” and turn over both Houses, this country would be infinitely better off. Again, I think that’s unlikely and will continue to support to “pragmatic progressive,” Hillary Clinton. But, I’m going to keep my eye on Bernie.

Maybe this country really is ready for a change…for a change!

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