The cost of passivity....

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics

is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

- Attributed to Plato (The Republic, 1:347)

Among his myriad contributions to the development of the discipline of psychology was Sigmund Freud's identification of the id as a fundamental component of human personality. Many of us may have first learned about this construct - of ego, super-ego and id - in a high school psychology course long ago, during which time it was quite popular to regarded ironically, but, in hindsight, that is truly an error in judgment. Why? Because today we see the id run amok in the person of someone who is supposed to be our leader - which, heretofore, has meant that he should embody the best in us - but whose actual behavior seems largely ungoverned by any humane restraint of the ego or super-ego. In sum, we have elected our id to be president and the impacts of this lapse in judgment are as horrifying as they are far-reaching.

Who among us believed just a few short years ago that an admitted sexual predator could be elected to our nation's highest office? Who among us believed that a man so thoroughly and utterly committed to the perpetuation of the -isms that continue to plague our society would be given the largest platform in the world in order to do so? Who among us believed that we could choose to elevate someone whose behavior is so thoroughly unworthy of emulation? And yet all of this has occurred and so much more….

According to Wikipedia,

The id (Latin for "it", German: Es) is the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic instinctual drives. ... The id contains the libido which is the primary source of its eventual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality.

The id 'knows no judgments of value: no good or evil, no morality. ... (It contains) the death instinct, (which) would thus seem to express itself - though probably only in part - as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms' through aggression.

One can't but help notice the parallels between 45's behavior and this description of the id. For example, we can debate whether he is immoral or amoral, but there's no question that he demonstrates "an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms through aggression." Further, there is no arguing that he often appears to be "unresponsive to the demands of reality."

"So what?," you may be tempted to ask … which is actually a fair question, so let's address it:

Our very society and the rules by which we've negotiated it in this country for centuries are under siege. Our government, which was ostensibly to be drained of the swamp creatures who steered its focus to narrow and private benefits, has instead been morphed into a platform for corruption and for repression on an unparalleled scale: how else can one describe the self-serving policy prescriptions of so many Cabinet members and the president himself, as well as the abject inhumanity that has been consistently on display, especially relative to People of Color, be they citizens, immigrants, asylum-seekers or simply neighbors from other parts of the world?

Also in, our financial well-being is being rent asunder as massive tax cuts for the few who have the most will be paid for by the children and grandchildren of the many who have increasingly less. In less than two years' time, this administration has made our society measurably more unequal and less democratic, and its judicial appointments will likely serve to maintain if not expand this for quite some time.

And our standing in the world has been greatly eroded, in no small part due to the horrifying and morally indefensible embrace of autocratic leaders around the world, coupled, ironically, with the creation of testy and thus frayed relations with historical allies. As if we believe that in a completely globalized world we can engage in a sort of isolationism that will allow us to reap the benefits of progress without paying any of its costs.…

I could go on, but what's the point?

Just this: that when you take democracy for granted and assume that progress is inevitable, you end up learning the hard way that the forces of regression may ebb but they never disappear. Further, you learn that ignorance is hideously costly, as the enthusiastic embrace of 45 and his policies that denigrate the very quality of life of his supporters demonstrates: perhaps we would be OK watching this train wreck if it weren't so palpably clear that it affects virtually all of us as well. Unless you're among the elite, the impacts of the strategic choices will diminish your quality of life in the present and that of your children and grandchildren in the future. After all, they're going to be paying for our deficits for decades to come.…

So if we choose to learn this lesson in real time, among many things, it means that we cannot and will not take democracy for granted, especially by failing to exercise our franchise consistently. The recent midterm elections highlighted several things that are of import to our more effective embrace of the entirety of our rights, including that our system has flaws that we need to address and that despite these flaws a more significant exercise of our right to vote can result in meaningful, positive change.

This is not a partisan statement, but a democratic one: I urge everyone to vote, especially so that whatever the results we can rest assured that they reflect the true will of the people ... which is not the case when a minority of us choose to cast our ballots.

So, in this spirit, let's put an end to a self-harming fiction to which too many of us have subscribed over the years: every vote does indeed count. In fact, there have been few periods of history that demonstrate this more clearly than the 21st century: from the "hanging chad" debacle in Florida in 2000, to the election of President Obama driven by an historic number of newly registered voters in 2008, to the failure to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 because many of the more recently enfranchised did not return to the polls as powerfully and consistently (which, when combined with the flaw of the Electoral College, resulted in the election of yet another [Republican] president who lost the popular vote).  In this latest instance, 70,000 additional votes in three battleground states would have ushered in a very different result (which, given the realities of the current administration, is virtually impossible to argue that it would be worse...).

And let's stay mindful of the proof that occurred earlier this month: the midterm elections, featuring a much higher participation rate by eligible voters (many of whom were new registrants) - sound familiar? - resulted in a very distinct curb - if not rebuke - of the current administration and its inhumanity.  It is absolutely critical that we continue to build on this momentum, especially as we work to repair the damage that the Id-in-Chief and his minions have so joyfully inflicted upon us.  Don't get me wrong, we can still argue over policy, but we cannot support the active disenfranchisement of the many by the few, as this is, ultimately, self-harming and -defeating.

In sum, it's up us to be the ego that curtails the actions of the cadre of id-enabling sycophants who've infested our government ... until such time that we learn from our mistakes and hold aspirants to our highest offices to standards of character and competence that inure to the benefit of the many, too.  Will the few always have an outsized influence in our society?  Yes, in all likelihood.  But it is very much possible to effect a far better and more sustainable balance than we have now, which is our collective charge: to restore the small "d" democracy in our large "D" one ... and thereby to live out the promise of our founding creeds for all of our fellow citizens and those who aspire to be alike....

Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.  We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

A new 'normal' that's not....

If the American people will only keep their temper,

on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end,

and the question which now distracts the country will be settled

just as surely as all other difficulties of like character

which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

- President(-Elect) Abraham Lincoln

What did you see this past week during the hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee? No doubt, your interpretation will reflect your politics, at least to a meaningful degree. In the spirit of full disclosure, so do my observations … but, truth be told, there was far more than we anticipated on display. It involuntarily occasioned in me the resort to two questions that I have asked myself a lot during the past two years or so: who are we and what have we become?

Yes, I believe her. No, I don't believe him. Is it possible that Dr. Ford is an exceptionally practiced liar and that Judge Kavanaugh is an exceptionally undisciplined man of integrity? Yes, that's possible, but far from likely....

Frankly, I don't feel the need to wade into an evaluation of the substance of their respective testimonies because I'm pretty sure that everyone's already formed their opinions, but I do think it worthwhile to reflect on what we witnessed, especially to discern what it tells us about what we've come to accept from our legislative 'leaders.'

The first thing that I'll note is that I doubt very seriously that any testimony would have changed the outcome of the Committee's ultimate vote. Seriously, how much better could it have gone for the witness alleging misconduct and how much worse could it have gone for the nominee?

Though clearly nervous and dealing with very painful memories, Dr. Ford was more composed and illuminating than we had a right to expect: I don't think that anyone doubts that she suffered trauma whether or not you agree that it was due to the nominee's indiscretion. Judge Kavanaugh, by contrast, was frantic, arrogant, hostile and uncooperative to say the least. Hardly the picture of a neutral, self-possessed professional capable of incisive discernment in situations of great import.

That Dr. Ford was vilified by so many who've never met or can in no way claim to know her reveals something of long-standing about us that's also quite ugly: simply put, we have a problem accepting and believing women who allege abuse and tend to default to defending the men who've been accused.

Given the prevalence of sexual assault in our society, this is as repugnant a habit as it is self-harming: more than half of us are female and an egregious number of our female fellow citizens have experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault. Let's amplify and clarify this horrific reality: recent studies have indicated that as many as 81% of our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, etc., have been sexually harassed and that one in six (17%+) of them have been sexually assaulted. Let that sink in: four in five of them have been harassed and one in six of them have been violated. This is who we really are.…

[Don't believe me?  See for yourself (among many, many, many such possible citations): https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment and https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence]

That we reflexively tend to blame the victim is the clearest possible indication that we need to change virtually completely. I suspect that as women become better represented in the leadership ranks of our society, especially relative to their proportion as more than half of us, this will change, but we shouldn't have to wait until that significant amount of progress is made. This. Must. End. Now.

Now let's take a closer look at the behavior that the SCOTUS nominee exhibited: he exhibited righteous anger, which would be expected from someone whose very character had been questioned completely; but more than this he exhibited an inability to manage his emotions in a way that conveyed his qualification to be the supreme arbiter that he has been recommended to be.

According to Rule 1.2 of the American Bar Association's (ABA's) "Model Code of Judicial Conduct":

A judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence

in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall

avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

Does blaming your need to address the allegations against you on political opponents suggest that Judge Kavanaugh meets this standard? Or being snarkily oppositional when being questioned by a female senator? Or choosing not to answer many if not most of the direct questions - especially about matters of case law - posed to you?

Leaving aside this clear failure from a professional standpoint, I pose this question for us to consider in evaluating a person seeking a lifetime appointment to the most influential judicial body in our country: if a female nominee were to have displayed such a range of powerful emotion and seeming inability to maintain her composure, would her performance garner the plaudits that the Judge's has from many quarters? Pardon my French, but NFW.

I could go on, but what's the point? You may not like the last-minute nature of Dr. Ford's appearance before the committee, but you can't deny her courage and patriotism in doing so. By contrast, you may like Judge Kavanaugh's case record, but you can't deny that you learned a little if anything about his judicial perspective during this process but did witness him melt down and often appear to be, at a minimum, lacking in composure (if not undisciplined and a good bit unhinged).

That a one-week FBI investigation has been agreed to now that the Judge's nomination has been approved along partisan lines and sent to the full Senate for a vote is of little solace given the seeming depths to be plumbed in understanding more about his actual conduct, especially as it contrasts with his testimony. If we truly wanted to get to the bottom of the multiple swirling allegations now attached to Judge Kavanaugh, why would we choose such an abbreviated period within which to accomplish it? The answer, I suspect, is that virtually regardless of the findings, most minds on both sides of the aisle are already made up, so what remains is just flawed spectacle as political theater: I don't care what your politics are, but you have to agree that this is no way to govern our society.…

No, I don't think Judge Kavanaugh should be approved for a seat on the United States Supreme Court: I didn't like his judicial record before and I am completely mortified by the display of his character to which we've all been treated in the past week. But more important than this, two things absolutely must change as a result of this latest quite avoidable fiasco:

First, and most importantly, we have to take women's assertions of sexual assault seriously and respond to them compassionately, both from a social and legal perspective. Second, we have to require full FBI background check investigations of all SCOTUS (and/or Appellate Court) nominees. Were we to have observed these two commonsense behaviors, in all likelihood, this abomination of a nomination process would likely not have occurred, both because we would have known about the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh long before he was presented to the Judiciary Committee and they also would've had a fact-based record to evaluate them by and then to make the decision about whether his candidacy was appropriate. In the absence of this reasonable approach, we've managed to maim a brave woman, discount the experiences of millions of other sexual harassment and assault victims, expose the arrogance and naked will-to-power of a scion of East Coast bastions of power and privilege and reveal once again that our politics is irredeemably partisan, at least under a Republican hegemony.

This. Must. End. Or America will.…

Nearly all men can stand adversity,

but if you want to test a man's character,

give him power.

- Attributed to President Abraham Lincoln

(but more likely said by Robert G. Ingersoll)

Battling with Baldwin again....

Take no one's word for anything, including mine -

but trust your experience.

- James Baldwin, "My Dungeon Shook" in The Fire Next Time (1963)

I have a confession to make: even though I'm a huge fan, I can't read James Baldwin's work.  Nope, can't do it.  Reading is a pleasurable pursuit; my encounters with Baldwin are something so very different altogether....

Not that I don't read Baldwin: I do, and regularly ... just that it's not pleasurable reading as such.  Sir James' work affects me like few others - MLK and Spong come to mind - and I can't help becoming engrossed.  So while pleasurable in a way - I learn and re-learn things every time I re-read him, which for an intellectually curious person, is pleasurable - it's really more like work, grueling, thrilling work.  For me, it's like the difference between lounging in the shallow end of a pool and having to swim so as not to drown in the deep end.  The experience of Baldwin is always a deep end pursuit for me....

I rarely emerge from it energized: usually, I'm exhausted - gratifyingly so, of course - but just plain spent ... and, of course, invariably educated, elevated and illumined (with a little righteous anger thrown in, too...).  Such is currently the case with my fourth or fifth (or sixth) encounter with (my third copy of) his Collected Essays (edited by the imminent and inimitable Tony Morrison) and especially his classic The Fire Next Time.  I am just spent ... and so exhilarated and enervated and bereft and inspired and committed and....

All while trying to 'relax' on vacation.  No, you can't make that up!

But since I've allowed myself to be sucked in again - joyfully, to be sure - I have to wrestle with his searing insight and piercing yet levitating prose.  If a friend were to see my newest copy of this book, s/he would laugh: the Jesuits taught me to underline important passages when reading ... and there's far more highlighted than not ... along with those myriad notes in the margins, of course!  Ah, the uplifting and yet taxing experience of Baldwin: rarely have I enjoyed working myself into such a frenzy voluntarily.

And why am I in a frenzy at the moment?  Because of that returned and sinking feeling that his writings are still too relevant to our world now, which means that we haven't accomplished enough to make them anachronistic (which is undoubtedly to our discredit).  It's as if instead of describing the America of more than half a century ago, he's speaking to our saddening and maddening current reality:

In speaking of his nephew's life circumstances, he observes:

You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced

because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your

ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into

a society which spelled out with brutal clarity and in as many

ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.

Could that not describe the predicaments of the Black children still trapped in our urban ghettos (or of the Brown ones separated from their parents at our borders)?

In an effort to prepare his nephew to the inevitable challenges and oppression of racism, he cautions:

Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is no

limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life

have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what

white people say about you. Please try to remember  that

what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you

to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their

inhumanity and fear.

Could this not describe the resurgence of (neo-)Nazism and other forms of White Supremacy that we've experienced under the most openly racist and xenophobic president in modern American history?

Or:

They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand;

and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have

had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black

men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but,

as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.

Also this as a description of the immoral scourge of Mass Incarceration that plagues us still (with a little White Privilege thrown in for good measure):

I know what the world has done to my brother and how he has narrowly survived
it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my

my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history

will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds

of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. ... (F)or

this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man.

(But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not

permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent.

It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

And is this not an apt mission statement for the resurgent social justice movement in our country:

And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means:

that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as

they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.

For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it;

great men have done great things here, and will again,

and we can make America what America must become.

And this is just from the first part of this timeless work, "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation."  It's but a fraction of the length of its complement "Down At The Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind"; imagine how much more is contained therein....

That his words are still so urgent, prophetic and incisive is truly a mixed blessing: on the positive side, it denotes an historic and timeless gift freely given ... and on the other, it reminds us of just how little we've really accomplished in the past half-century and, thus, how much more work we still very much have to do....

So, back to Baldwin I go ... but not alone this time: after reading a work on his personal theology, my Spiritual Explorers Book Club peers want to read him directly.  I suspect some are in for quite a treat and others for a bracing perspective and lesson.  What I can say for everyone quite confidently is that we'll all emerge the better for this exploration, as universally challenging as it most assuredly will be.

What I appreciate most about this self-inflicted trial is that it never fails to re-acquaint me with The Truth, not just my own but our society's, especially from the perspective of those Of Color.  And it inspires me to continue my work of education, uplift and inclusion, especially given that the path is so indelibly illuminated by this singular child of Harlem and incredible and irreplaceable Man of the World....

Well, you were born, here you came, something like fifteen years ago. ...

For here you were - Big James, named for me - ... here you were

to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever,

to strengthen you against the loveless world.

- James Baldwin, Ibid.

Fully, wastefully and courageously....

To embrace life, to increase love, to have the courage to be - 

these for me, are the doorways through which I walk

into the mystery of God.

 - Bishop John Shelby Spong, Unbelievable (2018)

It's not supposed to happen like this: no one should have to comfort a young protege on the death of her 34-year old husband. And Bill should have lived a spry, sun-filled life in this house I occupy while on holiday. And Senator McCain should have lived on to fight the good fight, to turn back the terrible tide in a once-grand party ... but, too often for our liking, we come to learn, Life has other, less joyful plans. In other words, sometimes it sucks. As I think of Cristina, Bill and the Senator, I feel sad and am reminded that Providence does not equate to universal good fortune, and that amidst a life of blessings we feel the burdens, too.

Now what?  Simply put, a choice: we can either live on fully - initally, at times, with aching hearts - or be forever wounded by the impersonalities of Fate that our humanity leads us take so personally.  My father taught me that ... but he had to die first for me to learn the lesson.  And, frankly, though he left this earth almost three decades ago, I still would prefer to be ignorant of this reality....

What I remember most about my father's passing was that it was a joyful moment, on the whole: he was no longer suffering and our family gathered to hurt together and cavort merrilly - ah, the stories I could tell! - as if he were still with us in a younger, better form that would stand in complete contrast to his sad earthly end.  And I remember when everyone left to return to their lives and it was just my mother and me left to clean out his closet and figure out what life was supposed to be without him, a state that I had never known and one that she had not experienced for more than four decades.

Life moved on without my Dad in it, as it does and will for each of us.  And the pain of loss will fade as we re-invent our existence to meet the challenge of making the best of whatever it can be ... but more than anything what I have learned is that Life will indeed move on, so we best move as fulfillingly in it as we can while we have it.

We must enjoy our time, because, of course, we don't know how much of it we have and we can't make more of it.  Yes, it's our most precious gift and valuable asset ... and yet for most of it we settle for a life that isn't lived as if this were our last day (even though, one day, it very much will be...).  There is a difference between existence and living ... and, truth be told, as we're raised, we're mainly taught the former - with the goal of doing so as well as we can, of course - but rarely are we pushed to figure out how to live truly, fully and, in essence, eternally in (our) time.

It's this gap that wounds me today, reminding me of the reality that I, too, exist too much and live too little....

For example, this is my first break of the year - I've taken off just a single day prior to my vacation - and I have paid dearly to learn that this was a horrible idea.  Intellectually, of course, I knew that going eight months without a break would be hard, but I rationalized that my company's draconian vacation policy made the gambit worth a try.  I figured that there was a good chance that I would be wrong ... and, of course, I underestimated greatly just how wrong I was likely to be: for the past month I have been merely existing, trying - valiantly, I believe - to keep it together with paper clips and tape until I could get to this respite.

So now I'm here on my too well-earned break and I need the first couple of days to recuperate sufficiently to begin to live again.  It turns out that I'm too old to make these rookie mistakes, and long ago I should have lost this ego-driven presumed toughness ... 'cause, truth be told, I've reached that stage in life where my mortality is showing and these defiant expressions of spirit actually hurt more than they help.  In the game of Life, such unforced errors have no place; now if I were just mature enough to make this choice more consistently....

So this morning, long before the sun makes its appearance, I take advantage of an accident - why did my wife have an alarm set for 4:45am on a Sunday morning?!? - to gift myself with the opportunity to live in a way that's uniquely resonant and meaningful to and for me: to write.  Initially I had intended to read my way out of my grogginess - I'm gonna finish Sapiens if it kills me (figuratively speaking, of course) - but then I made the mistake of glancing at my Facebook feed to pass the time while the (mostly decaf) coffee brewed and there was the sad impetus for my change in course: the notice of a former colleague and now young widow mourning her beloved.

You know, when I was younger, I would empathize with others and allow myself to feel with them to a point ... and now I've reached a stage in life where the hurtful experiences truly wound whether they're mine alone or a loved one's....

And they remind me to make the choice to live fully, love wastefully and be all that I can be, as my beloved spiritual mentor Bishop Jack Spong says.  Indeed: this is what truly living means, to expend one's energy in as constructive, proactive and positively a way as possible and thereby craft a life worthy of the effort.

So my blessings and a prayer of comfort I send to Cristina, a prayer of reverance and gratitude for his service I send to the Senator and his family and a prayer of appreciation I send to Bill and my Dad.  And, today, freshly reminded of this opportunity - to make the choice to exist or live for this one moment in time - I choose gratefully and hope to honor the opportunity with the reverance and reverie that it deserves.

Join me: part of living fully, loving wastefully and being all that I can be means, for me, that I must encourage others to find that unique dimension of their own selves and support them as they do.  I don't know where this will lead us ultimately, but I can say that it will immensely enrich the journey ... and isn't this really the point of Life, to honor this Divine Gift by manifesting it fully?

I don't know the day or hour, but even more than hoping to avoid these (which no one can), I pray that I'll have the courage to live, truly so, and thereby experience eternity in time, or as Paul Tillich described it, the Eternal Now.  In these moments I feel the presence of my Creator and Source and therein am moved beyond mere existence....  

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.

 - Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

Human being or doing?

Not everybody, and nobody all of the time, is aware of

this "eternal now" in the temporal "now."

But sometimes it breaks powerfully

into our consciousness….

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (1963)

Are you a human being or are you a human doing?

My friend and pastor, the Rev. John Mennell, essentially posed this question in a recent sermon based on the Gospel of Mark. In the sixth chapter of this Gospel, the apostles share reports of their preaching, teaching and healing work with Jesus and he responds by commanding them to take some time away from the hustle and bustle of their ministry to rest. They had been working exceptionally hard, but they had failed to renew their own bodies and souls in their attempt to save others'.

How good are you at renewing your own body and soul amidst the seemingly inevitable busyness of modern life? In other words, are you a human being or are you a human doing?

In his sermon, one of the more amusing and also piercingly insightful observations that Rev. Mennell shared was that, unlike in the modern world, Jesus didn't listen to the reports of His apostles' productivity and then assign them higher goals for the next go-round. Instead, as is so often the case in the story of His life, Jesus went in an unexpected direction, encouraging his collaborators to renew themselves rather than to get back out on the road immediately.

We might say that Jesus was playing the 'long game,' but, in reality, he was teaching us yet another important lesson: one cannot share what one does not possess, and if we don't invest periodically in our own renewal, we'll find ourselves incapable of making our chosen contributions and pursuing our avocation successfully. Which is sound leadership advice, even in a secular context….

With this in mind, then, how good are you at renewing your own body and soul amidst the seeming inevitable busyness of modern life? In other words, are you a human being or a human doing?

In addition to physical rest, what are the pursuits that are uniquely restorative for/to you? How do you renew and refuel yourself in idiosyncratically meaningful ways … and at what interval(s)? If you are the least bit unclear, this is the very first restorative work that you must do right away ... and then you can begin to utilize these insights in a consistent way so that, over time, you can maximize both your contribution and your enjoyment of the journey.

By way of example, I'll share a few of my uniquely resonant renewal and restoration practices:

• Reading and reflection, especially about spirituality and topics of social interest/justice
• Writing, especially blog posts like this one, articles to be published in my LinkedIn series and/or letters to loved ones
• Resting by a body of water and allowing the wind and waves to soothe, salve and inspire my soul
• Sharing a communal meal with family, friends and/or new acquaintances
• Sharing an adventure with loved ones, both to savor the experience in the moment and to create a life-long memory
• Sharing the experience of the contemplative, spoken word worship service of my church

Is it mere coincidence, then, that when I pursue these activities I feel the presence of God most powerfully? I think not: in fact, I believe that this is exactly what Jesus was teaching us in Mark's scripture. Yes, I'll do a lot of other things on the days when I observe these practices, but in these moments, I will be and in so doing feel enveloped in the eternal timelessness of our Source. In these moments, I will experience what theologian Paul Tillich described as "time beyond time."

So, what restoration and renewal pursuits are especially meaningful for/to you? What are the things in your life that inspire, illumine and elevate your path … and how often - and consistently - do you engage in them? In other words, what is it that you do to celebrate, provide succor to and develop the unique being and Child of God you are?

As you reflect on your answers, I pray that you be fully present in the moment and, even more, that you realize that such an elevated experience of life is available to you always. In this way, may you always be clear that you are a human being and thus make choices in your life that align with and enhance this eternal reality in uniquely meaningful ways....

What are you going to do today to renew your body and soul and, in so doing, to become and be all that you can be?

Enjoy the journey....

We go towards something that is not yet,

and we come from something that is no more....

(I)t is infinitely more important that we not forget ourselves,

this individual being, not to be repeated,

unique, eternally precious, 

and delivered into our hands.

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (1963)

Timeless not old.....

I got two statements, if you don't remember anything else I say:

Begin with the end in mind and die empty.

- Aeneas Williams, Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Speech

(August 2nd, 2014)

Do you know who Aeneas Williams is? You should. Have you heard Fred Rogers' commencement speech at Dartmouth? You should. Have you been exposed to timeless wisdom recently? You should. How much better would your life be, however you define this, if you made it a practice to seek out, reflect on, learn from and live into wisdom consistently? Greater abundance awaits if we but seek it….

Unexpectedly, several times in just the past that day, I've encountered wisdom. Wasn't looking for it and honestly wasn't that open to it at the time … but both instances that I'd like to share here have left an indelible impression that I hope to carry forward in my life, so I share them with you….

Aeneas Williams is now pastor, but if you recognize his name at all, it's likely because he was an exceptional defensive back in the National Football League for fourteen seasons and was recognized for his appreciable accomplishments by being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014. I was always a fan - he just seemed to carry himself so differently and better and with such grace that it was noticeable both on the field and off in his playing days - but I never really knew what had become of him in his retirement.

As it happens, even though I'm boycotting the NFL along with so many who are repulsed by its tone deaf and cowardly record with respect to social justice and the care of its current players and alumni, as I scrolled through the program guide, I noticed a segment of the program  A Football Life that featured Williams (https://gamepass.nfl.com/video/aeneas-williams-a-football-life), so I watched it. And I am so thankful that I did, because I'm an even bigger fan of Aeneas Williams now and even more impressed with him as a human being than I have been him as an outstanding and truly all-time player.

You see, Aeneas Williams is truly a man in full, a human being fully alive, imbued with a sense of purpose and living on purpose in an otherwise chaotic world, and thereby he is making an even greater contribution off the field than his incredible body of work on it. Suffice it to say that I was truly happy for him and his family when I learned a few years ago that he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame: it was a hard-won and richly deserved honor for an exceptional and exemplary player and leader, because during his career he had always been a positive influence not only on teammates but on the organizations with which he was affiliated and on the larger body of active players during his day. So I was gratified to learn even more about this exceptional person and his impact … and then they began to examine his life in retirement, which is even more impressive than his exceptionally impressive playing career.

Aeneas Williams is a man of deep faith and has chosen to become a small-town pastor and community leader. But not just in any small-town: by coincidence, it turns out that he has settled in Ferguson, Missouri. Yes, that Ferguson. And though we all have horrific memories of what happened there in the aftermath of Michael Brown's death just four years ago, as is typical with our media, we know much less about the appreciable renaissance that's occurred since … in which, it turns out, Aeneas Williams has played a meaningful role. He is still the same understated, by example leader, but now his focus is helping others see hope in the midst of despair and to make this the basis of informed choices that will lead to better outcomes for them and, actually, for us all.

Aeneas Williams' example inspired me and, even though I've lived a parallel life of service throughout my for-profit career, it reminded me just how important being a positive influence and role model in the lives of others truly is. Specifically, his example has inspired me to ensure that every time I have the opportunity to share meaningfully with someone I should take it, or, to use his phrase, I should live as if my goal is to "die empty," having left all of myself and what I have to contribute out on the field of my life. Yes, I've given a great deal over the years, and at appreciable cost to me and my loved ones at that, but this is a small price to pay both to pay forward the myriad blessings that I have received and to have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to fellow human beings' success and fulfillment in life.

Simply put, Aeneas Williams is one of my heroes, not just on the field but in life, which matters so much more … and he's so very different but in meaningful ways quite similar to another of my heroes to whom I was reintroduced recently, Fred Rogers.

That's right, that Fred Rogers, as in Mr. Rogers, the creator of and lead character in the exceptionally long-running and profoundly influential television program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.  Currently on my list of things to do is to see the new documentary tribute about his life and work, Won't You Be My Neighbor? So I didn't expect to be reacquainted with him and his legacy via my Facebook feed this morning, but I'm so thankful that I was.

You know that Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood ran for a long time, right? But did you realize that it was for more than thirty-three years, from 1968 to 2001? Me either. And did you know that this gentle, courtly man whose on-camera persona was the embodiment of understatement and grace was actually the graduate of an Ivy League college, a Presbyterian minister and one of the most progressive social influences in our society for decades? I suspect you may have known the latter, but, like me, not the first two realities about this singular gentleman's life. But what brought me back to - and has greatly enhanced - my appreciation for Fred Rogers is his 2002 commencement address to his alma mater, Dartmouth (https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2018/03/revisiting-fred-rogers-2002-commencement-address).

If you know Fred Rogers, you know him to be the very embodiment of graceful, classy humanity: he was an exceptional person in so many ways, including as "an extra special, kind man" (which is actually how he described one of his collegiate professors). And he was also an incredibly incisive social observer and innovator in his ever-understated way, which it turns out, was also supremely positively influential. So his commencement speech is as he described the world, "a magnificent jewel."

In it, he shares the wisdom of "the last of the great Roman philosophers, and the first of the scholastics of the Middle Ages," Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. (Sure, we all remember him!) And that of Yo-Yo Ma and Saint-Exupery to boot. But what he mainly does is to offer sage advice to a cadre of people embarking on the next chapters of their journey.

And, in true Fred Rogers style, he offered them what he called "an invisible gift," by asking them to invest one minute in silence to ponder "those who have helped you become who you are today." I can imagine that although the assembled were honored to be hearing from Mr. Rogers, I suspect that they were looking even more forward to the end of his remarks and to that of the ceremony itself … except that momentarily they had underestimated this quiet force of nature, as we've all tended to do. Gently yet profoundly he stopped them and refocused them on gratitude rather than their understandable and well-earned pride. In so doing, he shared a gentle reminder of what should be the priority of our priorities. "It's not the honors and the prizes, and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls," he noted, but "the knowing that we can be trusted" and "that we never have to fear the truth" for this "is the bedrock of our lives, from which we make our choices" and therefore "is very good stuff."

He concluded his remarks with an exhortation of which we should all be mindful and share every day, too:

So, in all that you do in all of your life,

I wish you the strength and grace

to make those choices which will allow

you and your neighbor

to become the best of whoever you are.

That was sixteen years ago, but is no less powerfully true today. That's the thing about Aeneas Williams and Fred Rogers: they are - and they have lived in ways that are - timeless, not old. Were it that we could live so eternally, too....

In this spirit, then, I wish all of you the gratitude-infused courage to live a life that's timeless both in its substance and its impact and, at Mr. Rogers' behest, I leave you with the words of the great philosopher as he quoted them:

O happy race of mortals,

if your hears are ruled as is the universe,

by love.

Unbelievable....

To embrace life, to increase love, to have the courage to be - 

these, for me, are the doorways through which

I walk into the mystery of God..

This God is real to me

and Jesus is still my doorway into this reality....

I walk eagerly into this life-centered God experience....

I bear witness to the faith that leads me and the whole world

to live fully, love wastefully and be all that we can be.

 - Bishop John Shelby Spong, Unbelievable (2018)

For many, many years now, Bishop John Shelby Spong has been sharing his unique experience of God with fellow human beings of every stripe and type. To some, he is a heretic: someone who refuses to swallow whole the orthodoxies and dogma of the Christian church with which he has been affiliated for more than six decades. To others, he is a hero: someone whose willingness to wrestle with the challenges of life and faith has encouraged the development of new and vibrant pathways to God. Having studied Jack's work and having come to know him a bit in recent years, I'm definitely in the latter camp. He is both my hero - personally and professionally - and my guiding theological light, as his unique approach to faith and spirituality has encouraged me to develop my own, which has, in turn, led to a profoundly abundant spiritual life that I could not have imagined even a decade ago.

Don't get me wrong, I also believe that Jack's a heretic, but in the very best possible way: he has long evidenced the courage and conviction to question the oh-so-human dogma and practice of institutional Christianity … and in this speaking of the truth to power he has both enraged and unsettled the church's hierarchy and reached and reclaimed many of its ostensible adherents. I am one of these whose spirituality has been encouraged and developed by Jack Spong's wisdom and piercing insight, and because of this I have now found both a strength of affiliation with the Christian church and a personal theology that I never before thought possible. 

Thank you, Jack, both for your example as a heretic and for your encouragement for me and many others to try it! I am not now a member of the Church Alumni Association (as he slyly describes the Christians who've left this institution in droves in the past generation) because of Jack: thanks to him, I was able to see a place for myself within the Church, rather than outside of it, and have been benefiting from and contributing meaningfully through this affiliation for many years now. I'm proud to be both a heretic - which for me means that I've developed an idiosyncratically resonant personal theology that doesn't correspond fully (or event that much) to the institutional church's teachings - and, now, the Senior Warden of my Episcopal church.

But even more than I appreciate Jack as a heretic, I revere him as a person and a trailblazing religious professional. In fact, his theology is at the core of mine now, for which I am indescribably grateful. And as I studied the development of his theology, I was also introduced to other theological eminences whose insights have illuminated  and elevated my spiritual path. Other than Jack, three of my greatest theological influences are Bishop John A.T. Robinson, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the first two of whom have also had an especially profound influence on the evolution of Bishop Spong's theology. Cobbled together in an idiosyncratically meaningful way, their insights have led to a simple, three-pronged faith that has been profoundly life-affirming for me:

First, though I consider myself a Christian, I don't believe that this particular faith is the only path to God, nor does it exclusively have all of the 'right' answers in the spiritual domain. (In fact, to me, the Church is a decidedly human institution - which isn't inherently a bad thing as long as we don't get this twisted - while God alone is divine.) Accordingly, I have studied, benefited from and incorporated insights from multiple faith traditions, especially, in my case, Taoism and Buddhism. So, in reality, I'm really a Christian-Taoist-Buddhist, which might be a little hard for the folks in the Baptist church that I grew up in to wrap their heads around, but it works beautifully for me.

Second, I choose to be Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ's example is worthy of emulation by us all. I no longer buy the dogma that He's the only son of God, or, necessarily, that he was even Divine in the sense of being especially aligned with God. (Truth be told, I believe that God is in all of us and that Jesus just did a better job - the best job ever, actually - at reflecting this than we average humans do.) In fact, following Bishop Spong's teaching, I believe that Jesus reflected the insights of early Christian Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, who (in modern language) observed that the glory of God is a human person fully alive. To me, Jesus is one of history's finest examples of what it means to be fully human and fully alive. I consider myself a Christian because I hope to live into His example ever more lovingly and impactfully every day, and I accept that His standard of embodying and sharing love constantly and with all is as simple as it is profoundly difficult to live. Every day, I fall short in myriad ways, but I am lifted by the belief that Jesus' love compels me to pick myself up, dust myself off and try even harder to be the better person that I am capable of being. I take it as one of God's and life's delicious ironies that the simplest and yet most profound way to live is also the hardest.

Third, based on these two preceding spiritual principles, my guiding philosophy comes straight from Bishop Spong: I believe that I'm called by God to live fully, love wastefully and be(come) all that I am capable of being every day of my earthly life. I further believe that if I am able to live in this way, more moments of my life will resonate in ways that are eternal in the sense that their import and impact will be forever felt. So, perhaps another irony of my faith is that while I no longer believe in Heaven and Hell as I was taught them in my youth - meaning, plainly, that there is no physical life after my earthly death - I do believe that we can live eternally in the here and now, in this one and only earthly life, and Jesus' example is my proof: though He is no longer with us physically, the way in which He lived His earthly life is so profound an example that we feel His presence to this day (and even define the way that we measure time by it). The eternal life that I hope to live is like His: that long after I'm gone physically, the love that I shared and the contributions that I made will be resonant in the lives of others and especially, hopefully, in those of my loved ones and their progeny.

So, in this Spirit, I leave you with the profound theology of Bishop Spong and pray that you, too, will find your spiritual being immeasurably enriched and your spiritual journey lovingly illuminated and elevated by it:

I cannot tell you who God is or what God is.

No one can do that.

That is not within the capability of any human mind.

All I can do is tell you how I believe I have experienced God.

God and my experience of God are not the same.

…

I believe I have experienced God as the Source of Life. ...

If God is the Source of Life,

then the only way I can appropriately worship God

is by living fully.

In the process of embracing the fullness of life,

I bear witness to the reality of the God who is the Source of Life.

I believe I have experienced God as the Source of Love.

Love is the power that enhances life. ...

If God is the Source of Love,

then the only way I can worship God

is by loving "wastefully"....

By "wasteful" love I mean the kind of love

that never stops to calculate whether the object of its love

is worthy to be its recipient.

It is love that never stops to calculate deserving.

It is love that loves not because love has been earned.

It is in the act of loving "wastefully" that I believe I make God visible.

Finally, I believe I experience God,

in the words of my greatest theological mentor,

Reformed German theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965),

as the Ground of Being. ...

If God is the Ground of Being,

then the only way I can worship God

is by having the courage to be all that I can be;

and the more deeply I can be all that I can be,

the more I can and do make God visible.

So the reality of God to me is discovered

in the experience which compels me to

"live fully, to love wastefully and

to have the courage to be all that I can be."

May we all live so well and eternally....

Whither America?

What we are facing today is the fact that through our scientific

and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood.

And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make

of it a brotherhood.  We must learn to live together as brothers -

or we will all perish together as fools.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution"

Oberlin College (June, 1965) 

The Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland: the site of our latest loss to the epidemic of gun violence that continues to plague our country due to legislative inaction and the latest reason to return to consideration of a most fundamental question. "What is America?" Many of us thought that it was the shining city on the hill of former President Ronald Reagan's conception … but clearly, we are wrong. Others of us thought that it was the mythical place where having the right to protect oneself and one's family meant that you likely never would have to … but clearly, we are wrong. America is something very different than the vast majority of us thought: it's a land lost, stuck in a past that it hagiographically glorifies and facing a future that's looking darker by the moment, largely of our own making.  It is no longer a beacon, but an unpredictable and largely malevolent force without and within.…

Who shoots dead a small town paper editor and several other members of its staff, including a sales assistant? The answer, sadly, is someone who listens to the Forces of Darkness, the influencers, now in both formal and informal positions, who increasingly urge violent action that rips asunder our social fabric.

Who is Milo Yiannopolous, really? Conceptually, he's a far-/alt-right commentator and gadfly … so why should we care? Because two days before the slaughter at the Capital Gazette, he shared with a reporter for major media outlet that "I can't wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight." Let that sink in for a moment … and now consider the sad case of Jarrod Ramos, who, just two days later, decided to be that one-man vigilante squad, ending the lives of five innocent victims.

For such a foolish, reckless and intensely lethal exhortation, Milo Yiannopolous is both an ass and and inhuman being. But he's not the only one…

Why, just a day before, the President of the United States, the thoroughly undeserving and incompetent Donald J. Trump, incited a rally of mindless lemmings by declaring the press "the enemy of the people." That's right, the man who occupies what was formerly the most influential office in the world has used his podium to demonize hundreds of thousands of professionals who've dedicated their lives to helping us learn more about our world so that we can make more informed decisions about how to live in it.  Is it any wonder that the demonized press now die in it?

Now let's cut to the chase: 45's anger at the press is personal, because the latter is doing such an effective job of exposing him and his minions for the craven and corrupt people that they truly are. So, on one level, I get it: he doesn't like them because they (rightfully) hold his feet to the fire (which, of course, they're supposed to do on our behalf).

But, 45's anger and subsequent behavior reflect another truth: that his character and judgment are so lacking, and that he has so little sense of the import of the office and its strategic imperatives, that he's chosen to use it as a bully pulpit for ill rather than good, to incite violence rather than to discourage it. Is there no clearer indication both of his moral vacuity and his unfitness for office? He, too, is both an ass and and inhuman being.

Now, in fairness, we don't know for sure whether the Annapolis shooter was responding to Milo's dark encouragement, or 45's, or was just acting independently, but we do know that he's far more likely to find such an inhumane choice to be a reasonable course of action in an environment where the influential encourage the resort to violence (that, of course, cravenly, will be visited on others/The Other and not themselves). And for this, the latter should be damned ... but, in one of life's cruel twists of fate and ironies, it's us who're damned.

So, you want to live in America where our leaders encourage us to behave violently and, indeed, lethally relative to those with whom we disagree (however strongly), then you should sit back and enjoy the show of darkness: this the America in which you live now. If, however, you want to live in an America suffused with light and and in which when we differ we dialogue, then you have to mobilize, demonstrate and, most of all, vote, because your opportunity to begin to put an end to this inhumanity starts on November 6th, 2018, and will recur on November 3rd, 2020. Those are the days on which you should fire your metaphorical shots, the ones designed to uplift and not demean, to affirm and not diminish.

I'll end this piece with an admission of my own truth: I never, in my darkest and most doubtful moments, envisioned the America that we've become. I am aghast and enraged at our choice to reward inhumanity writ large and to support the wielding of it against the most vulnerable, fellow citizens and those who aspire to be alike.

And, at first, I was a bit flummoxed about how to respond, because this is not a scenario that I had remotely anticipated.  But, virtually immediately upon reflection, I've been struck quickly by a profound clarity, and now know that my anger, though understandable (and, truly I believe, righteous) can never be expressed violently, firstly because of my faith and secondly because of my citizenship.

So what options do I and others of good will have? Speak up, speak out, advocate, organize, protest, march and, most importantly, vote. Vote: each and every time you have the opportunity. The Forces of Darkness are counting on us not to exercise this most fundamental right: in fact, it's how they came to power. But, learning this lesson, we are going forward by making a different and better choice: to re-envision America in all of its philosophical and physical diversity and to rebuild it to honor the common humanity that we share. And this journey starts on November 6th, 2018....

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral

begetting the thing it seeks to destroy,

instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

...

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

What's good for the goose....

nothing gives one person so great advantage over another
as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Francis Eppes, May 21, 1816

I know that so many of us who believe in decency are too tired and fed up with the seemingly ubiquitous evidence of craven behavior and outright inhumanity being demonstrated so consistently by the present Administration.  This being said, we must not allow our frustration to lead us to lower our own standards.  As our former First Lady put it so elegantly not long ago, "When they go low, we go high."

Which brings us to the horrific recent SCOTUS decision involving the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission) and the recent disinvitation of the Press Secretary from a suburban Virginia restaurant. In both cases, in a public place, people were denied service.  It's like a flashback to a half-century or more ago....

In a surprising (to some) 7-2 decision, the Justices of the US Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had been too zealous in its efforts to find fault with a baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding because of what he claimed were his deeply held religious beliefs. Whether or not we agree with this decision, one thing is apparent: in it were very clear indications from the Court about how to approach this issue in the future so that  SCOTUS intervention wouldn't be necessary again. And while I believe this approach may ultimately prove helpful so that this issue of the service responsibilities of a business supposedly open to the general public could be addressed more effectively going forward, that subtlety is lost on the millions of our fellow citizens whose only knowledge of the case is the headline that a baker with deeply held religious convictions can judge someone in the moment and deny him, her or them service. My suspicion is that many, especially on the Religious Right, will see this as a victory for their warped worldview, one in which discrimination in God's name is not only acceptable but (now) legal and state-sanctioned.

Then, just last weekend, in a suburban Virginia restaurant, the White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service by its owner, whose claim was to be offended by Ms. Sanders' support of the current Administration's inhumane immigration policies and her frequent lying in defense of these and other unconscionable state actions.

Are these two incidents comparable? I think so, because they involve a singular act that I believe has no place in our society: the refusal of service by business open to the public. Simply put, in my view, it's an issue of fairness and equal rights in that any business that chooses to serve the public should serve all of its members, not just some. Why? This, too, is simple in my view: because it's virtually impossible to parse who's in the in-group versus who's in the out-group without violating someone's rights in an immoral way. For example, are progressive Christian business owners allowed to refuse service to their conservative counterparts because they view the latter's deeply-held beliefs to be perversions of the very Scripture to which they (both) claim allegiance? Or what about the easier and more obvious ones that have deep roots in this country's history: can I be refused service because I'm Black, or Muslim or Mexican, etc.? At least relative in the America I thought I knew and that I want to live in, the answer is no.

Which makes what Representative Maxine Waters did in suggesting that members of the public make Administration officials aware that they are unwelcome in public spaces all the more unfortunate and also wrong. Do I agree that this Administration's heinous behavior should be contested at each and every opportunity? Absolutely! But does this extend to denying them their right to free access, a right that we claim for ourselves? Absolutely not! While I understand and empathize with the profound sense of indignation that animates so many of us who are appalled by what we are witnessing, we should not allow this to lead us to sink to the level of those whose behavior we detest. For, to use a phrase that I was taught as a child, it's unquestionably true that two wrongs don't make a right, so those of us who expect greater humanity from those who represent us must extend that very humanity even to the representatives who most challenge our patience and conscience.

Again, as Michelle Obama reminded us, when they go low, we go high. And we do this not just to be morally superior (which is a self-congratulatory illusion), but because we must abide by the example that we expect in return: to be treated fairly as an equal, as a fellow citizen and Child of God. Another motivation is a sadly simple and political one: the minute that we engage in untoward behavior in our protest, those we are protesting immediately focus on our method and not our message, typically resulting in a successful distraction that prevents a full hearing for our grievances and requests for restitution/resolution (that we hope to attain for all, not just for ourselves). Therefore, we also need to be impeccable in our conduct so that we do not allow the Politics of Distraction to impede our determined march toward a better America for us all.

So, hard as it may be, grit your teeth and keep taking the high road because it turns out that Ron Burgundy was right: we do, in fact, need to stay classy, especially when what we are witnessing and what were protesting is almost unbelievably and unconscionably objectionable to us. Actually, we are called to exhibit the same confounding and seemingly superhuman restraint that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., exhibited more than a half-century ago. We must be mindful that this sort of loving discipline is supremely difficult, but necessary to contest the forces of negativity and evil in a way that can lead to positive change. In sum, we must be prepared to show the best of ourselves in the face of the worst behavior from many of our fellow citizens as we seek to evolve our country to be a better one not just for us, but for them, too....

Taking the high road is never easy, but it's always right, including because from the perspective of history it's always a defensible approach. Negativity and inhumanity, by contrast, never wear well  and tend to make us want to avoid our history rather than embrace and learn from it. So, as difficult as it may be, let's commit to behaving in the ways that we are asking others to emulate while keeping our eyes fixed on the prize of the better America that can and will come from our committed effort. And though they may hurt greatly in the short run, the accumulated wounds from this effort will produce the most beautiful battle scars when the victory is won. Let's stay focused on that vision of a better America and keep treating everyone - especially those who disagree with us - as if it already exists, because in our hearts and minds it does….

No, our motto is "when they go low, we go high."

- Michelle Obama, Democratic Convention Speech, July 25, 2016

The next MLK....

Change will not come if we wait for some other person

or if we wait for some other time.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.

- Senator Barack Obama, February 5th, 2008

We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death just a few days ago.  What did we learn, really? Since that time, two peaceful, respectful and respectable African-American real estate agents were arrested for trespassing while waiting for a friend in a Starbucks in Philadelphia.  And in Rochester, Michigan - probably only 25 miles or so from where I grew up in Detroit  - an African American young man, a 14-year old high school freshman who missed his bus, was shot at for knocking on the door of a neighbor's home to ask for directions.  This is America, 2018. 

I'd like to say that I don't recognize this America … but I do. It's the America that I've lived in all of my life as an African-American youth and now man. It is also the America that my white fellow citizens have lived in for all of their lives. The difference is that, now, thanks to the social media video revolution, we're getting to see what America really looks like quite regularly. And it's not a pretty picture… 

And dare I mention the name of Stephon Clark? Shot at 20 times in his grandparents' backyard within a split second of being commanded to raise his hands. Shot eight times, seven in the back and the side, a mortal impact. For what crime? Perhaps disorderly conduct ... but now we'll never know. This, too, is America, 2018. 

Of course, the list could go on, but what's the point, really? We all know the names of too many victims of America's foundational -ism, racism. And it's hard for us to acknowledge that this cancer, this reflection of our collective our dark side, is not only still alive and well in 2018 but flourishing and seemingly becoming ever more ubiquitous. 

What happens next? Not much, really. African Americans and other 'woke' folk will continue to protest and most of their neighbors and fellow citizens will continue not to care … and more lives will be lost. This is the reality of America, 2018.

But it doesn't have to be, as the glorious March for Our Lives reminded us just a few weeks ago. The question - damningly simple, profound and vexing - is how do we lead ourselves to change?

And it will require a huge amount of leadership applied consistently for a very long time for us to change a pernicious pattern of social behavior that is as old as the ages and certainly as old as our country.  How do we evolve into a people we've never been and leave behind attitudes and conduct that have been so determinative of our lives?

I believe that two types of leadership will be required, one now half a century absent and another continuing (and, we pray, flourishing) this very day. If we're going to change our society, we're going to need another MLK - or preferably quite a few of them - and we're going to need grassroots leadership from our young people as the Parkland young adults have so powerfully demonstrated. 

Where do we find another MLK? My guess is that he or, just as likely, she is in a pulpit or a community organization somewhere right now.  And much like the Montgomery bus boycott of more than 60 years ago, a catalyst, likely an unfortunate one, will bring him or her to fore.  Were it that we didn't need to have tragedy to find new leaders.... 

And where do we find passionate, persistent and incredibly impactful leaders among our youth? Well, beyond the incredible students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school, I suspect that they're in high schools and colleges and for-profit and not-for-profit organizations everywhere right now.  If we'll but listen to them and, in fact, encourage them to speak and act. Are we ready to be led by those we presume to lead? Probably not. But our times demand it….

I pray that, every day, each of us looks in the mirror and asks, "Is it me?"  And I pray every day that each of us sees a young person and asks, "Is it you?" ... and then, more importantly, prepares him- or herself to support the leadership of someone who is supposedly less knowledgeable and less experienced but likely arguably more passionate, more persistent and therefore more qualified to lead. 

Sadly, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will never come again … but he is in us. Thankfully, passionate, persistent and committed young people are everywhere today - it's so wonderful and fortunate that they're already here if we choose to be aware of them. So let's stop waiting on Martin and realize that we're all the creators of a much greater America, and, indeed, world. I am the next MLK. You are the next MLK. And every young person in America can be the next MLK, if we but recognize them and commit to the better world that they deserve....

Maturity includes the recognition that

no one is going to see anything in us

that we don't see in ourselves.

Stop waiting for a producer.

Produce yourself.

- Marianne Williamson

From Austin to Washington....

You adults have failed us

by not creating a safer place for your children to go to school.

So we, the next generation, will not fail our own kids.

We will make this change happen.

If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then next year.

Take it from us.  You created a mess for us,

but we will make this world safer for our children.

- Florence Yared

Junior, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Parkland, Florida

Mark Anthony Conditt.  He may be more familiarly known as the Austin, Texas, bomber, who, according to the police chief there was a "very challenged young man."  But what he's not been known as is the serial killer that he is/was.  The question is why?

There are a number of groups to whom the answer is patently - and offensively - obvious.  If you're a Person of Color or even a Woke white person, you're tired of the double standard that our media - both the spineless mainstream media on the left and the purposely obfuscatory 'media' on the (alt-)right - has imposed once again: white mass killers are mentally ill and in need of support (whereas anyone of Color is quickly labeled a terrorist for a single killing, much less multiple ones).  Oh, yes, and in a doubly cruel irony, when the victims are all or primarily of Color, the focus is on the (white) killer, not his (Black and brown) victims (and, yes, the killer's virtually always a 'Christian' white male).

And yes, too, it's b.s., but, more than this, it's a mirror held up to us at this moment in our journey and the reflection says that we've failed the test of collective character implicit in it.

We cannot solve America's foundational problem - racism and the White Supremacy and Privilege that it creates - if we can't even acknowledge it.  And, sadly, Mr. Conditt's 15 minutes of fame (or ignominy) are frightfully illustrative here: not only is he being portrayed sensitively in the media, but the picture of him that's most often used is at least seven to ten years old and one in which he looks decidedly more 'all-American' than a more recent photo might show.  Ostensibly so that the nation can bemoan how such a nice and nice-looking young man lost his way?  (Grrr.)  But I digress....

The truth is that it's not just this latest young white serial killer who's lost his way: it's our country as a whole.  Our values - not the pristine ones that we profess but the increasingly tawdry, inhumane ones on display in our actions and in how we live - are those of a declining and lost society ... and we must re-order them quickly if we hope to prevent the demise of what one Canadian observer on Facebook recently termed "the American Empire."  How tragically ironic that we have a president who purports to want to make the country great again and yet is bringing out all of the ugliness in us of which too many were previously ashamed to give vent publicly, illustrating just how illusory a goal this is (or, for the more optimistic, how very long a journey this will be).  But, again, I digress....

In addition to not addressing and exorcising our fundamental racism - and, in fairness, our subscription to a number of other -isms like sexism/misogyny, religiocentrism, racism in its nativist form (xenophobia), classism, etc. - we've also become a militantly selfish and inhumane nation that is heavily influenced (if not dominated) by those who claim to follow the teachings of a pacifist, nonviolent Middle Eastern Jew.  Hmmm.  We claim Judeo-Christian values but can't identify them, at least not in how we behave in the public square.  And we wonder why we all can't get along....

If America as we dream it truly has any future - which, based on our collective behavior as a society at present, I believe to be a very open question - then we will need what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., termed a "revolution of values" to arrest our moral (et. al.) slide and put us on a better/higher/more humane path.

Thankfully, there are glimmers of hope:  Today is the day of the #MarchForOurLives, the national protest against gun violence that's happening in many cities across the country and especially in our nation's capital - where my wife and stepdaughters are now - which is led by some of the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre (in which the killer was ... aww, you know...).  These teenagers have seen through the threadbare illogic and morally bankrupt piety that have surrounded our national conversation (and inaction) on sensible gun control that has left them exposed ... and they are not having it!

That we had to get to the point of preferring our guns to our children so much so that the latter have revolted is yet another of the damning paradoxes in the life of our nation of late: our children feel so betrayed by us, their parents and other adults who are ostensibly dedicated first and foremost to their well-being and safety but who, collectively, haven't done a damn thing to protect them in the wake of dozens of such attacks in recent years, that they are deciding to lead us.  Yes, America, look at your shame and glory personified: we adults have failed our children but they are seizing the day to goad us into humane action.  If not for the humanity of this younger generation, I would have a hard time being optimistic ... but, today, as millions march in response to their call, I have hope.

Also in this outcome I believe is a bigger message and, perhaps, a vision of the solution to our present and pervasive ills: we have to listen to our children, value them and build a world that we truly want them to inherit, not just one that we leave them - a broken society, especially as exemplified by our shameful (and lethal) lack of address of gun violence - and say we tried.  We owe our children - mine and yours, of whatever color, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. - this: that we endeavor to improve the world that they'll inherit, not just survive in it until we pass the baton without having finished the job.

And, today, we get a glimpse of this future in the March For Our Lives.  Let us pray that these young people's (hopefully sustained and even elevated) pressure goads us out of our torpor on this first of many issues and returns us to a more proactive fight for the more just, equitable and safe world that they deserve (which, ironically, is the kind of world that we pledged to build, we Baby Boomers, when we wrested control of the societal discourse from our elders in opposition to an unjust war a half-century ago).

Let the children lead us, because Lord knows we need it and them.  And let them lead us, too, so that many more of them learn that their voices and votes matter, which, in turn, should lead more of them to choose the common good over the cynical, selfish and lethal entitlement of Cruz and Conditt and....  It turns out our children are better than we've assumed them to be, so let's let them show us how it's done, this re-making of a better world....

We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
We must rapidly begin the shift from

a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights,

are considered more important than people,

the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism

are incapable of being conquered.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," (April 4, 1967)