We, the fortunate few....

With you my love we're going to raid the future

With you my love we're going to stick up the past

We'll hold today to ransom 'til our quartz clock stop until yesterday.

- Vivian Stanshall and Steve Winwood

Arc of a Diver

As another college reunion approaches - and I've taken a vacation which affords me some time to drop off the grid and reflect - I'm perusing the Report to catch up with the lives of my classmates in the past five years, which is a pursuit that's alternatively gladdening and saddening, as I find that life is at middle age. I look forward to seeing some of them again when we gather in a month's time, but I'll also perceive some noticeable absences, including both folks who can't make it back to our alma mater that weekend and peers who've gone on to glory long before what we'll always believe should have been their time....

I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to have gone through such a rich, transformative and crucible period with such an incredible group of people. When we met, we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, naïvely ambitious and convinced that we would change the world someday soon. Now, for the most part, we've become those future pillars of the community that we envisioned ourselves to be, albeit a little heavier, with a little less and/or greyer hair and decidedly less style than that to which we aspired in our youth. (Hey, it was the 80's after all....)

And though we attended one of the world's most elite universities, the proverbial golden ticket if there ever was one, the reality is that life has affected us just as much as everyone who hasn't been so lucky, either then or now. Yes, some of our classmates have founded companies, made millions (while donating a generous portion to our alma mater) and otherwise triumphed in business. Or they've become renowned professors and experts to whom others turn for wisdom and guidance. Or they've become among the most trailblazing and innovative professionals, especially doctors, lawyers and consultants. Or, in one case, a US Representative and, in another, a US Senator. Of course, many have lived less glamorous but nonetheless accomplished lives, about which we'll hear when we gather again in person at our reunion … or if we read the Class Report beforehand.

In fact, we've reached that stage in life where some of us have kids who have themselves graduated from college (including our alma mater) or are in it at present, while others' progeny are at tender ages that those of us with older children remember fondly and yet don't want to revisit. It's a point along our paths at which virtually all of us have garnered a realistic sense of our capacity to contribute to this world and yet age leads us to wonder about what lies ahead with a mix of tamped expectation and just a touch of concern. This is, in reality, a reasonable perspective: after all, statistics tell us that we likely have more of our journey in the rearview mirror than on the open road before us.

And while most everyone has experienced the vagaries of fate that inevitably attach themselves to adult life, on the whole, we've had good lives and, virtually to a person, can count ourselves among the fortunate few. Which is what makes the premature demises of an appreciable number of our peers so sad.…

For example, among my friends, Jacquie Cook died in a moped accident in France between our freshman and sophomore years; Roland Heacock, on his way to medical school after a graduation that was just a week or two away, was permanently injured in a car accident and passed away little more than a decade later never having had the chance to fulfill the promise that was so evidently his; and other friends - like Desiree and Craig and my track buddy John O'Brien (known as "Obie" to his friends) and the incredible and accomplished Bill Patterson, to name but a few - are no longer here to celebrate with us and to enrich our lives as they did during that glorious gauntlet of multi-faceted growth. Fortunate though they may have been in their youth, a long life was not one of their endowments, a reality for which we who survive are meaningfully poorer, especially their families (including the ones that some of them didn't live long enough to have).

Many assumed - including, I suspect, most of us - that because our lives were charmed in our youth, so, too, would be the rest of our journey. But for far too many of those we knew and loved, this was not to be.…

This, I have learned, is one of life's greatest lessons: no matter how gilded the path, into each and every life triumph and tragedy will enter, the primary differences between us reflecting the balance of these two that fate ensures none of us can ever anticipate.…

So I hope that Willy chooses to return to the site of our youthful hijinks so that we can reminisce about our shared affinity for Stevie Winwood, one of the many prized gifts from him that also include an improptu wardrobe consulting session before his first college date. And I hope that Lance will choose to come this time so that we can relive some of the many great times that we shared (the majority of which, of necessity, will have to be sanitized if family is near). It would be great to catch up with Rondo, a pleasure I've had too infrequently in the intervening years. Hopefully, my beloved track buddy Mark Henry and I can reminisce about our exploits (but not replicate them, as sprinting is not a good idea for either of us now). And I hope that I get to spend some quality time with Eric Steven, with whom I was cool but not that close during our youth but to whom social media has bound me, thankfully, in the past half-decade; and John Tormey, whom I couldn't pick out of a lineup but whose online persona is invariably mirth-inducing and often profound. And (now) Dr. Alan Jackson, with whom I shared my first Uno's pizza so long ago, and (now) Dr. Stephen Taylor, the first 18-year-old I ever met who didn't have a driver's license (because he was a New York City [read = subway] kid). And Curtis and Errol and Fred, whose fertile minds stretched mine beneficially so long ago. So, too, with Jamie and Bruce and Keith and the two Terrys - and Frank and/or Jon? - and many other brothers in time with whom I spent long hours envisioning our futures and thoroughly enjoying our then-present moments. And Susan and Paola and Sarah and Glenda and Jennifer and Erica and Eva and Julie and all of the other fierce classmates who convinced me a generation ago that the future was indeed female. And if I don't see them, I will wish them well telepathically as I so often do now, the memories of our shared developmental experiences and escapades ever-emblazoned upon my soul.

And yet another bit of fun: I'll get to introduce my wife to many of the legends about whom she's been regaled, since she and the kids and I were only able to make a single event at my previous reunion (though I did manage to keep my streak of attending all of them intact by doing so).

As I prepare to rejoin these incredible people, I am ever more thankful for the influences that they've had in my life, both large and small. I treasure who they used to be and am excited to learn more about who they've become. And I pray that whatever the future holds, each of us will find profound meaning in the moments that lie ahead of us, however many they will be. What I can say unequivocally now is that each of these experiences of the eternal now with which we're gifted will enhance the blessings that we've been in each other's lives in and remind us just how fortunate we've been to make our journeys together, both then and now.…

When we were young, we couldn't wait to grow up.

As we got older, how we wish time would slow down just a little.

 - Anonymous

The 'Quiet Costs' of White Supremacy

Privilege is when you think that
something's not a problem
because it's not a problem
for you personally.

- David Gaider

I am an Affirmative Action baby, and a proud and unapologetic one at that. The college cheating scandal that came to light this week illustrates why: funny how we didn't hear but one of the traditional twin narratives that typically accompany - and purport to summarize the criticism of - Affirmative Action, that it displaces more qualified people and that it creates a sense of inferiority in its recipients. I'll let you guess which one of these has been left out of the ensuing, (supposedly) mortified (and, in reality, mortifying) conversation.…

No, Lori Laughlin's daughters aren't the least bit perturbed by how they were admitted to a college for which they did not otherwise qualify. Given that one of them was a budding YouTube sensation, I think it's fair to conclude that she doesn't feel stigmatized by her unearned good fortune. And now that the scandal has broken, we haven't heard a peep about her feeling apologetic, have we? Don't get me wrong, I realize that it's hard to be as connected from a billionaire's yacht, but still.…

Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't the least bit shocked by this week's revelations. They were simply the latest confirmation for me of an ugly reality about our beloved country that we refuse to acknowledge: America has always treated the rich and powerful - who, it must be noted, are disproportionately white - far better and, in fact, provided them with a different set of rules by which they could live and prosper more easily than the rest of us.

In fact, the greatest sense of entitlement in the history of this country does not attach to the poor and deserving who need our social safety net in order to survive, but to the denizens of the other end of the spectrum in our society who've always been accustomed to virtually unfettered and unlimited access and opportunity, irrespective of their qualifications. And, in a cruel but revealing twist, it is they who have claimed the mantle of meritocracy and enforced it so brutally against others who would presume to rise above their station. That the rest of us have had to make our way in this world and our climb up the rungs of our society by facing questions as to our qualifications and by forging ahead into the strong prevailing headwind of supposed meritocracy - how cynical, hypocritical and utterly false this pretense has been proven to be yet again this week! - is one of these 'quiet costs' of White Supremacy. I've never heard of George W. Bush being asked to apologize for his Yale and Harvard educations, but I and so/too many of my friends have been challenged in this way over the years. I wonder why?

(We all know - but far fewer acknowledge - that the reason is one word: Privilege.)

And, truth be told, I've never bought into the inferiority thing, even though my belief in myself was challenged constantly when I was younger. It wasn't about being Black or unqualified. For me, it was about competing at the very highest levels in our society. After all, I'm 'just' a bus mechanic's and librarian's son from inner-city Detroit, right? When I doubted myself at Harvard, it wasn't because of my African-American heritage, but because, in the parlance of the place, so many of my classmates were so 'wicked smart.' As were so many of my colleagues on Wall Street.

But, then again, so am I: Lord knows it takes a whole lot of smarts - in both book and street forms - and moxie to make it out of the Murder Capital of the World in the 1970s to the Ivy League, Wall Street and beyond. And I found the same to be true of so many of my fellow first-generation mainstreamers (whether they were Black like me or brown or white or of any other shade ... or gender or sexual orientation or religion or national origin or...). Actually, it turns out that our race/difference was, has been and is irrelevant; what has always mattered most is the level of cultural fluency that one is able to evidence in the most elite settings. In other words, can you fit in and then flourish?

Which brings us back to the reality that the biggest challenge is access … to educational and professional opportunity, to a better life, etc. So while I condemn their methods, I understand the motivations of the wealthy and powerful parents who've been exposed - and, indeed, charged - this week: they want what everyone wants, a great/better life for their children. That they would have to bend the rules illegally for their progeny was simply an inconvenience to the Privilege (read = Entitlement) that they've felt and to which they've become accustomed. And, again, funny how no one has raised the cost of the undue pressure that having this access has had on their children. Hmmm....

No, only the Black and brown (etc.) recipients of formal Affirmative Action - and to an appreciably lesser extent, female ones - have been subjected to the 'inferiority tax,' yet another pernicious 'quiet cost' of White Supremacy (in its most dominant form, that of [Patriarchal] White Male Hegemony). Hey, guess what, America? It turns out the rest of you are figuring out what we Affirmative Action babies have always known: not only are we not less qualified, but, in fact, we're far more qualified than many of the covert beneficiaries of access … except we're the only ones who've and been made to feel bad and/or be questioned about it.…

So where does this leave us? With yet another social proof of a reality that we have long denied/downplayed and with which we must grapple: the (increasing) class- and race-based inequality in our society (and, indeed, world). Simply put, despite the flowery words of our founding documents, this country was designed to be and has been fundamentally inequitable, especially with respect to the allocation of assets and opportunity, throughout its history. It has always favored the rich and powerful - who, again, it must be noted, are virtually exclusively white - over the rest of us.

In fact, it's a cruel irony indeed that the rights ascribed to American citizens in those founding documents were actually conceived to apply only to white male landowners. Since then, of course, white men of all stations have garnered and enjoyed more of these rights than any other group, so ours remains a fundamentally unequal - and, in many cases, largely separate - society. This reality has propelled two opposing trends in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement a half-century ago: increasing access afforded to People of Color (including via Affirmative Action for small portion of them) and a backlash against their progress from whites who've felt threatened by it.

How else can we explain the frightening and damning paradox that after our country elected its first African-American president, it then elected one of its most profoundly bigoted? And while the cynical and politically powerful (and, again, virtually exclusively white) would have you focus on terrorism by brown people of a different religion, the reality is that virtually all terrorism that we've experienced in our country in the last decade has been perpetrated by alienated white males, in no small part emboldened by our current abhorrent president (and in reaction to our previous one who was markedly different in a very obvious way), though there is a deafening silence about the latter reality in our national discourse (at least from the members of one group within our political leadership).

What's sad is that this is all so very simple. The truth is that we need to accept and address three realities about our situation in order to make ours a better country for us all:

First, we must acknowledge that we all want the American Dream, and especially want it to be true and attainable for our children.

Second, we must acknowledge the profound inequality in our society that has made that American Dream but a cruel fantasy for all but the very few at present.

Third, we must provide more equitable access to opportunity in all its forms - educational, professional, social, etc. - which has to mean that we will offer opportunities to the historically disadvantaged for a period of time until it can be proven that the they are no longer excluded by virtue of some immutable characteristic.

Oh, yeah: we also need to acknowledge and address a fourth reality about our society: the time for more equitable access has in no way, shape or form passed. As this college cheating scandal has reminded us, the rich, white and powerful continue to play by a very different set of rules than that available to the rest of us. And despite the cynical tropes propagated in the right wing media, Chris Rock's wry observation is still true: even though he's rich, because he's Black, there are very few whites who would actually trade places with him. So, too, with respect to Richard Pryor's incisive social commentary-cum-comedy of almost a half-century ago to the effect that whites and People of Color tend to have very different - if not polar opposite - experiences of and relationships with the police in far too many communities across this country. And the 'debate' we are having about whether we should honor or disassociate ourselves from the secessionist, treasonous leaders of the Lost Cause who are memorialized in marble and iron in places of honor across our country? And the appalling and immoral exclusion of transgender citizens from equality in serving in our military. And the immoral treatment of the asylum seekers - and especially the youngest, most vulnerable ones - at our borders. And.... These (and so/too many more) are the 'quiet costs' of White Supremacy that must be eradicated before we can be and are all equal heirs to our professed creeds.…

And despite all evidence to the contrary, I must admit a fundamental hope and confidence that I cannot shake: I believe ours will become a far more equitable society in the decades ahead. I know that it will be challenging and fraught with both great progress and troubling regressions, but the trend is so clear to me. When I look at the social engagement of our youth, our most diverse generation yet, I am heartened and inspired to hope that they will make good on the promise of a better world that they represent. And I am comforted by the demographic reality that ours will be a 'majority minority' country in a generation or so: I can't help but believe that the growing numbers of People of Color will virtually force the much-needed if challenging dialogue about how we allocate opportunity in our society. Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the myriad issues and developments that could derail us, but I'm even more persuaded by the trajectory of our recent history: the America in which I have lived is a far better one than that experienced by my parents and grandparents, which gives me faith that, in meaningful part but not likely totally, my children and grandchildren - and yours, too! - will experience an even better country in their lifetimes. A perfect one? By no means. But a more equitable and just one? Almost certainly ... if they vote, that is....

I would like to be known as a person

who is concerned about freedom and

equality and justice and prosperity

for all people.

 - Rosa Parks

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)