What Price Freedom?

Americans are the youngest country, the largest country, and the strongest country, we like to say, and yet the very notion of change, real change, throws Americans into a panic and they look for any label to get rid of any dissenter. A country which is supposed to be built on dissent, built on the value of the individual, now distrust dissent as least as much as any totalitarian government can and debases the individual in many ways because it places security and money above the individual; and when these things are cultivated and honored in the country, no matter what else it may have, it is in danger of perishing, because no country can survive, it cannot survive, without a patient, active responsibility for all its citizens. 

- James Baldwin, “What Price Freedom” (1964)

At times like these, when I’m dismayed by what I perceive in our society and/or world, I find myself returning to three spiritual-social justice pillars: post-Mecca Malcolm X, post-“I Have A Dream” speech MLK and post-Paris James Baldwin. Their words and wisdom comfort me, challenge me, give me hope and inspire me to keep pressing forward in my commitment to helping to make this world a better, more equitable and more inclusive place.

Last week, I turned to MLK, especially as captured in the brilliant tome To Shape A New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Professors Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry. This week it’s to Baldwin, especially as captured in the brilliant volume The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, edited by Randall Kenan.

With both of these explorations, I’m most struck by the reality that so much of what they share is still so relevant because so much of the work remains.…

For example, consider this from Mr. Baldwin’s essay “What Price Freedom?”:

I was trying to a suggest before that what the country has done to one-tenth of its citizens has had a disastrous effect on the country. It is obvious – or maybe it is not so obvious, as it seems to be a controversial point, but it seems to me obvious – that if you are intending to establish, to live in, to create a democracy, then you have a responsibility to all of your citizens. It would seem obvious to me that any son, any native son or daughter, has all the rights than any other native son or daughter has.

It’s bad enough for this not to be so; that’s bad enough. But what is really much worse is the system of lies, evasions, and naked oppression designed to pretend this isn’t so. … (T)he militancy and the vitality that I heard … today come from the kind of energy which allows you, which in fact forces you, to examine everything, taking nothing for granted. … It is a vitality, in short, which allows you to believe, to act on the belief, that it is your country, and your responsibility to your country is to free it, and to free it you have to change it.

Yes, fifty-six years after he wrote this, it’s none the less true as the unprecedented social unrest that we’re experiencing at present reminds us. There is not and never has been true equality in this country, as the disproportionate deaths of African-Americans have demonstrated since before its founding. Before the first half of the 20^th century, we were enslaved for hundreds of years and then subjected to a perfectly legal though morally indefensible apartheid for the better part of another hundred years during which millions of us died and untold thousands of us were lynched, either by private actors or the state. Since the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, the killing has continued, especially at the hands of those sworn to serve and protect us, as was the case with Jimmie Lee Jackson in 1965 or with Amadou Diallo at the end of the last millennium or with Eric Garner, Alton Sterling and Sandra Bland just a few years ago or with George Floyd last week.

That #DeathByPolice is really a thing in our society, especially for unarmed African-Americans, is both an indictment of us – or, to use Mr. Baldwin’s words, “part of the system of lies, evasions, and naked oppression designed to pretend this isn’t so” – as well as proof of the difficult, transformational work that each of us has left to do – or, again quoting him, that we must “act on the belief, that it is your country, and your responsibility to your country is to free it, and to free it you have to change it.” How profound the need for change remains.…

And doubtless many of us feel now like he did then:

I am going to take my freedom. That problem is resolved. The real problem is the price. Not the price I will pay, but the price the country will pay.

And why will this price likely be prohibitive?

People are as free as they wish to become. If one thinks of Americans in this way, “freedom” is used here as a synonym for “comfort.” People think they are free because they don’t have a military machine oppressing them.…

And, yet, as has been evident in our nation’s capital this week, in fact, we are beginning to experience this type of oppression in response to our primary need for comfort, in this case expressed as the growing outrage over the modest amount of rioting and property damage in many cities, which stands in contrast to the overwhelmingly peaceful protests and yet furnishes a convenient excuse for so many to look beyond the appalling structural causes of the present unrest.

Or, as Mr. Baldwin put it:

I still believe when our country has lost all human feeling you can do anything to anybody and justify it and we do know that in this country we have done just that.

How do we know that our country has “lost all human feeling”? One indication is certainly when its ostensible leader conflates a fake economic statistic with the supposed approval of a man just murdered by the police in one of our major cities. How craven and inhumane is it to suggest that a man who would undoubtedly prefer to be alive still would even care about an incorrect economic indicator that, when parsed, actually reveals that members of his community are experiencing heightened disadvantage?

And yet I choose to remain hopeful, including because so many of the so-called silent majority seem to have been awakened by this latest demonstration of the profound cruelty and inequality at the core of our society and, in addition to supporting the cause of protest philosophically, have actually joined us in the streets in peaceful solidarity with our demand that the nation live up to and into its constitutional creeds. Intriguingly, as with the Civil Rights Movement, young people of all hues and backgrounds and aspirations have rallied to this emanicipational cause, and yet they have also been joined by far more of their elders, many of them children of the 1960s, who feel compelled to finish the work left uncompleted since their own youth.

(Of course, this wouldn’t be modern America if there weren’t a lesser but nonetheless troubling ‘innovation’ amidst our civil unrest: the craven, immoral and anti-social behavior of groups of far-right agitators who’ve been identified as inciting the resulting rioting in order to promote Accelerationism, which is their desire to provoke a race war in our country [that they assume they’ll win and then be able to install and govern a white supremacist state thereafter]. That Accelerationism, too, is really a thing in our society is also an indictment of us as well as a dispiriting reminder of just how much work there is left to do.)

What I value most about James Baldwin is that he always kept it real, as we say today. This made many people – some of Color but a vast majority of those who were white – very uncomfortable in his time, as, no doubt, it would do today were they to examine and consider his perspectives and prescriptions. So, for some if not many, they can’t see Baldwin as a bridge to our better future. But I do: as he noted, not every challenge that is faced can be changed, but everything that is changed must first be faced. In this way, his clarion call to truth beckons me initially to greater clarity and then, most importantly, to action, firmly grounded in the world as it is and on our way to how we want it and, hopefully, will make it, to be….

(N)ow we have seen with our own eyes the danger we are in. We have seen with our own eyes what happens to a society when it allows itself to be ruled by the least able in the most abject among us. We have seen what happens when the word “democracy” is taken to be a synonym for mediocrity; is not taken to mean to raise all of its members to the highest possible level, but on the contrary to reduce such members as aspire to excellence down to the lowest common denominator.

- James Baldwin, “What Price Freedom” (1964)

Yes, he can go lower, but we must go higher ... to the polls!

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands

in moments of comfort and convenience,

but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige,

and even his life for the welfare of others.

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

Strength to Love (1963)

A new low … until the next one that is….

You think that we would have learned not to underestimate his inhumanity by now: what is this, like, the 7,842^nd new low? (Or is it the 29,712^th? I’ve lost count.) Yes, that was the President of the United States having peaceful demonstrators tear-gassed so that he could stage a photo-op by standing in front of a boarded-up church and holding the Bible so awkwardly that you know that he has no familiarity with it whatsoever. Two Corinthians, indeed.…

On one level, of course I’m outraged: what decent human being isn’t or can’t be by such a fundamentally disrespectful and craven act? But on another sadder, more resigned level, I’m just tired: tired of the inhumanity, tired of the immorality and tired of the immolation of the country that we hold dear.…

So how do you respond to such a sickening act of depravity and the abdication of leadership? Not in kind. As angry as any of us may be, let’s not give him the excuse to focus on anyone else’s lawless behavior. And I’m mindful that there are right-wing groups mixing in with the legitimate protesters, committing acts of vandalism and trying to incite even greater chaos: film them, call them out and then let them go.

Then get back to the business that should be our primary focus for the next five months and a day: getting as many fellow citizens registered to vote and then marching in massive protests on Tuesday, November 3^rd, to the place where we can truly be heard: the polls. Truth be told, it almost doesn’t matter what happens between now and then, as long as every single person in the streets now and every person of good conscience shows up on November 3^rd.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that there will be plenty of new lows and deliberate provocations between now and then, but we have to ignore them: to engage with this depraved inhuman and his enablers is both a complete waste of time – as is painfully, lethally clear, they’re not going to change – and a distraction from our singular focus, which is to restore some modicum of decency to our executive and legislative branches on November 3^rd and to their judicial counterpart thereafter.

As with so many other things in modern American life, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was correct in observing that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” But, as usual, we’ve chosen to remember the phrase and not the full context in which it was uttered. Here’s what the Rev. Dr. King said in a September, 1966, interview with Mike Wallace of CBS News:

I will never change in my basic idea that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom and justice. I think for the Negro to turn to violence would be both impractical and immoral.

And I contend that the cry of Black Power is at bottom a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro.

I think we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

As I find myself doing so often in adult life when mystified and saddened by our world, I turn to Dr. King … so this current conflagration is no different: I can find solace only in his incision and guidance.

Yes, it’s sad – maddening, even – that what he expressed more than a half-century ago is still true: that violence is both impractical and immoral as a long-term strategy for social change, that the largely white power structure in our country has made too few of the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the vast majority of African-Americans and that, in light of record economic inequality, the plight of poor People of Color has worsened in recent years (on a relative basis for sure, and, by some measures, on an absolute one).

But we have to be smarter and better in our response to the injustice we experience and to that, more broadly, that all of the dispossessed experience, especially as nefarious groups whose agendas include provoking a race war have organized to incite disorder and violence that seem to flow so naturally when pent-up anger is released. In sum, as Dr. King advised so long ago – and so frustratingly to so many at the time – we have to respond forcefully and yet nonviolently to the continuing, unaddressed injustice and inequality in our society. And the best nonviolent protest is to vote.…

Let’s not get it twisted: we are indeed experiencing the most inept, corrupt and immoral administration in memory and likely in history, but the solution to this most vexing of short-term challenges has to be the ballot box. Peaceful protest is a great thing, both to summon and demonstrate humane solidarity, but it’s still secondary to the ballot box.

And violent protest? Let’s just not: in the end, it distracts from the real issue – the profound inequality and injustice in our society – and enables corrupt elites – and even those who think of themselves as reasonable – to focus on the wrong thing and thereby avoid responsibility for engaging to address its cause.

Especially in this moment, we cannot be provoked into providing a distraction and an excuse for this administration to expand its inhumanity. In fact, I would argue, that given its track record, we should pretty much disregard it for the next five months and focus solely on registering every eligible adult in this country and having them all turn out on November 3^rd. Nothing else will matter as much as this, now or in the future.…

I abhor our president and his enablers. Shame on us that we’ve given them the ultimate seat of governmental power. But we can learn from this mistake and change this unfortunate reality on November 3^rd. So, if you’re called to march in the streets peacefully today or any day, great: please do so. By contrast, if you’re called to be disruptive in a violent way, please don’t: each such action provides justification for the continued immorality of the current regime. So whether you feel compelled to express yourself peacefully or not, be aware that the most important time for you to express yourself is in five months and a day and that the most important place to do so is at the polls.

As long as we can keep it peaceful, I’ll see you in the streets. But for the love of each other and this country, we must see each other again – all of us – on November 3^rd. If every single one of us exercises his/her/our right of expression on that day, then it’ll be the greatest protest in American history and, more than this, the beginning of a new American Dream, one that includes us all.…

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,

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.

Strength to Love (1963)

Why are we crying?

Good morn or evening friends

Here’s your friendly announcer

I have serious news to pass on to every-body

What I’m about to say

Could mean the world’s disaster

Could change your joy and laughter to tears and pain

It’s that

Love’s in need of love today

Don’t delay

Send yours in right away

Hate’s goin’ round

Breaking many hearts

Stop it please

Before it’s gone too far

The force of evil plans

To make you its possession

And it will if we let it

Destroy ev-er-y-body

We all must take

Precautionary measures

If love and peace you treasure

Then you’ll hear me when I say

- Stevie Wonder, “Love’s In Need Of Love Today”

As I sit here composing this piece and Stevie Wonder’s piercing and prescient tune plays softly and wistfully in the background, my tears are flowing involuntarily and steadily. Earlier today, having read the Sunday Times and consumed a fair amount of media updating us on the chaos in our country at present, my wife and I just sat in my study crying. So, too, with many of our fellow parishioners during our Zoom-based worship service even earlier today: tears flowed freely as the Rev. John Mennell related the spirit of Pentecost to the current morass in our society and called upon us to live into the challenge of spreading light in this dark time.

Why are we crying?

We’re crying because the country we love seems to be coming apart at the seams.

We’re crying because so much hateful behavior has assaulted us so indelibly yet again in such a short period of time.

We’re crying because George Floyd is just the latest in a long line that stretches back to our country’s founding … and we fear that he won’t be the last.

We’re crying because there’s so much pent up pain now showing itself in anger.

We’re crying because there’s been so much needless suffering dispensed by those who’re sworn to serve and protect us.

We’re crying because the latest evidence of our inhumanity is piled on top of tragically disparate impacts from a global pandemic.

We’re crying because we’re scared for our individual and collective futures.

And we’re crying because we’re actually among the fortunate but fear that we can't really help or protect those less so, or, truth be told, even ourselves....

As for my wife and I, we’re crying because Christian Cooper, who was recently threatened with potential #DeathByPolice for #BirdingWhileBlack, is a college classmate of mine, which reminds me and my friends and family that it could’ve been me or any one of us.

And we’re crying because we’re the parents of two young African-American males who’re especially at risk at this moment, and whom, we’re reminded, we can’t really protect when they’re living their lives out in this ever crazier, maddening and saddening world.

And….

This will be the first piece that I’ve ever written – of the almost 250 now – that I’ll publish in every medium that I use: via my blog, on LinkedIn, via Facebook and through both my personal and professional Twitter accounts. For those who interact with me via my blog or Facebook or my personal Twitter feed, it’ll feel familiar if, as it is, more pained. For those who interact with me via my LinkedIn or my professional Twitter accounts, it may feel uncomfortable largely because it’s more personal, which means more emotional (and you know how reluctant we are to share authentic emotion in professional contexts). But this is far too important a moment not to address it in all of its pain and yet hopeful possibility.…

In case you haven’t figured out by now, I’m an African-American male in my 50s, which is itself a real interesting experience in modern America generally and in the modern American business world in particular. I’ve been privileged to do meaningful work serving clients and colleagues, which has enabled me to tread the tony environs of executive suites and Persian carpet-covered marble floors. In other words, I’m one of the truly lucky – and grateful – few.

Which means, of course, that I’ve been reminded that I’m a Black man in America – usually in a negative way – regularly, far too often and, on a couple of occasions, potentially lethally.…

And throughout my corporate career – during which I’ve been for many of my majority executive colleagues one of the few if not the only African-American they’ve gotten to know at some depth – I’ve been careful to manage myself and my conduct because I’ve understood that though I’ve led a blessed life and enjoyed a privileged career, I don’t have the Privilege that virtually all of them enjoy. That’s right, race is very real in corporate America and there are different rules for different people, especially people like me who tend to be at best One of the Few and most often The Only.

And, of course, when I leave the office and venture out into the real world, despite the privileges of comfort that I’ve been able to enjoy, though I’m freer to be who I really am, I still have to be careful: one of the realities of race in this country is that in modern America you can never forget that you’re Black or, even more bluntly put, that you’re not one of ‘them,’ meaning the Privileged. (In fact, this is exactly the topic of “The Talk” that African-American parents have always been compelled to have with their children coming of age.)

So, because I manage myself carefully in virtually every environment in which I find myself, I’m able to observe the perspectives and behavior of the members of the dominant group while also being able to appreciate how the experience of being of Color lends itself to different perspectives and behavior.

To make it plain, let’s just say that I wasn’t nearly as surprised as some of my white colleagues by the racially divergent reactions to the OJ verdict.…

Now, mid-way through the third year of the most overtly racist (and misogynistic and heterosexist and nationalistically xenophobic and religiocentrist and…) presidency in my lifetime, as our country explodes in response to the latest revelations of the racism that continues to afflict us, this ‘gift’ of bifurcated vision weighs heavy on me yet again: yes, white America, the ugliness that you see now reflects the delayed expression of the pent up pain of continuous race- and class-based wounds.

And it reflects what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., observed years ago: that riots are the language of the unheard.

By contrast, if you’re Black, no matter how privileged a life you lead, you likely understand (though don’t condone) the vehemence on display, however mystifying it may be to the majority of Americans who’re fortunate to be blissfully unaware of the realities of race in contemporary society (or, at least, who claim to be).

To state it more plainly: as virtually every Person of Color understands, this is why Kaepernick knelt, which far too many and possibly most of our white colleagues, friends and family members still don’t seem to grasp.…

Yet these riots are a bit different in that there’s a new and even more disturbing trend associated with them: as the evidence is beginning to show, many far right (read = reactionary white) groups are stoking the furor by inciting and/or engaging in vandalism that will then most likely be attributed to the demonstrators and/or rioters, who are disproportionately of Color. Yes, Accelerationism is a thing in 21^st century America. And, no, you can’t make that up….

But should we really be surprised? After all, the president’s former senior advisor, Steve Bannon, often spoke about provoking societal confrontations. So, if those closest to the seat of power in our society speak glowingly of such conflagration, and then our chief executive engages in overtly racist (et. al.) behavior – c’mon, let’s not pretend that he didn’t understand the racist provenance of the phrase “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” that he tweeted recently (probably to distract us from his abject failure of leadership during this global pandemic) – why would we be surprised that members of the so-called alt-right see this as an invitation to provoke just such chaos? Clearly, they do. And, no, we People of Color aren’t really surprised.…

Which is the point: race is a reality in our society, though we choose most often to pretend that it’s not. And let me be clear, when I suggest that “we” choose to be oblivious to it, I mean those who enjoy the Privilege of not having to acknowledge or experience it. We People of Color don’t have this option.…

And class is a reality in our society, though we also choose most often to pretend that it’s not. How else can we explain our continuing belief in the American Dream in light of literally decades of data that suggest that educational and social mobility have all but ground to a halt in our country (long before the turn of the millennium) and that the appreciable progress in the past four decades has disproportionately accrued to a tiny percentage of our fellow citizens at the top of the economic pyramid? But here, too, People of Color don’t have the option to pretend, as so few of us have been among the fortunate few, economically speaking.…

And lest you be tempted to trot out that tired old argument that we’ve had a Black president so things clearly can’t be that bad, compare his behavior to that of his successor and just let it go before having to try and twist yourself – and reality – into a pretzel to explain how 44’s generally pristine example is somehow even the least bit comparable to 45’s consistently unconscionable conduct.…

But I digress.…

The main point is that there is great pain in our society today and we imperil the latter in direct proportion to how greatly we fail to acknowledge this reality. It’s the pain of the dispossessed: the tens of millions of People of Color who’re found largely in our urban areas and that of the tens of millions of whites who’re found largely in our suburbs and rural areas. (The fact that we aren’t typically found in the same place should tell you something if you’re paying attention….)

People of Color are hurting and unheard about a lack of educational and economic opportunity where they live, a phenomenon that hasn’t changed in a century since they began to migrate en masse to our cities.

And suburban and especially rural whites are hurting and unheard about a lack of educational and economic opportunity where they live, a phenomenon that’s been accelerating for decades. When you add to this that the benefits of their perceived Privilege are clearly eroding (especially since they’ve had to suffer a Black president and are becoming ever more aware of the ‘Browning of America’ in which they’ll become a statistical minority in a generation’s time), you can then begin to understand the fear expressed as vehemence that’s encouraged and has been on display at virtually all of the president’s rallies.

Or, to keep it real, you can see it in their threatening and anti-social responses to the mere inconvenience of being asked to shelter at home, socially distance and wear masks in public during a global pandemic. C’mon: let’s not pretend that there are any Black folks who’ve even entertained the possibility of arming themselves to the teeth with military-style weaponry and regalia and storming a state capitol to express their inconvenience; that’s not a privilege we’ve ever had.…

And, of course, there are a host of other challenges that both People of Color and their majority fellow citizens who’re members of the working and/or shrinking middle class confront every day that remind them, despite their dogged determination to continue to believe in the American Dream, that it’s slipping through their fingers and becoming more of a fantasy every day.

And yet our politicians and media largely ignore these appreciable challenges to the real world well-being of the vast majority of our fellow citizens every single day. Is it any wonder, then, that they feel unheard and thus angry, and then that this turns into outbursts of anti-social behavior?

Yes, seeing this is uncomfortable, which is why so many of us who’re fortunate enough to be able to look away most often do … except that, occasionally, as is the case now, these ugly realities (re)assert themselves. Realizing that pretending that they don’t exist not only won’t encourage them to go away but will actually tend to amplify them in both number and energy/power, why don’t we choose to begin to address them – and specifically their root causes – right now?

It can start by all of us acknowledging the realities of race in our society.

It can start by all of us acknowledging the realities of class in our society.

It can start by all of us acknowledging the realities of the other -isms in our society (like sexism, heterosexism, nationalistic xenophobia, religiocentrism, etc.).

It can start by us exhibiting more humane behavior, especially compassion and empathy, with our neighbors, and most especially with those who are different than us and live in different places.

It can start by all of us choosing to listen and truly hear our fellow citizens, especially those who are different than us and live in different places.

It can start by all of us advocating for the common good rather than our own narrowly defined interests.

It can start by us demanding more humane behavior, especially compassion and empathy, from our ostensible leaders.

It can start by us demanding more humane behavior, especially compassion and empathy, from those who’ve chosen to protect and serve us.

It can start by all of us acknowledging that we’re cloaked “in a single garment of destiny,” as the Rev. Dr. King observed more than a half-century ago, and that we need to learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we’ll surely perish together as fools.…

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that this will require massive change for each and every one of us, both individually and collectively. I realize that it requires what MLK described as “a radical revolution of values” that even he wasn’t fully convinced that we Americans could achieve. And I realize that if you’re reading this you’re likely one of the most fortunate for whom this country’s current structure largely works, except at times like this when civil unrest reminds us that the fruits of our collective endeavors aren’t particularly equitably allocated, and that making such a change will actually cost you something. So be it.

What’s the alternative?

I fear that if we choose not to change – to take this opportunity to engage in a fundamental reassessment of (the structure of) our society – then what we’re seeing now will happen more frequently and in more costly ways and our post-pandemic ‘new normal’ will contain increasing levels of societal discord and profoundly damaging eruption and disruption. Does any of us really want this?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I realize that the easy answer is a “no” followed by a lack of action that reveals the real answer, but are we really willing to continue not to learn both from our history and from our lived experience?

God, I hope not … but, then again, if we don’t choose to change now, perhaps often and possibly always, we’ll all end up crying.…

The American nation is to be judged in light of unarmed truth and unconditional love. Because a condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak, the voices of the vulnerable must be heard and their hurt attended to. Because justice is what love looks like in public, the basic security of everyone from domination must be established.…

- The Rev. Dr. Cornel West

in “Hope and Despair,” Shelby and Terry, eds.,

To Shape A New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Listening to - and Truly Hearing - the Unheard....

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,

tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly

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

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)

I am a child of the riots: no, not the ones now erupting in major cities across our country, but of the ones that erupted more than a half-century ago, and, sadly, for much the same reasons. In my case, it was the Detroit riot of 1967 and my experience of it has gifted me (or saddled me, depending on your perspective) with some of the most vivid and poignant memories of my childhood.

I remember my father having to sit up all night in the library at the front of our house with a baseball bat in hand to protect us should the chaos spread to our own neighborhood from its genesis not too far away. I remember him taking me and my mother on a cautious drive up Linwood Avenue past Central High School to see the US Army tanks with live ammunition at the ready that were positioned on the lawn in a show of force to encourage the attenuation of the civil unrest of the time. And I remember my parents’ struggles as they tried to explain to a four-year-old just what the hell was going on and why.…

Should any child have these memories? No. And now a whole new generation of American children do, so it’s up to us to address this … and by “this” I mean not just the riots themselves but their entrenched, largely unconsidered and undiscussed (social-structural) causes.…

In Detroit in 1967 the spark was police brutality resulting from the raid of a “blind pig,” or unlicensed after hours joint. It was a difficult time in the city and potentially transformative economic opportunity was hard to come by. Abuse at the hands of the storm troopers of an unfeeling (white) power structure lit the match.…

In Minneapolis in 2020 the spark was police brutality resulting from the arrest of a man accused of passing a phony $20 bill. It was a difficult time in the city and potentially transformative economic opportunity was hard to come by, especially because of the disparate impacts of a global pandemic. Videotaped abuse at the hands of the storm troopers of an unfeeling (white) power structure lit the match.…

As MLK observed a half-century ago, a riot is the language of the unheard.

In 1967, we were unheard about a lack of economic opportunity, police brutality in Communities of Color and the perception that our government was actively involved in oppressing us as it clearly was with others halfway around the world in Vietnam.

In 2020, we are unheard about a lack of economic opportunity, police brutality in Communities of Color, especially in the form of the all too frequent killings of unarmed Black people, and the perception that our government is actively oppressing us, including because of our own president’s clear and consistent racism (and misogyny and xenophobia and religiocentrism and…).

See the pattern?

As a high school friend of mine observed via query on social media yesterday, what American riot hasn’t been sparked by police brutality? At first blush, this question may seem a tad snarky, but upon closer evaluation its truth emerges: at some point, typically for largely symbolic reasons, people who perceive themselves to be oppressed and marginalized decide that they’ve had enough and begin to revolt. Is rioting and its unfortunate cousin looting an appropriate response? Depends on who you ask, right?

(No, morally, it’s never right … but it is effective: even if for unfortunate reasons, we are paying attention now, aren’t we? Maybe if we didn’t ignore our fellow citizens and their problems, they wouldn’t have to resort to antisocial behavior to get us to notice them….)

Right now, we’re beginning to hear from the silent majority lamenting the civil unrest in our cities, but where were they when People of Color and others of goodwill rose up to protest the disproportionate murder of unarmed African-Americans by members of law enforcement, giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement? Too many of them were offering the contrasting and demeaning observation that All Lives Matter as well as that of Blue Lives Matter, while the majority said nothing at all.

As MLK observed a half-century ago, what we will remember is not the hateful words of our enemies but the appalling silence of our supposed friends (that is, the self-considered ‘good people’ who remain unconcerned and disengaged unless something affects them personally).

America has always had a race problem.

It was founded on slavery, a major driver of its increasing though narrowly distributed affluence in its first two centuries, and had to fight a war to sustain itself because the proponents of human enslavement had decided that this “Lost Cause” was worth treasonous succession. In an impressive atonement after the Civil War, the Union-dominated federal government ushered in a Reconstruction period that provided meaningful support and far greater opportunity to the formally enslaved … but, true to form, this progressive and restorative period lasted less than two decades and was replaced by a de facto system of legal disenfranchisement that we came to call Jim Crow and lasted for the better part of a century. The fight for its eradication is what gave our nation the Civil Rights Movement and the great Rev. Dr. King (and others) to lead it.

The fruits of the Civil Rights Movement included both restorative and remediative support to the formerly disenfranchised, from the Civil Rights Act to the Voting Rights Act to the social programs of the Great Society and the War on Poverty. Again, this time for an even briefer period of about a half-decade, America did the right thing … and then, true to form, distracted by a costly and ill-considered Vietnam War, it moved on, leaving most of the root causes of the structural oppression of People of Color and the poor largely unaddressed.

And America has always had a class problem.

Oh, it’s been much better disguised than the race problem, but this country was founded by and for wealthy and powerful white men and has largely been ruled by them ever since. Don’t get me wrong, it is impressive that for one brief, shining moment less than a decade in duration, America elected an exceptional African-American to lead it … but then, true to form, his successor has been his antithesis and an abomination upon our nation. As Ta-Nehisi Coates has observed, as virtually perfect as President Obama had to be, his successor has proven to be, in complete contrast, as incompetent, immoral and unworthy, more so, in fact, than any of us could have imagined just a few years ago.

“Very fine people on both sides” of a neo-Nazi march after which a protester was murdered. Kids in cages because of an immoral war on brown people under the guise of an immigration effort. Travel bans against countries with largely Muslim populations because of an immoral war on brown people under the guise of a national security effort. (Also, I must note that the exemption of several countries that harbored and/or supported the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack and/or other terrorists but also happen to contain properties that license the president’s name for commercial purposes is purely coincidental, or so that b.s. party line continues to go.…) Tens of billions of dollars in federal bailouts given to the nation’s farmers as a result of the harm from a baseless trade war with the country with the world’s second-largest economy. (Also, I must note that mostly corporate farmers being given government money because of the harm they’ve been caused by its chief executive is appropriate and completely different than the welfare distributed to the undeserving poor, or so that b.s. party line continues to go.…) Etc.

I could go on – does any of us really want to think about the profound and profoundly negative consequences of his treasonous predication of international aid on support for his personal political purposes or of having a narcissistic sociopath for an executive leader executive leader who’s also a compulsive liar with a tally approaching 20,000 such fabrications in less than three and a half years or…? – but I’ll end with this one: 100,000 dead and climbing because of a complete failure and immoral and inhumane abdication of leadership resulting in a lethally mishandled response to a global pandemic complemented by a series of “press conferences” featuring guidance like the inappropriate recommendation of unproven medication as a cure as well as the suggestion of the bodily injection of disinfectants.

(OK, I’m sorry, but as I write this I just can’t hold my discipline: what the f@#k has happened to us that we would let this immoral, inhumane moron continue in the most consequential office on our planet?!?)

But, of course, the preceding is simply the context for the conflagration in which we find ourselves today: much of it can be traced back to two things, America’s history of race and class oppression that’s still very much alive and, in fact, thriving, and its president’s consistent and vehement inhumanity.

This is how we end up with Amy Cooper, a Privileged white woman, threatening Christian Cooper, an African-American male who had the unfortunate luck of #BirdingWhileBlack in a public space – Central Park in New York City, no less – and the timidity to ask her to leash her dog as local regulations require, with potentially lethal censure by the police. And then a day or two later, our horror is extended and our worst fears come to life again as we watch four Minneapolis officers of the law either kneel on an unarmed African-American man’s neck choking the life out of him over the course of almost nine minutes or stand idly by while this murder is being perpetrated.

How can you not see this as representing open season on African-Americans?

And lest you protest too much, I ask you to factor in that our president’s response to this tragedy and the ensuing civil unrest that it engendered was to quote the racist police chief of 1960s Miami to remind us that when the looting starts, the shooting starts (but, of course, as sociopathic pathological liars are wont to do, he claimed ignorance of the phrase’s racist provenance…).

Tell me again why African-Americans and others of good conscience shouldn’t be enraged?

Now, again, don’t get me wrong: rioting is not the answer. As the Rev. Dr. King showed us so long ago, nonviolent direct action is: we must organize, we must march peacefully on our statehouses and our Congress, not to take them over with guns but to confront them with the truth of our experience. And the most important way that we can speak our truth to power is to march en masse to the polls on November 3^rd.

It is only then that we will be heard.

But this, too, is just the beginning of a new/the next chapter: because after we vote out this inhuman stain of a president and his partisan sycophant enablers comes the real challenge, that of dismantling the structures of oppression in our society and its true reconstruction into one that is far more equitable and inclusive than has ever been. This is the long hard road ahead of us….

In other words, our goal is not to make America great again, because it never has been for far too many of its citizens. Our goal is to make America great for all for the first time, to live into our professed creeds in a way that makes them real and attainable for all of our fellow citizens.

The good news for those focused on the wrong thing is that this will put an end to riots because, successfully pursued and realized, it will put an end to their causes. The good news for those of us courageous enough to commit to doing the work of re-creating the American Dream – the one that Rev. Dr. King elucidated so indelibly in 1963 – is that this will be the true realization of our foundational ideals as well as the end to what one incisive observer termed the American Dilemma (which is a nice way of noting that our country’s allocation of opportunity was and has been inequitable and, in the truest sense of the term, un-American).

It is sadly ironic that despite so much progress in the past half-century, having enabled an unworthy chief executive whose claimed aim has been to make America great again, we find ourselves experientially back in the 1960s with our society being torn apart by the glaring inequality and inhumanity at its core. But just as his unfortunate election was a negative reaction to or the blowback from the positive breakthrough of a worthy and able African-American president, we could choose a positive reaction to this negativity in ways that create a far more humane, equitable and inclusive future, a veritable American Dream brought to life.

What this will require is that we channel and convert our righteous anger into disciplined righteous action, especially on November 3^rd. Let’s make this the day of a huge riot across the entire country, but one that’s an expression of hope and commitment to supported humanity, as signified by our vote for a fundamental change in direction in this country.

Let’s all march in the streets to our polling places in a few months and, in so doing, bring into being that “radical revolution of values” about which the Rev. Dr. King spoke in such an elevating way so long ago. And let’s not forget that his last effort of uplift, the very one that he was organizing when he was assassinated, was that of a multi-racial coalition of the dispossessed called the Poor People’s Campaign. Do you think that had he been successful then, we may have eradicated many of the structural causes of our current malaise?

I think so … but, more importantly, I’m willing to commit to this work now because I’m clear on two things: the cost of not changing – in terms of more Jimmie Lee Jacksons and Trayvon Martins and Ahmaud Arberys and George Floyds, etc. – is too high and the possibilities for a far more broadly distributed and abundant life are far too great not to try.…

And so the aftermath of violence is bitterness;

the aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community;

the aftermath of non-violence is redemption and reconciliation.

This is a method that seeks to transform and to redeem

... and make it possible for men

to live together as brothers in a community,

and not continually live with bitterness and friction.

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

"Justice Without Violence" (1957)

P.S. If you prefer, consider the prophetic words of the Rev. Dr. King directly: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/mlk-a-riot-is-the-language-of-the-unheard/#x

This I Believe....

It’s Easter, arguably the holiest day of the Christian calendar, and I’m at a bit of a loss: while so many with whom I ostensibly share a faith celebrate the claimed physical resurrection of Jesus Christ two millennia ago, I can no longer do so. While so many consider this particular day to be especially sacred, I can no longer concur (as I believe that every day is sacred and should be celebrated as a gift from God). While Easter is a huge holiday for so many, I can no longer celebrate it as such. What’s happened to me, the toddler who was baptized Presbyterian, raised Baptist, educated in Lutheran and Catholic schools, friend of WASPs and Jews alike and now a confirmed Episcopalian for decades with Buddhist-Taoist leanings?

Ah, yet another blessing of middle age: I find life has changed dramatically in yet another way, but, truth be told, I’m a bit surprised where I find myself: now standing squarely outside the mainstream of a faith community in which I’ve always preferred to be at least along the periphery. How did I get here?

Though I tend to use this day annually to reflect on my beliefs, today’s exercise therein was prompted by what might be considered an ironic source: Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus, which I’ve been reading in bits and pieces for some time now. Suffice it to say that it, like its predecessor Sapiens, it’s a revelation, jam-packed with staggering insights into human history, thought, belief and behavior. Every time I open it, I come away murmuring “Damn, that’s deep!”, and usually on multiple occasions during each sitting. Today’s experience was no different:

In his chapter entitled “The Human Spark,” the author parses what makes our species unique, including in our self-conception, especially as this has led us to become the dominant animal on our planet. It’s heady, masterful stuff. Continuing on a theme that traces the roots of our species’ superiority to our ability to cooperate flexibly at scale, in the subchapter entitled “the Web of Meaning,” Harari considers the impact of “intersubjective” realities on our species and our history.

What’s intersubjective reality?

Intersubjective entities depend on communication among many humans rather than on the beliefs and feelings of individual humans. Many of the most important agents in history are intersubjective. Money, for example.…

He goes on to detail how money is a shared fiction in which we’ve all chosen to believe. Though, technically, it “has no objective value.” “Yet as long as billions of people believe in its value, you can use it to buy food, beverages and clothing.” In other words, the “green pieces of paper” have no intrinsic value, only that which we as a species have assigned to them. To put it more bluntly, while you can’t strike a deal with an orangutan to accept payment in dollar bills, you can with another human.

There are many other intersubjective realities that have had defining influences on the human experience over time, including what we consider bedrock concepts like religion or nations or values or.… And yet history is the record of these “webs of meaning” ascending and then fading into oblivion.

For example, two millennia ago, the Greek gods had great influence over human life and one of the more vibrant and impactful society/empires that the world had yet known. This being said, today:

Most people are happy to acknowledge that ancient Greek gods, evil empires and the values of alien cultures exist only in the imagination. Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.

He goes on to point out that:

People constantly reinforce each other’s beliefs in a self-perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes.

 Yet over decades and centuries the web of meaning unravels and a new web is spun in its place. To study history means to watch the spinning and unraveling of these webs, and to realize that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

To reinforce his point, he then goes on to examine the circumstances that led to the Third Crusade in the 12^th century … and, true to his assertion, a modern view of this history would find it largely if not utterly incredulous. After all, it’s a story of two groups who see God differently but are willing to kill each other to establish who’s right. Sound familiar?

He considers the perspective of a metaphorical young English nobleman named John, who goes off to fight in the Crusade to defend his faith believing that, should he succumb, “after death his soul would ascend to heaven, where it would enjoy everlasting celestial joy.” Yet, from a more modern, scientifically-based view, our John would be “horrified to learn that the soul and heaven are just stories invented by humans.” Of course, “John had a very strong faith in all this, because he was enmeshed with an extremely dense and powerful web of meaning.” Further, “it was inconceivable to John that all these stories were just figments of the imagination.” Yet there are ‘true believers’ on both sides of this religious divide who either accept or reject this premise even today.…

But more and more of us don’t, considering the very concept of a religious crusade to be an insane construction in the modern world, which reflects Harari’s observation:

And the years pass. As the historian watches, the web of meaning unravels and another is spun in its stead. …

 That’s how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously. With hindsight, going on a crusade in the hope of reaching Paradise sounds like utter madness. … A hundred years hence, our belief in democracy and human rights might look equally incomprehensible to our descendants.

Hmmm….

I couldn’t agree more with Prof. Harari: the concept of a religious crusade – and, more broadly, that of believers killing each other over their differences in how they see the ultimate Source of Life – strikes me as insane. For most, it would seem, it’s a construct that has rightly been assigned to the dustbin of history, and yet we are threatened today by small minority of zealots who wish to continue this fiction to our collective detriment.

And his suggestion that “the soul and heaven are just stories invented by humans” also ring true to me today at a level of depth that I couldn’t have predicted earlier in my adult life. While they may be core concepts in the faith construct of most self-considered Christians today, for me, they are no longer persuasive … which is why I’ve decided to try to identify what I’ve come to believe at midlife. I offer the following without the egotistical presumption that it represents The Answer for anyone else but me; I hope only to encourage a dialogue that will expand and enhance our understanding of how our fellow human beings construct their faith, express their spirituality and/or see (or don’t see) God.

This I believe:

I.              God is a verb, not a noun.…

II.            Our ‘soul’ is a reflection of our unique human personality, but it’s only as eternal as we make it

III.         The Kingdom of God (or of Heaven or Paradise or Nirvana) is not someplace we go after we die, but a present reality that reflects how we live.

I have other, less central tenets of my personal faith, but the above is sufficiently significant that I’d prefer to start here before addressing the others (likely in a future piece).

I find it a bit ironic and mirth-inducing that I’ve actually come to conceive of God as Joan Osborne sang of Him/Her/It in her 1995 song:

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on a bus,

trying to make his way home?

For me, now, God is in each of us and therefore immanent not transcendent: She’s not ‘out there’ up in the sky watching over us, but each of us has a spark of the Divine in us and the reality of God becomes more or less real/evident depending upon our behavior.

I’ve come to this place after years of reflection and study – in this regard, especially of Tillich and Spong – and I have to say that though I’m comfortable with this formulation, it’s so different from what I was raised to believe that I occasionally find myself questioning it because of a faint trace of guilt from my Baptist-Lutheran-Catholic upbringing.

And it’s also a scarier concept to hold: the belief that there’s some benevolent Spirit up there watching out for us is far more comforting and, truth be told, less demanding of us, because if God’s not up/out there but in us, it’s incumbent upon us to act in order to feel Its impact/presence. In other words, to make God real in our world, I have to take the responsibility to act in ways that make this world a more benevolent, beautiful and loving place. And if this premise becomes more widely shared and more of us realize this opportunity for positive, contributory agency and act on it, this world would indeed be a much better place. But if we’re waiting on some old white guy in the sky to save us, we’re lost.…

Truth be told, I struggled with Tillich’s conception of God as the Ground of Being for many years. When first exposed to it, it rang true, but it was so different than everything that I’d been taught or to which I’d been exposed that I just couldn’t quite get there for some time. And then, when studying Bishop John Shelby Spong, it clicked: God isn’t some anthropomorphic spiritual entity apart from us, but that Divine Spark at the core of our very being.

What crystallized this belief was my reflection on the reality that there are times in our lives when we make conscious choices to elevate our behavior, to be more generous and to take more risk in being loving with others – though most often this is restricted to family members and friends – and in those moments we experience transcendence, not in some future, heavenly way but as an elevated, enlightened and enlightening dimension of life right here on earth.

In other words, when we choose to rise above ourselves and behave in ways that are the most genuine and profound expressions of the depth of our very humanity, we create the Kingdom of God of which Jesus spoke as a present reality, to be experienced and reveled in in the here and now, not after we die.

And then the real world intercedes, reminding us of the risks of being so open and we close up to protect ourselves, returning to a far more mundane, ephemeral and dangerous ‘real world’ in which we live our daily lives.

But what if we choose to take this risk to live transcendently continuously, always and each and every day? Truly, how different would our world be?

So, for me now, God is a verb.…

I do believe that humans have a soul, but not that it’s eternal: it dies when we die. And yet, our soul can continue to influence those we touch in life long after we leave this earth physically. This is how I conceive of eternal life now: the quality of how we live resonates in the lives of others with whom we interact, and the profundity of that impact will be our legacy and be reflected in how our story is told after we’re no longer around to tell it. In other words, the impact that we have in our earthly life will determine how the spirit of our time-bound personality resonates in the future, which, for me, is the only ‘eternity’ to which we can aspire.

For example, I am named for my maternal grandfather, Dr. Walter Ellsworth Johnson, who lived from 1909 to 1986. I had the privilege of knowing my grandfather for the first two dozen years of my life, but his impact has been so profound that he’s still very much with me dozens of years later. So much so, in fact, that when my own first son was born two dozen years ago, I named him as I was, after his great grandfather. Along with conducting my life in alignment with his example and in accordance with what he taught me, I considered it at the time to be the highest honor that I could pay him.

But there’s not much of a trace of “Dr. Johnson” (as he was called reverently by friends, colleagues, students and community members) in Columbia, South Carolina, anymore. The world has moved on since his passing, and but for a few plaques on the walls of various buildings at his beloved Benedict College (where he taught for decades and molded young lives), his history has become more personal and invisible.

Specifically, he exists now only in the hearts, minds and memories of those whose lives he touched while he lived. And as long as I’m alive and can tell his story, especially to my own children, he’ll live on by name. I suspect that a few generations from now his name will be lost to history, but his influence will continue largely without attribution. Many years from now, my descendants will be raised in certain ways that reflect the lessons that their then unknown ancestor imparted decades and perhaps centuries before.

A hundred years from now, will anyone know that Dr. Walter E. Johnson lived? Consciously? Probably not. But could his influence still be being felt? I think so – or, at least, I’d like to think so – and this is how I now conceive of the possibility for eternal life. No, not as some supremely joyful experience of the greatest place ever, but as an anonymous guiding spirit contributing to the potential of successive generations living more abundant and contributory lives.…

(I’ll also note another, related observation that I’ve come to at midlife: we only get to tell our own story during our earthly life, so our legacy – what transfers of us into eternity – is actually determined more by what others remember and/or share about us. In other words, for the most part, it’s not us who get to determine the enduring meaning of our lives, but those who experience us in our earthly time and live beyond us.…)

Combining these first two tenets of my current faith – that God is a verb and that we are eternal only inasmuch as we impact the lives of others during our earthly journey – I am led to a third: that the Kingdom of God is indeed real, but rather than being something we experience after we die, it’s an exalted dimension of our life right here on earth that we create in our own time. In other words, it’s our responsibility to create transcendence in our lives, and, in so doing, we also create our legacy.

For example, how often do we live as I described earlier, consciously taking the risk to be more open and present and loving despite living in a world full of ugliness and pain? In my experience, the answer to this query is “occasionally at best,” but it doesn’t have to be. We could choose to be more courageous in our daily life, and, should we make this choice consistently/continuously, our lives – as well as those of others whom we touch – will be immeasurably more resonant and fulfilling.

How different would your life be if you chose to be loving without fail? To overlook the pain inflicted upon you by the vagaries of fate, by strangers and, too often, by loved ones, choosing instead to radiate love, compassion, understanding and forgiveness always?

The answer, for all of us, is “very, very different.” And what immeasurably better, more meaningful and transcendent lives ours would be if we would but make this choice. But most often, we don’t: we’re rightfully scared, and the world can indeed be a very painful, dispiriting place far too consistently, so most often we choose to live within the protective shell that we’ve constructed for ourselves, telling ourselves that it’s more prudent to live in a safer way rather than to risk the likely harm from making the contrasting choice.

But isn’t this the exact choice that our ostensible Patron made? Isn’t this the example that we’re called to emulate as Christians?

I think so. Scratch that: I now believe so … but I understand just how challenging this beguilingly simple opportunity for choice truly is. There’s a reason that G.K. Chesterton’s observation – that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” – rings true: the world can be a cold and harmful place to such an extent that the choice to live transcendently can appear potentially (if not likely) suicidal.

And yet, every day I pray – not in the sense of petitioning an external God, but in the sense of a thoughtfully challenging and reflective dialogue with myself – to evidence the courage to make this choice. Some days I do, even if only for brief moments or for an hour or two. But in those moments, I feel an indescribable connection to the (eternal) Source of Life from which I believe we all emanate. These are the moments of love and wonder that comprise my happiest and most cherished experiences of and memories in life.

And though they may be transcendent, most of them are not particularly grand, and experience that has led me to another profound revelation: we can live transcendently not just in the ‘big moments’ of life, but especially in the small ones. Although we’d like to believe that, like Jesus, we can make transformative impacts in the lives of those around us, truth be told, I’ve come to suspect that the transcendent (read = well-lived) life is really all about stringing together a succession of smaller moments of meaning and contribution consistently.

For example, how committed are we to being kind without fail? For most of us, I suspect, we generally consider ourselves to be kind, but we’re most likely to hold ourselves accountable to reflecting this primarily with loved ones and friends – people whom we already know and about whom we care – more so than ‘strangers’ (who, truth be told, are just fellow human beings we’ve yet come to know). But what if we chose to be kind every day in every moment and in every way?

The profundity of this opportunity was actually imparted to me as a teenager, though it’s taken me decades to appreciate it fully. To put a finer point on it, I don’t know where Karen Jeffries is today, but I do know that my single experience of her father some 40 years ago has never left me, so her suggestion that I patronize his barbershop – a most modest contribution on its face – has actually turned out to be one of the more important blessings in my life.

You see, Mr. Jeffries’ barbershop was a prototypical – and almost stereotypical – cultural experience: while we were all there ostensibly to get our hair cut, truth be told, the majority of the experience was actually centered on the alternately ish-talking and profound repartee that’s the unique province of the Black barbershop. To put a finer point on it, some of the most profound and/or godly conversations that I’ve ever had in life have occurred in such environments, occasionally in stark contrast to many of those that I’ve had in more overtly religious venues.

Such was the case when I visited Mr. Jeffries. There was a lot of ish talked during my less than an hour in his shop … but there was also plenty of some of the most profound wisdom imparted of which I’ve ever been privileged to partake. And one particular such golden nugget lingers all these years later:

As is invariably the case when several adult men gather – in this case there were about a half-dozen adult patrons there in addition to three or four of us ‘kids’ – the conversation turned to relationships, in this case with significant others or spouses. After a period of the obligatory jive-talking, the conversation turned more serious and, so casually and effortlessly, Mr. Jeffries dropped some knowledge on me (and the others present) that haunts me to this day.

In responding to one of the other older gentlemen who’d been married for quite some time and was complaining that his wife was significantly less responsive to him generally of late – and especially so to his amorous advances – Mr. Jeffries stopped him mid-rant and asked a simple question: “Man, when was the last time you told her that you loved her?” After a bit of a (stunned) silence, the gentleman responded – conceded, really – that it may’ve been a while, to which Mr. Jeffries responded by sharing this observation: “I bet you used to tell her that a lot when you first started dating and were first married.” His interlocutor nodded silently, sensing that something profound and damning was coming. And then it did. Here’s what Mr. Jeffries said that rocked my world then and guides me to this day:

Man, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but this much I know: if you tell your beloved that you love her often early in the relationship, it matters but it’s also expected. But, after 25 years of marriage and life together, if you tell her you love her every day, it means a whole lot more because it’s been earned, and she appreciates it a lot more now than she did then.

How simple and yet profound an observation of human behavior: we tend to be more open and loving when it’s easier, especially at the beginning of relationships when everything’s going well, but we’re less likely to do so as time passes and the true costs of our loving commitment mount. Yet, in fact because of these very costs, doesn’t our expression of love mean even/ever more?

In essence, Mr. Jeffries was imparting an eternal truth: that the choice to be open and loving means more and has a greater impact over time, both in the moment and cumulatively. And it reflects my lived experience: it was easy to tell my beloved wife that I love her at the beginning of our relationship when we were in love and our relations were free and effortless … but,  as the years have passed and both the shared triumphs and tragedies of life have accumulated, it turns out that it’s even more important to do so now.

To put a finer point on it, one of the things that I’ve come to realize – especially after two failed marriages before this blossoming one – is that the secret to a rewarding, mutually beneficial long-term relationship is never to stop dating, to consciously choose to work to earn the right to be in relationship with your beloved every single day year in and year out. It’s when we give in to our natural human tendency to want to coast on our previous contributions that we sew the seeds of discord and potentially demise.…

So what does this have to do with making the choice to create the Kingdom of God in our daily lives? Just that it is, in fact, a choice and that making this choice continuously is ever more meaningful and impactful over time.

The best expression of this guiding philosophy that I’ve yet to discover is in the words of Bishop Spong (from his last book, Unbelievable), so I’ll close this piece by quoting my favorite passage of his that expresses virtually perfectly how I now see the essence and goal of Life:

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 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.” …
 

To this mantra, I add one thing more. I am a Christian. I am a disciple of Jesus. Why? Because when I look at the life of Jesus … I see a person who was so fully alive that I perceive in him the infinite Source of Life. I see one who was profoundly capable of being all that he could be…. So I join with St. Paul in the affirmation of faith, “God was in Christ,” bringing oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness and eternity out of time.
 

This is the God to whom I am drawn and worship. This is the Christ that points me toward the fullness of God. This is the faith I seek to share with the world. To embrace’s 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 I believe….

(Happy Easter!)