Sunday, September 18, 2011
Sunday Reflection: To act
In Matthew 7:26 Jesus says Everyone who keeps on hearing these messages of mine and never puts them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
In a week, I will be going out to Buffalo, Minnesota to talk to the Episcopal clergy from this area about how to foster productive, non-destructive discourse about difficult subjects. I'm not sure yet what I will say, or even that I am the right person for the job; thus far I am just struggling with the question itself.
But who in our society is putting Christ's teachings into practice? Who is acting on Christ's directives to love our neighbor (even if our neighbor is a homeless man or a tea party partisan)? Especially in our public political discourse, we seem stuck with two significant groups of people. The first group is those of both sides who view the other side as their enemy-- the liberals who described George Bush as Hitler, and the Republicans who express such evil motives to Barack Obama. I traverse both sides, and hear this kind of dialogue very often. It is marked by a discourse centered on skewering the character and the motives of political opponents, a mean personalization of the argument.
A second group, just as significant in its own way, is those who do not speak at all, or act for social justice in any way, for fear of being drawn into this toxic debate-- their fear is that they will face the wrath of the haters.
There are two Christian values that need more often to run together-- bravery and humility. The first group I describe are brave in a sense; they have no fear in putting their thoughts into the public arena. Yet, they have no humility. The second group is certainly humble in their silence, but cannot be called brave.
This is a time when we need leaders willing to be both brave and humble-- to take up tough issues with a willingness to listen and respect those who oppose them.
Comments:
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"At the end of the day, it is not the years in your life that counts, but the life in your years." -President Abraham Lincoln
# posted by 
: 12:30 PM
: 12:30 PM
The flaw in your thinking is that you associate ignorance with bravery. Further, not responding or speaking out doesn't make for a coward. Rather, it may just be that the person is smart enough to know that certain people are so stubborn as to never listen to logic. It isn't humility when you don't waste your time trying to persuade those who won't listen and it isn't bravery when someone says whatever stupid thing that comes to mind without regard for the acceptance of others. Those that say the opposition is nothing but a bunch of Nazis or communists aren't brave because they don't care about the response. A brave person should speak out but also be brave enough to logically respond when the situation is appropriate. If the response falls on deaf ears, why speak? Bravery isn't just attacking your foe, it is standing up to the response and defending yourself. Silence isn't necessarily a lack of assertiveness, it can be simply being smart enough to realize there is no point and to wait to respond when there is a receptive audience. This is why your logic is flawed, it is too simplistic and narrow. It was probably done without much thought. Were you humble when you didn't speak out for the gays? Were you brave when you spoke out against the sentencing guidelines? What, if anything, did you personally put on the line when you acted like that? What was your stake in the fight? Humility and bravery are two great attributes but you didn't do either any justice with the narrow view.
# posted by : 6:24 PM
: 6:24 PM
Anon 6:24-I disagree on the idea that ignorance is associated with bravery in this piece. I do not think that was the intent. I think the idea was that sometimes people think themselves as 'brave' when in reality, they hold no regard for others thoughts or ideas (which in essence, is what you are saying, too). And--I over the years I have lived with an attorney who always says, "there is no sense trying to reason, with an unreasonable man". And so on that point I agree with you, too.
I think mostly the missed point in this piece is that bravery is not "standing up to the response, and defending yourself"....instead...it is standing up to the response and defending OTHERS. It's the 'others' that Christ instructed us to help, serve, and love. It is the Others that need our bravery, and our humility. Always.
I think mostly the missed point in this piece is that bravery is not "standing up to the response, and defending yourself"....instead...it is standing up to the response and defending OTHERS. It's the 'others' that Christ instructed us to help, serve, and love. It is the Others that need our bravery, and our humility. Always.
# posted by : 6:48 PM
: 6:48 PM
Anon, the point you missed in my response is that it really is a defense of yourself if you are truly being brave because that means you've taken a personal stake in the belief, even though not necessarily agreeing with it. Defending others doesn't mean a damn thing if you don't feel you have a personal stake, in some manner or form, in the outcome. Although the professor will say he has a personal stake in the sentencing guidelines because it matters to him, he wasn't the defendant or the main attorney. The outcome wouldn't haunt his dreams because he actually was a part of that system. He didn't leave the system because of the guidelines. Pursuing something because it is academically interesting is fine but speaking out with an amicus brief isn't quite the same as being the person going to visit the client and explaining the situation, talking to the family, etc.
# posted by : 6:56 PM
: 6:56 PM
6:56-- Um, actually, while I was doing that Guidelines work on the academic side, I was also representing clients, visiting them in jail, etc. Not full time, obviously, but I was on the federal panel for indigent clients in Waco, and did do that at the district court level-- that is, being an advocate for the person sitting beside me at sentencing. Beyond that, my work at the appellate and collateral review level has not all been amicus briefs-- in Spears, I represented someone directly in the 8th Circuit and Supreme Court as counsel. Just this summer I did two pro bono commutation petitions for federal prisoners myself, and got to know my clients. I do have a stake in sentencing at the level you describe, but even if I didn't we all have a stake in a fair and just criminal law in this nation.
Your assertion is just wrong, and a little weird-- why are you turning this into a personal attack on me, if you don't know the basics?
You clearly don't understand the literary device I used, either, which was thought out-- that bravery and humility both have shaded duel meanings in our language. There is real bravery and then bravado, which share the trait of outspokenness. The is humility that is intentional, and then mere meekness, both of which share the trait of selflessness.
Of course, there is a time that a person can be neither brave nor humble (in the positive sense), and that is when they attack someone on the internet and do so anonymously-- That is the worst kind of cowardice.
There is real irony in your claim that I have no stake in the reforms I seek, when you are too small a person to even put forward your own identity.
Your assertion is just wrong, and a little weird-- why are you turning this into a personal attack on me, if you don't know the basics?
You clearly don't understand the literary device I used, either, which was thought out-- that bravery and humility both have shaded duel meanings in our language. There is real bravery and then bravado, which share the trait of outspokenness. The is humility that is intentional, and then mere meekness, both of which share the trait of selflessness.
Of course, there is a time that a person can be neither brave nor humble (in the positive sense), and that is when they attack someone on the internet and do so anonymously-- That is the worst kind of cowardice.
There is real irony in your claim that I have no stake in the reforms I seek, when you are too small a person to even put forward your own identity.
Anon 6:24/6:56--
If your goal was to try to attack Professor Osler about anything to try to "get back" at him about his work with Baylor's LGBT community, which, considering the high volume of ad homenim attacks on the value of Prof. Osler's work and his writing and the low volume of any kind of valid criticism, I can only assume it was, you failed pretty seriously.
Honestly, did you even read more than two sentences of the post before you started ranting about nothingness?
If your goal was to try to attack Professor Osler about anything to try to "get back" at him about his work with Baylor's LGBT community, which, considering the high volume of ad homenim attacks on the value of Prof. Osler's work and his writing and the low volume of any kind of valid criticism, I can only assume it was, you failed pretty seriously.
Honestly, did you even read more than two sentences of the post before you started ranting about nothingness?
# posted by : 8:26 PM
: 8:26 PM
This is a good question to ponder Mark, and no your reasoning is not flawed, as Anon 624 suggests. Actually, what this discussion illuminates, in my mind, is the limits of dialectical reasoning in particular and that of human reason generally. Furthermore, and I see this directly in my personal and professional lives, the challenge of which you speak shows us the shackles of American rugged individualism bequeathed to us from the Enlightenment and the Cartesian way of looking at reality.
Okay, so enough of the big words. Basically, our self-centered hyperindivivualist culture, regardles of our politics on any given isssue, devalues community. I love your example of Jesus and what I think you are intimating. Jesus was brave and humble, but within the context of his community (the disciples whom he chose to call friends, not because they were good but because he loves them).
True bravery and humility are in such short supply today, because everything has been commidfied in our consumerist individulatist and entirely self-centered culture; NB the use of the word "supply". Move away from solipism and things could change.
Okay, so enough of the big words. Basically, our self-centered hyperindivivualist culture, regardles of our politics on any given isssue, devalues community. I love your example of Jesus and what I think you are intimating. Jesus was brave and humble, but within the context of his community (the disciples whom he chose to call friends, not because they were good but because he loves them).
True bravery and humility are in such short supply today, because everything has been commidfied in our consumerist individulatist and entirely self-centered culture; NB the use of the word "supply". Move away from solipism and things could change.
Good thoughts. I used to be more even handed, looking for the good in any perspective, but have found myself becoming more partisan in response to others lately.
I don't like what I often see in myself when that happens. I try to have an even handed adult conversation, and then someone goes and just says something stupid. I almost feel like I can't help but answer in kind, or in the alternative, say nothing at all. Either response leaves me feeling less than satisfied.
If only there was some god-like power out there that could save us from ourselves. ; )
I don't like what I often see in myself when that happens. I try to have an even handed adult conversation, and then someone goes and just says something stupid. I almost feel like I can't help but answer in kind, or in the alternative, say nothing at all. Either response leaves me feeling less than satisfied.
If only there was some god-like power out there that could save us from ourselves. ; )
I blogged on this topic a few months ago during the midst of the Scott Walker labor bill in Wisconsin where I am from.
http://davidphilipbest.blogspot.com/2011/02/theology-of-political-advocacy.html
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