Here is my prediction for the election result for the midterm today:
-- Democrats will end up with about a 12-seat majority in the House
-- Several Democrats will win upsets in Gubernatorial races in red states, including Ohio and Texas
-- The Senate will end up as shown above. I have Republicans holding South Carolina and Alaska, but losing in Michigan, Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and ... Kansas. Really. So they end up with a 52-person majority in the Senate (er, 51.3 if you count Fetterman).
Let's see how I do! Post your own prediction in the comments.
Sunday Reflection: Those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake
The reading at many churches this will be from the beatitudes at Matthew 5, which contains this advice:
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
I love this line. Since I was a kid, I have taken this not only as a promise, but a warning. The promise is that the persecuted will find the kingdom of heaven, and the warning is equally clear: that the righteous will be persecuted.
This simple truism shatters an expectation our society creates: That when you do the right thing, you will be celebrated. Unfortunately, that is only rarely true. Usually, doing the right thing leads to persecution.
That's because doing the right thing most often runs against the interests of those in power. It ruffles feathers. It's "inappropriate." It's "impertinent."
Sometimes, it is said to be "too soon." Or that "people aren't ready for that." Or that "it's divisive."
Some traditions aren't meant to last, for good or bad. I still miss the Holidazzle parade in Minneapolis, for example-- especially the dancing light bulbs. Other traditions are just as well gone. Let's haiku about them this week! Here I will go first:
No doubt about it:
Devil's Night was a bad thing
Good thing it is gone!
Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable pattern and have some fun.
Political Mayhem Thursday: Oratory, once upon a time....
In the course of working on my book project, I am reading a bunch of Obama's old speeches-- many more, it turns out than I need to actually read for my research. I'm sort of addicted at this point. Below is part of a speech he gave when he was under attack for statements made by the minister of his church in Chicago, which created a genuine crisis for his campaign. He gave the speech on March 18, 2008:
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners — an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.
....
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy and, in some cases, pain. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely — just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's efforts to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change — problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all....
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another, to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a United States Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over 30 years has led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth — by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I describe the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters. And in that single note — hope! — I heard something else: At the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories — of survival and freedom and hope — became our stories, my story. The blood that spilled was our blood, the tears our tears, until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black. In chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a meaning to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about — memories that all people might study and cherish, and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety — the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing and clapping and screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America.
As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are part of America, this country that I love.
I recently heard a sermon on the idea of "home," at the idea has gotten stuck in my mind. The speaker was searching for some kind of definition of home that will work for everyone, but I'm not sure that is a worthwhile task-- different people have very different conceptions of home, and that should be ok. I can think of at least three archetypes:
The Swift
Swifts are fascinating birds that spend almost all of their time in the air. Their existence is in motion- and that really is their home. I do know people like that, for whom moving is a kind of home; that is where they are most comfortable and worthy. There have always been nomads, and they are still with us.
The Turtle
Some people carry home with them from one place to another. Often these people will identify "home" as being where they can be with the person or people they love-- that is the most comfortable and worthy place for them.
The Burrowing Groundhog
For many-- perhaps even most-- people, home is a specific place, most likely the place they grew up. That is where they are most comfortable and worthy, and many places are built around those people with this kind of a deep commitment to a place they love.
The funny thing is that nearly everywhere you will find different proportions of these groups, but always some people from each. New York City is a good example-- you have people passing through but staying for a bit, the turtles who have brought their home with them, and those long-term families with deep roots. And they all are better off for having the others...
Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Illinois in 2007. Here is part of what he said in that speech. How far have we come in 20 years?
[T]hat is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.
That's what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people. It is because of the millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South, slave and free. It is because men and women of every race, from every walk of life, continued to march for freedom long after Lincoln was laid to rest, that today we have the chance to face the challenges of this millennium together, as one people - as Americans.
All of us know what those challenges are today - a war with no end, a dependence on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren't learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We've heard them. We've talked about them for years.
What's stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.
For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight.
Sunday Reflection: How do you feel coming out of church?
I recently came out of church feeling joy. It was fantastic.
It was also too rare. If church is church, we should feel something emotional when we leave. After all, if we go there to encounter Christ, it should be something like when people left an encounter with him. Sometimes they were angry (when Jesus heals a paralytic in Mark 2), or sad (the rich young ruler in Matthew 19), or joyful (the blind man healed at Jericho in Luke 18), or confused (the encounter with Nicodemus in John 3).
But... they never walked away saying "that was ok," or "do you think there will be a line at Luby's?"
Churches suffer from a crisis of timidity, and too often a sense that a church's chief purpose is to affirm the person we were when we walked in. It is called to something more than that-- hard as it is to accomplish.
It's the scariest time of the year! Of course, everyone has their own (often irrational) fear. Let's haiku about those this week! Here, I will go first:
A not-so secret:
I am terrified of mimes--
Just talk already!
Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable pattern and have some fun!
Hoo, boy. These last two weeks before the election are going to be kind of rough. Here's what we are looking at:
-- Increasingly desperate measures by candidates who are behind, such as the yucky ad described above, from the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Ohio. I think it is counter-productive, but we'll see.
-- The same ads repeated over and over and over. I am starting to see them running back-to-back, in fact-- the same ad twice in a row. It might be good to spend a little more money on content and a little less on air time.
-- Somehow, a ratching-up of the appeals for money via text and email. For some reason, I mostly get them from out-of-state candidates.
But behind the scenes, here is what I am watching for: signs of election interference by the administration. If they were up to something big it would have to be in motion already, to get the people in place. I haven't seen it.... but I'll keep looking!
This cartoon (from The Onion) aptly describes my own horror upon finding out I had negligently bought a "cauliflower crust" pizza from Lunds and Byerley's.
How was it? Terrible! I have to say, gluten has its advantages...
As those who follow along regularly here know, I have four favorite college Div. 1 football teams, listed here in order of their overall quality over the years:
Michigan
Minnesota
Baylor
Northwestern
Right now, though, everything is upside down! Of them, Northwestern is the only ranked team, and Michigan is pretty bad-- and even lost to Minnesota. So the current Osler League rankings are:
1. Northwestern
2. Baylor
3. Minnesota
4. Michigan
If you were wondering (and I know some of you probably were), the ranking by mascot quality would work out this way:
1. Minnesota (Goldy Gopher rules)
2. Northwestern (Willie Wildcat can be kind of a sad sack, but still
There is something that has long fascinated me about the Gospels: They are set in a desert, but so many of the key moments involve a body of water in one way or another. Jesus calls his first disciples from their fishing boat. He is baptized in a river. He performs a miracle by walking on water. Even at the very end, after the crucifixion, he appears to his followers once again on the water.
That's not even to mention the scenes that center on water in other ways: his first miracle was turning water into wine, and his longest reported encounter was with a woman drawing water from a well.
A lot of it, I think, is the role water plays in a desert culture-- it is especially precious. Being near a body of water is something that is nearly universal in most human cultures, and the need for drinking water is genuinely universal. Perhaps it is a way that Jesus connects to us all, across diverse cultures and many centuries, a centering element that allows us to imagine ourselves there.
Shorelines, too, are those magical places where the known and unknown meet, where the land where we can survive meets the water where we cannot. Jesus pulls us to that existential border-- where, sometimes, we need to be.
