Is It Holy Ground?

 

We live on the ground between mystery and certainty. It’s holy ground. There is a wonderful story in the Hebrew Bible of a bush that was on fire but not consumed. Moses noticed, walked over to inspect it and then was told to take off his shoes. He was on “holy ground”. The modern, enlightened approach to such a tale is to deconstruct it. Understandably, and rightly, we search for the meaning of the story in something other than its literal truth. What must not be lost, however, is our capacity for awe.

What is it that makes anyplace “holy ground”? When Notre Dame in Paris was aflame, the world lamented the damage done to what is a “historic” space, if not a sacred place in everyone’s mind. The real possibility of losing a place forever – does that make it more precious? As with people, is it also true of places – that absence increases our attachment to them?

Let the steeple on a local church be in disrepair, an entire community will come to its aid. In New England at least, these structures are iconic. One might never darken the door of the church, but that steeple is part of everyone’s story and suddenly critical to local identity. It is on “holy ground”.

From Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi to their toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square, Americans have witnessed, sanctioned – “blessed” if you will – the consecrating and deconsecrating of spaces and places. More than empty symbols, statues, spires and flags on hilltops become “holy ground”. Wednesday, January 6, saw the desecration of what Pastor David Cassidy recently characterized (“On Point” – January 14) as the United States’ “sacred space” – our National Capitol. Self-proclaimed “patriots” sat with feet on desks, broke windows and threatened lives while duly elected legislators cowered in undisclosed locations below.

A murder in a cathedral inspires a different response than if it happens in an alley. When people forced their way into the National Capitol their actions took on an importance far greater than if they had limited their presence to Pennsylvania Avenue. There is a cognitive dissonance in carrying the American Flag, using it as a weapon at one point while desecrating the Capitol, trampling its hallowed halls and looting, all the while professing to be protecting everything that building stands for.

In terms of our identity as “Americans”, the only thing competing with the National Capitol for "sacred space" is the local voting booth. Too many among us are ready to deface one while denying their fellow citizens access to the other. We are left to wonder if there is any place anymore that is for us all “holy ground”.

 

Kramer, Denominators, and Where America is Right Now

 I would sit in Math class with a glazed look on my face, staring at “X” and “Y” and at symbols that I was told meant “greater than” or “equal to”. I grew up in “The Church,” but I never had faith in sufficient amounts to believe that “X” was anything other than “X”. How was it possible that it was a “variable”? Why not just state explicitly what “X” was and call it that? In high school Algebra I longed for the good old days of “lowest common denominators”.

What does 948 have in common with 316? They are both divisible by 3! It’s no mystery! It is easy to discover! And don’t try to convince me that 948 / “X” = 3. “X” has no mystery whatsoever in that example! And it certainly isn’t a “variable”.

I fear in America we have lost any sense of our political “least common denominator”. Not even violence in the nation’s Capitol – and with Congress in session to perform its perfunctory task of validating a legal election – could move some people to concede, to give ground. As our nation was enroute to recording almost 4,000 deaths attributable to Covid-19, legislators were debating the legality of last November’s election. We have learned that a global pandemic will not unite Americans; we will fight over wearing face masks or practicing safe physical distancing. We will literally threaten the lives of elderly, physically compromised neighbors and people of color so that we can have our block party, political rally, wedding or worship service.

But yesterday was different, wouldn’t you think? January 6, 2021 saw rioters, emboldened by a lame duck president, literally storm the Capitol, threaten people’s lives, destroy property, break into offices and walk out undeterred. You would think that would certainly be the bottom line – the absolute limit to what would inspire Senators and Representatives to work together. But even after such an egregious act, forcing our Congress into hiding and lock down – even that was not enough for some (Senators Tommy Tuberville, Roger Marshall, John Kennedy, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz) to jolt them into consciousness as to Donald Trump’s continual proclamation that, somehow, he is a “Prime Number”. Thanks to the current Republican Party, Mitch McConnell’s pathetic nods notwithstanding, we have a nation with no apparent common denominator.

The six senators mentioned – and the 121 Representatives who supported them – are like Kramer looking to see how far he can go before completely running out of gas. A last ditch attempt to put a little fuel into the tank is thwarted by the allure of a thrill that is certain of only one thing – to leave us stranded. It’s comical on a sitcom. It is lethal as a rationale for governing.

Whatever good his supporters might think Trump has done for our country, it is more than negated by the thousands of lies, the exhausting narcissism, the arrogant disdain he has shown for governing. Trump has incited his most extreme supporters to violence; he has driven the entire Republican Party into a wasteland. Were that all, we might recover; but governing is a cooperative venture. Time will tell if the man elected to succeed him has the moxie and will be given the support needed to get our nation back on a path which leads to the greater fulfillment of our founder’s dreams and America’s promise. It is hard to be hopeful given the events of the past year and the past 24 hours; but that’s where America seems to be at right now.

Got Glue?

 What do Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and 

Maria del Carmen Garcia Rivas have in common?

Biden steps into the presidency with a pandemic screaming almost as loud as those who deny its existence, the economy in viral meltdown and global trust in the US as an ally at its lowest. The Republican administration leaves in its wake a federal deficit historic for both the amount and the speed at which it grew over the past four years – even before Covid. Somehow Biden has to put together a coalition to address this multifaceted crisis with a congress, 90% of whom on Capitol Hill still don’t acknowledge him as the winner of the election held over a month ago. If the Biden – Harris team has any chance of restoring trust in our nation’s institutions and reputation it is going to need some kind of amazing glue. And that is the connection.

Maria del Carmen Garcia Rivas is part of a team that is literally attempting to piece back together a coral reef. We are several decades into the awareness of this tragic truth – climate change is destroying reefs that are seedbeds of life and provide nature’s frontline protection for many of earth’s coastlands. The experiment involves a kind of superglue divers use to literally adhere broken columns of coral back together. Garcia Rivas directs a national park that manages the reef off the coast of Cancún. The process is highly experimental. And if it has any chance of working timing is of the essence. Its success may well determine the fate of places on our planet many people call “home”.

One more name to drop into the mix: Jorge Ramos. Remember him? He was the Univison reporter escorted from a press conference in 2015 with then-candidate Donald Trump. Regardless of how you feel about that exchange, Mr. Ramos has written a kind of “mea culpa” piece laying blame for much of what is mentioned in the first paragraph of this blog at the feet of journalists. Calling Mr. Trump “a dangerous populist, an anti-immigrant bully, and a threat to democracy and the free press,” Ramos notes that journalists “sought constant access to Mr. Trump … and the media aired many of his most mind-boggling comments.” The absurdity of Donald Trump has been “great for ratings,” writes Ramos, “but not for civility or democracy.”

Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election – quite handily. There was dancing in the streets. “The bully had finally been forced out,” says Ramos. But for four long years the racism and xenophobia of Donald Trump dominated the twitter feed and front pages, ripped into the fabric of a nation and broke the hearts and souls of its people. The question hangs in the air: Do Biden and Harris have access to the “glue” that can put it all back together again? Does such a thing even exist? We have to hope so; for so many of us, home and hearth are depending on it.  

Can we have it all?

It was an early hit (2014) for Adele - the lament that was also a threat: "We could have had it all". (Rolling in the Deep.) That's what the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Orthodox Jewish Community wants. And that's what a lot of "conservative Christians" want as well - to have it all.

I was the pastor of a local church and a volunteer at the community library. I had been asked to serve on the Board of Trustees for the library which consisted of one room. My election to the board was held at the Town Meeting, during which one of my parishioners stood up and challenged the legality of the proceeding. "With all due respect to Rev. Demers," both a verbal and a physical nod in my direction, "I believe his serving on the library board would be in violation of the separation of church and state." I, in turn, stood and withdrew my name from the running. But really - Violation of the separation of church and state - my serving on this library board?

In a recent piece in the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse writes of the decision by the Supreme Court - Justice Amy Coney Barrett's first - ruling against the State of New York's restrictions on worship attendance. Greenhouse notes that the state had eased the restrictions prior to the case getting to the Court. In other words the diocese had already "won"; but is it enough to win?

"There’s no neutral ground," she writes. "The Supreme Court has become a prize in a war over how far the country will go to privilege religious rights over other rights, including the right not to be discriminated against." 

Putting the needs of others ahead of one's privilege is central to the Christian message. It demands a willingness to sacrifice. It is a profound cognitive dissonance that Christians would be willing to go to court for the right to gather knowing full well that exercising such a right at this moment in history is to put all who gather and anyone they come into contact with in danger. The lack of political leadership at the federal level during this pandemic has been nothing short of criminal. But equally disturbing are the times when the state has taken higher moral ground and exhibited greater concern for neighbor than the Church.

The argument that the cavernous nature of our sanctuaries facilitates safe gathering misses the point. With just under 200,000 new cases reported on Dec. 2 and just under 3,000 deaths (a new record for the US), one would think faith communities who take their inspiration from Jesus of Nazareth would be imploring people to adhere to the guidelines to stay home rather than looking for ways to work around them. "We could have had it all ..." Yes indeed; and when it was all over, would we have gotten what we truly wanted?

So-teer-ee--ology

He was a professor of history - and a good one! I took one of his classes in college. It had been several years since we had seen each other. Enough years such that I had completely changed career paths, gone off to seminary, gotten a Master of Divinity degree (a rather arrogant title for a degree in a subject area with humility as one of its core tenets!), and was serving as a pastor. Seeing Prof. M. and his wife at my door was an unexpected and welcome surprise. I invited them in to my study. And I HAD been studying, putting a paper together that was required for ordination. It was lying on the coffee table. The Prof. picked it up and paged through it. He paused, looked up at me, then glanced quickly at the paper, back at me again and asked: "What is 'soteriology'?" (Correct pronunciation in the title.)

Ah, the prideful pleasure of being able to teach the Prof. a thing or two. "The study of the doctrine of salvation," I explained confidently, and not humbly.

Being "educated" often means having fancy words to refer to rather commonplace realities - "commonplace" in that at some level, pretty much everyone has a sense of the truth the fancy word refers to. They just would never call it that.

Take this sentence from a recent article written by conservative columnist David Brooks: 

"We live in a country in epistemological crisis ... " 

If you can nod your head - if not in agreement, then at least in comprehension of the meaning of the sentence - you probably went to college. Mr. Brooks could just as easily have written: "Our country doesn't know what it believes anymore." Or - "Americans don't agree anymore on what is 'true'."

Brooks comes down hard on Republicans and then expands the horizons of shared confusion to nations around the globe. Misinformation is much like a virus: it spreads and the more concentrated it is by way of social media, radio talk shows, presidential pronouncements on Twitter, the more adherents it claims.

Let's think about two things. First, Mr. Brooks looks at the power of the story to explain our pain and fear and insecurity. It raises the question: To what extent does what we believe arise out of our experience? If your income has remained flat or your job went to Mexico or your town has emptied out with businesses, churches, schools shrinking or closing altogether, it is not unreasonable to feel hopeless. If you are working hard, praying hard, struggling and still there is no respite from economic malaise, that might affect your soteriology - your sense of who or what is going to save you! Old promises won't ring true anymore.

Someone comes along - a real "outsider" - and says he knows how to make it all great again. More than saying how he is going to do it, he spells out whose fault it is that industries have collapsed and communities have faltered. I doubt any one of us hasn't succumbed to the temptation of believing our circumstances can't possibly be our own fault. Middle America - many Americans - have been struggling for several decades and the established governing processes haven't come through. Newt Gingrich realized the basic need for a new contract, a new way of doing things - a way that was not only "new" but that took the old ways out at the knees.

The messaging was so effective that it didn't need to be true; it just needed to be believable. It needed to offer an explanation that was initially plausible. What is scary is how the "plausible" goes to "improbable" and then to "impossible."

David Brooks quotes a recent Monmouth University survey which revealed that "77 percent of Trump backers said Joe Biden had won the presidential election because of fraud." Mr. Trump touted this message in 2016 when he lost the popular vote, saying the only way that could possibly be true was if there was massive voter fraud. Fraud is possible, but not all mistakes in counting votes is fraud. And once the votes are counted, then recounted, the truth is in the math.

Mr. Brooks' column is a lament over how impotent the truth seems to be anymore. And the troubling question is this: Are we unwilling to accept the truth? Or have we become incapable of accepting it? Thus - the epistemological crisis - the gap between what we believe, what we claim to know, and the way things actually are.

And that is the second thing we need to ponder. Will we as a nation create stories to explain and support our prejudice? Or will we do the hard work - all of us - the hard work of facing the truth. Mr. Trump lost this election; many Republicans won. The virus is real. And any one human being who claims to have the power to make us great again, to save us - is not to be trusted because such a claim is simply not true.

What a trip!

 It was 21 feet long and they made it in the classroom. Start to finish, all the strands for the suspension cables, the caissons for the foundation, the lanes, the towers - the entire Brooklyn Bridge (except for the water underneath) - right there in Trish Lent's second / third grade classroom. The construction project was part of a half-year unit that involved several trips to see and experience the actual bridge joining Manhattan and Brooklyn.

On their first trip the children were initially taken aback - actually, a bit traumatized by the racket of traffic and their view from the wooden walkway above the cars. The force of wind and the sensation of being high above the water was unnerving. Before the project was over, not only were they comfortable on the bridge; they were experts. Math, science, poetry, artistry, engineering, construction - and even the basic question: Why put a bridge here? This was not an extended learning unit in school; this was an experience designed to imbed itself into the lives of these children.

I read about this in a book called "Out of the Classroom and Into the World" by Salvatore Vascellaro. The book builds on the pioneering work of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, an educator who started The Bank Street College of Education. The heart of Mitchell's educational conviction is the field trip, what is sometimes referred to as "The Long Trip." Perhaps another way of putting it would be to say that Mitchell firmly believed if a person was going to learn, "you have to be there." You can't just read about it. You have to see it, touch it, and talk to the people who made it or are having to live under the burden of it - whether we are talking about a bridge over water, or the turbulence of racism.

As I write this, four astronauts have left earth's atmosphere and have docked with the International Space Station. Theirs is a six month field trip, doing experiments, collaborating and creating relational bonds that will transcend any of the facts they accumulate. To watch the astronauts as they boarded, acknowledging the hundreds of support staff, knowing they journeyed on the shoulders (and brains) of colleagues - it was heartening to see their gestures of gratitude.

And I am reminded that any of us alive on planet earth right now are spinning at a rate of 1,000 miles per hour. As I reflected on Vascellaro's book and Mitchell's educational philosophy it occurred to me: I am on a long trip! It's called "Life". The hurricanes and the hatred; the good and the evil; the hopes and the dashed dreams - and all the people who are on "the bus" with me ... there is no getting around the exhilaration and the grief. Would that we could recognize each other, let go of a bit of our pride and simply enjoy the ride - together.

Since completing the book I have made it a point to go out for more walks, just to see what is around me, feel the forces of nature, witness the beautiful diversity of the human family. I feel a bit like the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, seeing himself atop London roofs in the evening and looking out over the city. "Coo, wha' a sight!" Except I hear myself proclaiming: Lord, what a trip!