Category Archives: progressive politics

Whose Rights?

musings, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

                    Some days I’m not sure how much more sorrow we can navigate as a nation. After the brutal terrorist attack in Las Vegas, after Sandy Hook, after Pulse, after daily multiple murders that have become seemingly routine, have we been dulled to our outrage?

           And then there is the knee-jerk response from the right and the NRA: now is not the time to debate gun laws. Well if not now, when? When we have time compartmentalize our anger and grief? When we can make the people whose lives were taken and the ones who suffered loss unimportant? During election years when the NRA can buy the votes it needs? When?

What’s wrong with now?

If I hear one more 2nd amendment advocate tout that ‘this is the cost of freedom’ I believe I will hurl. We need to amend or void the second amendment. Amend it to include the six words when serving in the militia. Read Justice John Paul Steven’s well reasoned 2014 argument here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html?utm_term=.aabb5e76d28d

My question today is: whose rights?

Rights enshrined in the very body of the Constitution are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The 2nd Amendment, as currently interpreted, infringes on those rights. The lack of sane gun control costs thousands of people their lives each year. Not only in mass shootings but in domestic violence incidents, and because of negligence that gives access to weapons by toddlers and adolescents.

NOW we need to focus on our citizens’ right to life. Maybe even come to understand that the ‘right to life’ includes enough to eat, a place to live, and healthcare. And the right to liberty. Because people are afraid to go to concerts, shopping malls, and sporting events. Women are afraid of their partners. And those fears imprison us. Finally, though happiness may be difficult to qualify, it has been snatched from thousands of our citizens by gun violence.

Why are some rights privileged over others? Why does your right to own a weapon trump my right to live? Our priorities are skewed, friends, in so many ways. But let’s begin here. Let’s begin by advocating for our right to stay alive.

Let’s give new and urgent meaning to the phrase ‘right to life’.

Holding Hope

A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), everyday theology, progressive christianity, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

I want to write about lovely things. I want to write about birdsong and dappled light and soft breezes. I want to write about dreaming large. About deep connections. About justice persisting and that ‘slow arc’ bending.

So I will.

The book of Revelation was written in a time the Christian community felt hopeless. The were rounded up, persecuted, imprisoned, and murdered. Not unlike many religious communities in history. The kin-dom, the shalom they believed Godde would bring about was crushed under the political heal of the empire. Communication between churches was suspect so leaders wrote and spoke in metaphors when referring to their current situation. They referenced dragons and bears and destruction. They sent present news in future tense.

For the past however long I have been writing about bears and dragons, destruction and fear with scattered glimpses of hope. Today I will take another cue from the writer of the Book of Revelation and fling a little hope. No matter how bad things are, we cannot give up hope or we will lose our souls.

The writer (supposedly John) offers this brilliant hope expressed as sacred literature anywhere:

The Book of Revelation 7: 14b-17                                                                                                                                                  “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 For this reason they are before the throne of Godde,
and worship Godde day and night within the temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and Godde will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

So today I write what I need: reason to hope or, at the very least, reason not to lose hope.

The dream humanity has for a world where there is no hunger or disease, a world of justice and compassion is not a vision we can abdicate. No matter how bad things are, we must not give up hope. It is imperative that we continue to believe in our ability to overcome, to co-create, to bring that vision into existence. Imagine what might replace that dream should we lose it.  Without a passion for justice and a vision for compassion,  without hope, our spirits will be crushed by despair.

So today and every day do the work of hope. Do one thing that could make a difference when added together with all the other one things folks are doing around the world. And listen to birds sing. Gaze at light streaming through tree branches. Dream big. Reach out to one another. Demand justice. Offer hope to the hopeless. Accept hope from the hopeful.

 

 

 

 

Struggle to Hope

everyday theology, musings, progressive christianity, progressive politics, resistance, spiritual practice

How does one speak hope to a hopeless world? To a nation divided? To communities of strangers?

How do we speak hope to one another when our hearts are breaking? When the safety of the world is at stake? When the lines of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are drawn with stark harshness?

How do we speak hope in our homes when families are ripped apart by dogma that neither gives life nor saves it? When parents and children are estranged and sisters and brothers renounce one another?

How do we speak hope when the way forward is through shadow lands, up steep inclines, and through inclement weather? When the road is covered by floodwaters? When parks are littered with monuments to hatred and the least among us is left to suffer?

How do we speak hope to a nation who is killing its own? Its own immigrants? Its own people of color? Its own queers?

Let us begin with remembering. Remembering who we are, who we strive to be, who we can imagine ourselves to be.

When I am asked how I can be a Christian in a world where the label means closed-hearted and closed-minded, I don’t deny the truth of what Christianity has become and how it has fallen far from it’s tree. Rather, I embrace the walk of Christ as a path to which I aspire and reach for what I can be.

As a nation, now is the time to embrace the tenets of our founding. Not that we have ever truly lived up to them, but that we embrace the challenge and the ideals of a nation built on the principles of justice, law, and constantly expanding rights.

Each week at communion we share the bread saying, “Remember who you are.” It is both our hope and our challenge.

Let us speak this hope to one another: Remember who we can be. Remember who we are to one another as a nation of immigrants and exiles. Remember the ideals that form us. Remember the hope and the challenge of striving to be a nation of justice and freedom.

 

 

They Don’t Just Hate Hillary

Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), feminism, progressive politics, resistance

When the feminist movement reemerged in the 1960’s and 70’s I embraced it with all the passion of a young woman who wanted to make life choices based on my skills, abilities, passions… I was on the front line of challenging the ‘roles’ women were delegated to as wives, mothers, and workers. I freed myself from the constraints that dictated my sexuality and embraced my love and attraction for women. I was gloriously free and too naïve to be afraid. That came later.

That came after my life was threatened. After the threat to take away my daughter. After, after, after I experienced and recognized a hatred of women that permeates our culture.

Yes, hatred. Which most likely is just the leading emotion for fear. Nevertheless, the day came when I had an out of body experience of the systemic nature of misogyny. It was like the totality, the absoluteness of the oppression and suppression of women was experienced by every cell in my body. My mind stretched to reach around the reality of the truth until I thought I might break open. My heart shattered as I allowed myself to perceive the depth and universality of the hatred. It unleashed my fury.

Women can’t really live in that reality all the time. It is too harsh. Too heartbreaking. Too frightening. So I walked up to it, acknowledged it, and stepped back. Not from the reality of it but from the powerlessness misogyny assumes.

Then I lived my life. I came to have deep friendships with men and learned the difference between sexism (they all suffered from some form of it) and misogyny. I channeled my fury into making change. I learned to love complicated people and paint them with many colors and textures. We were moving forward on that slow arc toward justice about which Dr. King spoke. As a woman identified woman I came to experience what is now called ‘intersectionality’ – what we learned as women reached out across class, race, education, gender expression, and sexualities. We were forced to recognize the ways we internalized our own oppression. It was good stuff. Challenging. Inspiring. World changing.

Like people of color (at least those my age) I watched societal changes. Hell, I worked to make them happen. I believed we were changing things. Slowly but surely. Very slowly and very surely. Young women told me the battle was won, that we are in a post-feminist era. I should have been delighted – and there are ways I am grateful that young women now don’t have to question their value in many sectors – but I also know that my experience of the depth of the reality of misogyny didn’t concur that we were in a post-feminist world any more than we are in a post-racist world.

However, I was lulled into thinking that our trajectory was on course and would continue. Then came the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I was excited and hopeful that another (and great) barrier would be knocked down. As with the election of Obama, it was time. We had a great candidate. A perfect ‘transitional’ leader. So competent that no one could suggest she didn’t have the ability or experience or stamina to do the job.

I expected the haters.  I believed the meanness, the vociferous, strident hatefulness unleashed by the right was contained. But then my Bernie Bros signed on to misogyny with out compunction. And white women forgot that their privilege is based on both their race and being heteronormative. They forgot, if they ever knew, that we are all in this together.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-what-happened-donald-trump-deplorables-misogyny-new-book-a7943016.html

This is the systemic hatred of women I knew existed at a primal level. On election night 2017, I had that out of body experience again. I’m betting many of us did. Though our hearts are broken we are being forced, once again, to recognize and name the demon, to confront it, and to exorcize it. Most of all, I pray we re-member that not one of us is immune to the oppression of misogyny and we need,  every one of us, to make the change that needs to happen.

 

 

 

 

Trump’s Reichstag Fire

feminism, progressive politics, resistance

In 1933, the German Parliament building, the Reichstag, burned to the ground. Newly elected Hitler declared the fire to be a communist conspiracy and used the event to round up and imprison communists, including elected members of parliament. He became dictator within a month of the fire.

Hitler described the fire as ‘a beacon from heaven’.

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in German history…This fire is the beginning,” Hitler told a news reporter at the scene.

I dreamed that I saw a nuclear bomb detonate on the near horizon. I shared this with a friend who told me that she, too, had dreams of nuclear blasts. And the question arises for me: how will Trump fan our fears so that he can consolidate his power?

Clearly he feels powerless. But how far will he go? Will he suspend civil rights? He’s already started. His justice department has removed LGBT folks from civil rights protections. An amicus brief filed by the U.S Justice Dept. in July with the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York runs contrary to the position of Obama’s Justice Department as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Both expanded the view that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans employment discrimination on the basis of sex, also applies to sexual orientation.

The implications extend well beyond employment law. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a powerful weapon against discrimination, is generally interpreted in sync with rulings on the employment discrimination law. That’s how the Obama administration justified its efforts to enforce bathroom and locker room equity for transgender students.

First they came for the gays. But since I wasn’t gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender and have some ambivalence about them anyway. So I didn’t speak up.

And now states are emboldened in Trump’s wake: Missouri passed a law that women can be fired for using birth control, confining them to low level jobs that don’t require continuity.

Then they came for the women, but I am not a woman or am uncomfortable with the changing roles of women, so I said nothing.

What might Trump conspire to commit that could concretize his power? He undoubtedly feels constrained by the limits of the power of the presidency. Hitler called the Reichstag Fire a ‘sign from God’. Trump surrounds himself with sycophantic religious ‘leaders’ who come close to hailing him as the Messiah. Very close.

Will North Korea be his Reichstag Fire? Pay attention, folks.

Are You Afraid?

everyday theology, progressive politics, resistance

Are you afraid of what is going on in Washington?

If you’re not, you need to be.

Everything that comes out of the White House is frightening: the leaks from staff who say they are staying, though it may ruin their careers because of the crazy they have stopped, the rule of law that is ignored, the almost certain collusion with Russia, the infant at the helm with access to nuclear codes, and the blatant white nationalism that demeans and threatens people of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community. All of which hides the opportunism making Trump richer every day. Trump’s passionate base hates Jews in addition to the groups listed above.

Why do I want you to be afraid? Because if you are afraid then you get it. If you are afraid then you see the parallels between what is happening now and what happened in pre-Nazi Germany. Because if you are afraid it means you have the sense Godde gave you. I want you to be afraid so your fear motivates you to stand and speak and act. Be afraid so you vote while you still can.

Use the fear. Don’t let it intimidate you. Do whatever it is you do to confront fear. The word in academic circles is ‘intersectionality’. Faith leaders have put it this way from time immemorial “We are all connected.” Find your power. If you have the privilege of race or gender or class: use it. If you don’t, recognize the power you have taken for yourself and don’t give it away.

My friend just reminded me that many times in Scripture we are urged to “Be not afraid” or “Fear not”. So why am I, a pastor, a follower in the Way, asking you to be afraid? Because if we are not afraid then we are blind to the present reality. But being afraid, recognizing the road down which this nation is travelling, is essential. To not be afraid you must first recognize what it is that you fear.

If you are afraid then let me encourage you to ‘fear not’. Don’t let the fear paralyze you. Don’t let the fear suck your power. Don’t let the fear intimidate you. Don’t let the fear make you too tired to act and speak and stand.

Be afraid but don’t be afraid of the fear. It is telling you what you need to know.

Put On Your Big Girl Panties

Georgia Politics, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

   

We have not lived up to the ideals of our democracy. Ever. But there is a beacon that leads us in the direction of justice. Principles that inform our path through history and by which we find our bearings when we get off course.

America is built on the idea of inclusion in a just society. We thrive as new people and cultures add their colors, design, warp and weft, to our tapestry. The Americans with Disabilities act aided citizens with disabilities to more fully participate in families, in the workplace, and in the political arena. The expansion of women’s rights and LGBT rights have all grown our understanding of human worth and dignity

Now our elected officials want to build walls, to isolate us – not only from the world but also from one another. The rights of the most vulnerable are being eroded one law, one amendment, on step at a time. Those who gained protections are losing them. When I was little I was taught that the United States was a melting pot. Later I loved an essay by Norah Roberts who imagined us as a tossed salad. Republicans play into our fears and construct the myth of ‘the other’. They persuade us to distrust immigrants, to disrespect a woman’s right to make reproductive decisions, to openly and sometimes viciously discriminate against the LGBT community, and encourage racism as usual and acceptable, disregarding  the sanctity of black lives and brown lives and native American lives. They fan the flames of distrust and fear. So much so that I cringe when I hear a crowd chanting “USA! USA!” What I hear is: “Us not them! Us not them!”

It’s time  to change the conversation. We don’t need to be in dialogue with those who would destroy our values and vision of a nation whose arc is ‘bent toward justice’.

 It’s time to stop compromising about the lives and deaths of our fellow citizens.

It’s time to get up, gird up, and put on our big girl panties.

We cannot afford to wait and see how things ‘play out’.

We are the majority and we need to assert our power. Even if it is for the first time.

Vote now. Get involved now. Be the change now.

This is not the time to make nice.  It’s time to make policy.

On the bright side…

Georgia Politics, Jon Ossoff, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

As angry as I am/have been/probably will be again I can’t leave my last blog hanging out there for a week without making a point of the good stuff. There is much to encourage us about the race for the 6th in Georgia. I see things every day since that give me hope to power on.

Women are on fire! It was amazing to work with and see so many energetic, committed women putting themselves out there every day and every evening for months. We have realized that politics cannot be a spectator sport. Voting is great, putting up a sign is important, giving matters – but it is not enough. And we worked our ‘osses’ off!

We got woke. We became aware of voting issues and committed to work on the issues of racist voter suppression, gerrymandering, and election hacking. We got informed about the efficacy of paper ballots, ballot trails, and the need for election overhaul. Now we’re going to do something about it. We: long time activists like myself, and those who now join us, worked together, made connections, and saw it through.

We took Michelle Obama’s words to heart: when they go low, we go high. We encouraged one another every day in face-to-face confrontation with the opposition ‘going very low’ to ‘go high’. We defined and continue to define ourselves by what we value  .

To paraphrase Hamilton: We are not a Moment, We are a Movement.

 

We are not an Algorithm

Georgia Politics, Jon Ossoff, progressive politics, resistance

I may feel too angry right now to write a blog but there is much to say.  I am not even sure what to keep in and what to leave out. It all started on Tuesday night when, after a hard fought race, Jon Ossoff lost to Karen Handel in the Georgia 6th District race.

I have lots of thoughts about it- the whys and hows of it – and I am sure the race will be dissected ad infinitum by the press and the DNC, both publically and privately. However, we who ran the race – and it was we, not just Jon – may think differently about it and have not been consulted at all.

That’s the problem with the DNC today. As a national party they have lost touch with the local electorate. They have been hands-off in most of the South in local elections for years. Maybe not on national elections but certainly on local ones.

In this election they ran ads that were not approved by the campaign and that had a negative impact. They did not coordinate phone banking so that people around the nation were calling (that’s fine) but without an inkling of the intensive effort by volunteers here in Atlanta. A little coordination would have been helpful. As it was, the DNC’s efforts were clumsy. They participated in making this election a national mandate in a race that is truly local.

If the DNC deigns to involve itself I suggest they follow the lead of the locals. It is not their job to take over nor, I might add, are they very good at it. The arrogance of the national party works against local Democratic interests.

Finally, the question needs to be asked: what motivated 12,000 volunteers (the majority women) to put in countless hours over the past several months? Do you or do you not want to tap into our energy and fire? If so, are you willing to listen to us or would you rather pour over your computer generated data.

We are not an algorithm.

We Are the Resistance

Georgia Politics, Jon Ossoff, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

 

          After the Women’s March I came back to Georgia and became a part of the Huddle network. A Huddle is a group of people who participated in the march – either in D.C. or locally – and who want to continue to stand, act, move, make a difference. We are the resistance.

Our most recent effort is to elect Jon Ossoff to the 6th District. Hundreds and hundreds of women have shown up and worked their “osses” off. We have canvassed, phone banked, written personal letters and postcards to voters, and rallied on street corners trying to get out the vote. We showed up at Board of Election meetings and got early voting times and locations expanded. We showed up in courtrooms and for hearings before the Georgia Legislature.

We showed up.

The race is very close. I teeter between the real hope that Jon will be elected as a harbinger of change from our current ‘leadership’ and political direction. And in the deepest night I am afraid he will be defeated and the direction of our nation will continue to careen in the direction it is headed.

But even in those moments I realize that what cannot be stopped is a million women who refuse to give in or give up. A million women who continue to engage the system with intention and energy. Making change doesn’t depend on this one election. It depends on every action of each one of us in all times and all places. No matter what happens tomorrow we have made our connections, found our strength, and will resist with every breath we take.