Book Review: Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints By Daneen Akers (Watchfire Media, 2019)

A joyful and necessary resource for progressives

            

This book is such a joy!  I don’t have kids of my own, but it was easy to return to the 10-year-old I was and find the pleasures in Daneen Akers’s ambitious reference book for young people.  In the world where I grew up in the 70s, there was of course no Google; there were books.  My family weren’t readers, but I was, and someone always arranged that books would come my way.  Two sets of encyclopedias lived in our house by the time I was born (purchased a month at a time by mail-order, I bet! But I never asked), and an array of educational books: one of dog breeds and one of horse breeds, complete with illustrated stickers to match to the right reference page; a shiny hardcover Readers Digest “omnibus” about everything interesting, from how to start a campfire to different kinds of clouds and how plumbing works.  I loved those books, immersed myself in their magical, glittering understandings of the world outside my little working class neighbourhood.

            Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints is that kind of book, for a new era.  The author arranges her subjects alphabetically, rather than thematically, which is most appropriate – the lives of many of these un-conservative and un-conventional spiritual travellers encompass several overlapping themes, as do all of our lives.  Illustrated by soulful, joyous portraits, most of them are women, including trans women; many are clergy who moved from conservative faith communities to progressive and inclusive ones, with all the vocational trials that entails.  The LGBTQ community is beautifully represented here; politics and civil disobedience are part of many stories.  So too is sacrifice, and the costs of being true to oneself and to one’s love of God, often in opposition to one’s family traditions.  There are many names for God recognized here, as well, and representatives of a spectrum of communities, from global Indigenous to Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, and of course a significant cohort of progressive Christian traditions.

            Some of my favourite Holy Troublemakers are here: Harriet Tubman, Mr. Rogers, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kaitlin Curtice, Rachel Held Evans, even Francis of Assisi.  But more thrilling was the discovery of so many activists, called through faith, to agitate for the concrete needs and spiritual dignity of their people – however “their people” might be construed.  For a quick sense of the tone and scope of this volume, parents might simply skim the helpful glossary at the back.  Two examples: 

            Conservative: A person who tends to like things the way they are or the way they have historically been; conservatives work to limit political, theological, and social change.

            Womanist/Womanism: …  Black Feminism that listens for the perspectives of the people in texts who often are overlooked or unheard, usually the voices of women, enslaved people, and children.

            

I’m grateful for those congregations, many for which I preach, that teach and pray to an inclusive, welcoming God, One who rejoices and weeps with us on the messy human journey.  Yet there are also curious kids whose spiritual formation isn’t taking place in a faith community – and what’s more, who are surrounded by shallow and polarized media blather about “religious” people.  As parents and spiritual leaders -- where to find alternative narratives about the faith-filled, humane work we know to be going on all over the world for justice and neighbourliness?  Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints is a brilliant start.

            In our current secular culture that too often mocks or caricatures religion, Akers’s lovely book is a light in the darkness for kids’ questions about religion and faithful practice. And I will attest, it also proves a balm for us confused and weary adults.  

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. 

#HolyTroublemakers 

HAPPY LABOUR DAY, AMEN

It’s Labour Day! The day the nation acknowledges the contribution of waged workers, who are, by the way, the vast majority of us.
I was asked this weekend to be a guest preacher for Labour Day Sunday, with a congregation new to me. As much as I relished an opportunity to be explicit in the pulpit about my political affiliations, there’s always a significant uncertainty about how partisan language might be received in a mixed gathering. The term “Labour” alone is a red flag to some folks! To everyone’s credit – even those who disagree politically – we had a stimulating, respectful, and educational morning together.

Organized Labour – with the big L – is a significant part of my life, politically and spiritually.
But there’s also a conversation to be had about labour – the work we all do in the world – and our relationship with God. The notion of the dignity of labour begins within each individual, and in the ordinariness of the tasks we face every morning when we wake up. Is it chasing a toddler around the house for the next 12 hours?
Is it standing in a checkstand and keeping a smile on your face for 8 hours solid? Is it sitting at a desk, making enough phone calls and sending enough emails until something actually happens?

Yet all of these labours take place in the context of our relationship with the world. With the other people who live here. The meaning of everything we do derives from the effect it has on people around us. Think about it. Our labour, however “private” we may feel about it, has an impact on our community.
I’m a big believer in the “it takes a village” idea. From my perspective, society is not complicated: It’s a big village, and people chop wood and carry water to stay warm and fed. Everybody’s playing a part in this movie, with their own notions of feeling warm and fed. The most menial-seeming job, the most trivial-seeming turns the wheels of our social and family life. All our labours serve what society needs and wants; playing basketball on TV, for our entertainment (or raising 8 kids on TV); fixing elevators; or slinging groceries, which helps put dinner on our neighbours’ tables, and gives us an opportunity to smile and honour what is beautiful and holy in each other.

WAIT A MINUTE. WHERE IS THAT IN MY COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT??

Well, it isn’t explicitly in that contract. But I can look it up ... Love one another, as I have loved you. As you have done to the least of these, so have you done to me. From the Christian point of view, to serve God is to serve God’s Creation. So in our labour we may find our opportunity to serve each other in love, as Christ commands us. Love is an ethical commandment, for action. Love is not how you feel, it’s a relationship you live. And you know what? That message is easy in church, probably common.

But Labour Day … is not really about that. This national holiday is named for something that doesn’t get talked about in church! Wait: Labour Day is about the dignity of our labour, but particularly the collective – can I say “class?” – of people who labour in a capitalist economy. Labour, with a big L, is an economic, even political word. Why should we talk about that in church?
If the Prophet Amos is any example – because economics and politics and classes of people are important themes in the Bible. Especially in the Hebrew Bible, which tells us the story of how Israel became a community that was defined by a covenant with God. Throughout Israel’s story, we see how they, with God, worked out a new social arrangement. What to do, what not to do if they love God, and what they did that really really ticked God off.
We can hear the human side of that relationship, the love, the anger, in some of the Psalms … but to hear God’s side of things, we have the Hebrew Prophets. Jesus too stands in that line of prophecy – calls in God’s name to Israel as a people, to change their ways and get right with God.

But we in this century have a problem, before we even start: We’re not good at thinking like a community! It’s our greatest problem, our greatest blindness, that we have been schooled to think we function only as individuals, and that “participation” in community life is a choice we can make. It is not! We are all in this movie, as I said; we all affect the shape of the community, and it affects the shape of us. That’s normal, and natural, and profoundly human. To forget that, is to leave a great hole in what we can be as a society.
What’s worse is, many of us tend to read the Bible as if it’s written for us as individuals. As if the lessons in it somehow apply only to our own personal conduct and “choices.” And that … is to leave a great gap in our relationship with God. So much of what’s in the Bible is speaking to us as a society. How might we be God’s people? Do we even know how to answer that call?

When we talk about economics and politics, at least in the labour movement, we are talking about restraints on power and temptation -- justice. We are talking about relationships – ultimately, about respect. How shall we, as collectives of people – decision-makers and workers – how shall we engage each other in relationship? How might we serve each other, in love? Can we talk about that in church? Yes, because our Scriptures do.

Over and over we hear about the widow and the orphan – do they mean we just have to find the old ladies and fatherless children and give them food or money? No, the biblical words mean, as a community – look out for those who don’t participate in the mainstream of economic life. Look out for those who don’t have the normal means of livelihood (which in those days, meant an able-bodied husband or son).
We also hear about the poor and the needy … well, we don’t need a translation for that. In our time, as in Amos’s time, those people may well be able-bodied working people. So the problem is not ability, it’s oppression, it’s suppression, it’s exclusion. That’s pretty political.

Look at Amos 5, where the prophet is addressing the changing economic currents in the 8th century BCE.
Amos’s job is tell Samaria’s rich and powerful that they are betraying God. To Amos, we love God in JUSTICE. AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. He doesn’t care who you are or who writes your paycheque, he speaks for God and God says JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. He tries to soften it up a bit when he says “Seek the Lord and live,” which really means – justice or death. If we are true to God’s love, we will act justly. Or we will really really try. Or be damned.

you that turn justice to wormwood,
and bring righteousness to the ground! …

He’s talking here to the “strong” and the influential in the cities. The problem is not simply that these people are wealthy. The problem is that they are exploiting the peasant farmers in order to live in luxury. So Amos has a few choice words for that group of people who tweaked the economy, not only to work in their own favour, but to actually do harm to the poorer folks.

[you] hate the one who reproves in the gate [the courts], and … abhor the one who speaks the truth.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.

Here’s a quote from a Hebrew Bible scholar, Robert Coote:
The elite often own not only the land but also the peasants, in varying degrees of serfdom and slavery. …There is too little margin for the difficulties that the single cultivator faces in the course of a few years of harvests. If there is a crop failure, for example, the peasant may be forced to borrow money, often at excessively high interest rates. The chances are that such a peasant may never get out of debt.

So I’m reading this little slice of biblical economic life, and I’m thinking … isn’t this what I’ve been reading in my research all summer? This is like 1934 on the Prairies!– This is Tommy Douglas’s Saskatchewan! Are we still trying to get this right?

Now, there are still folks in Saskatchewan who refer to Tommy Douglas, the man who brought electricity out to the country folk, turned the province’s economy around and got elected five times – and oh yeah, gave the nation MEDICARE … some folks in that province still call him “that socialist.”

Maybe they’re some of the people who don’t know how to think like a community, or who can’t imagine a “social vision” is something that matters. But isn’t the kin-dom of God a social vision? Isn’t love and the prevention of war a social vision?

Tommy had a big idea for how Canadian society should be: poor people who get sick or injured should have the security of knowing that can get well. People too elderly to work should be allowed to live in dignity and some independence.
Widows and orphans. The poor and the needy. Where did he learn crazy ethics like that? Well, in the Depression on the Prairies… and in his study of Christ’s great commandment. Not everybody knows that Tommy Douglas’ lifelong vocation was as an ordained minister – and he took his first church in 1930, in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.
He ministered there for 5 hard years, before he finally determined that he couldn’t do enough from the pulpit. In 1933, Tommy accepted his first nomination to run for Parliament with these words:
“I am conscious of the fact that it is not customary for ministers to take an active part in the affairs of the nation; but I also remember that there was One who went about doing good so the common people heard him gladly. And I would not be worthy of His name if I did not take up the sword on behalf of the underpaid and underprivileged.”
A young opposition member one night in the Legislature [said]…it was too bad that you once had been a Baptist minister and you had turned into a Socialist premier. [Tommy] replied,
‘It’s true that 18 years ago I dedicated myself to serve the Kingdom of God, and if I didn’t believe I was still doing that I would not be standing here today.’ ”

Are we dedicated to serving the Kindom of God? Then how shall we serve, for our part? We are called to love, as Christ has loved us; that’s love with a big L. We are called not just to mercy and kindness but to justice. It’s complicated, I know – we’re no longer trying to get laws passed … we’re trying to get them enforced! That’s a much harder pitch. I have no illusions.

I’m not a Labour activist because I think Jesus was a Socialist, or because the Bible says collective bargaining is the answer. I work for Labour, because in God’s name we must work for justice. In God’s name we must stand against exploitation – including economic exploitation, as the prophets warn us.
Labour as a social movement is dedicated to precisely those things. With all its flaws, it lets me do what I pray is God’s work.

WHERE LOVE MEETS POLITICS 40 hours a week

I’m struggling with making the connection between love and politics. Strange bedfellows, you may say! But it is precisely the question God has called me to live inside. It is the question that burns in my belly. Love, according to the Jesus tradition, is an ethic; and ethics means social relations, and social relations means politics.
I write about performing artists in this “political” blog, I’ve realized, because their vocation calls them to proclaim love in the public square. Their role is to express a vision, a new or higher imagining of what we might be together. To inspire us forward, or chastise us when we stray. As an artist, it is a different task, a different sort of calling, from that of a social activist, who must deal in realities on the ground, in relationships and the logistics of change. Both are crucial.

The term “politics” in the broad sense I’m using it here means negotiation among competing interests in a community. In other words, in its generic, necessary sense.

Real social change entails a process that goes beyond what the people “want.” The mechanics of change move upon what people expect, or better perhaps, what they assume is possible, and what they’re comfortable with. Essentially, what social convention [experience, history, opinion-makers] tells them to expect, usually unconsciously.

Thus the history of social change tells us that “convention” changes, no matter what the conservatives would prefer. There is some comfort in that knowledge, but it doesn’t always make living in the sloooow transition easier. While I personally prefer to dwell in the rare creative air of social harmony and world peace, I am daily confronted, alas, with the failings of what we are together, at work and on the street. Yet this is exactly where we all learn the conventional “wisdom” society teaches.

So if we are going to change what society expects… we must first wrestle love and politics at work and in our daily lives, before the world will change. Rosa Parks, after all, simply got on a bus after work.


Politics Needs Love

What is a loving mediation between conflicting interests? As Sister Rosa and the civil rights movement proved, it is not being a doormat. And as a follower of Christ myself and a preacher of the Word, how shall I respond within a confrontational system, say, at work?
What if I don’t want to be confrontational, I just insist on being treated with respect… and that respect is not forthcoming? Where do I look for the lever of change? Some may suggest, another job! But there are thousands of people in the same position. What if we want respect for them and their work?

It strikes me that the “problem” is not the jobs per se, but the degenerating relationships between decision-makers and the people who implement the decisions.

The employment relationship is a political relationship, to the extent that the interests of workers and employers (and their designates) are distinct. “Love” is a meaningless concept if it is not tested against conflict. Jesus said, Anyone can love their friends – or those who agree with us. But Jesus recognized that life is much more diverse and uncooperative than that. We duck the issue if we apply his teaching merely to “enemies,” and not to those stubborn or unreasonable or unpleasant people we must tolerate each day. Can we even imagine a loving mediation of such differences?
We must -- because I suspect that’s where changing the world begins, in how each of us imagines an alternative to our own social strife. How we imagine a new possibility.

I confess, in my experience as a Union steward with a corporate employer, it’s tempting to make The Suits the “bad guys.” The situation at my workplace has become very tense, as we are methodically understaffed and overworked. Resentment builds as we watch managers (who work a salaried, unclocked day) do our jobs in addition to their own, while our coworkers sit at home with no shifts to work. In physical work like ours, the combination of increased speed and stress is not simply unpleasant, it can also be dangerous. It further saddens me that I am no longer able to find in my work an opportunity to be kind and helpful to people, but instead we as a team can only serve them shabbily and apologize all day. I am no longer proud to be working there. I know I am not alone.

All right then: what if I do move into a different job, in a completely different setting: not corporate retail, but advocacy, say, in a small private organization that pursues political action? What if I move to an enterprise that understands the costs of degenerating social relationships, and seeks a more equitable social structure?

So I make the leap – and what I find there, sadly, is an office culture not so different from the failures of respect in the corporate machine -- in a building literally full of people who want to make the world a better place! How does that come to be? I stayed there as long as I could, sure that the knots in my stomach and the constant, small slights and subtle accusations are all in my head, certain that I just need to work on my own attitude. But at last, I conceded that a place that does not demonstrate trust and creative optimism about its own people is not a place where I can follow God’s call. So I boycotted that bus.

I’ve been reflecting on that experience for a long time now. I have no doubt that virtually everyone there has good intentions. What they lack (like their corporate counterparts) is a grasp of the creative power of mutual affirmation. Having never worked in the crucible of an office environment before that one, I started to connect emotionally with the theories I’ve read about the need for new kinds of leadership [take a look, for example, at Leadership Can Be Taught, by Sharon Daloz Parks; or a small book close to my heart, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander, a family therapist, and Benjamin Zander, a musician and educator]. The urgency of the discussion became apparent as I experienced directly the crying failures of old-style, top-down organizational thinking.
It simply does not occur to some leaders (at any level), that collaboration is not a sign of weakness.

Love Needs Politics
I share this lengthy discussion here, because I know that many – most? – workplace cultures are very similar. And I argue that it’s because many of us, the frustrated workers, resign ourselves to “the way things are done.” We cannot imagine a different order of being a “society” of workers (or taxpayers). But there exist among us, around the world, organizations big and small that do things differently and successfully by more than one measure, by more than numbers or profits. They love people, they honour the planet, and treat relationships with respect.

BULLETIN: Good relationships are productive. Participation is a measure; moral investment is a measure. That is, good relationships are good for the whole system we live in – financially, morally, materially.

Of course, the workplace microcosm can and should be extrapolated to the social and political macrocosm: how do we decide how to treat people? How and what do we punish, how and whom do we support collectively? Put another way: in a democracy, where the job of elected servants is to implement our social values in the law of the land, how do we articulate those values? What measures do we take first of all, to clarify them?
What kind of society would make us proud to belong?

Just as new parents need to be clear with each other about the value system in which they will raise their children, so do we as participants in a democracy need to reflect on what we each want our society to stand for. Equally, just as many new parents don’t have that conversation and end up needlessly squabbling with the children or with each other through the years … so do many voters neglect to clarify their own values, privately or among friends, which they want to see on government’s agenda. Instead, they vote on emotion, not reflection; they respond to media-bytes rather than to convictions (as do many candidates, unfortunately). Or they don’t vote at all, which is its own corrosive kind of contribution.

But perhaps such an awareness of responsible participation begins in the dailiness of the workplace. For many of us, our jobs constitute the majority of our “participation” in society: how do those relationships work? How might they improve? Is your contribution at work respected? Are you respectful of and grateful for the interaction of others? Are you – or your staff – proud to represent your organization every day at work? Proud to engage the community in the name of your company?

Or, alternatively, do you and your coworkers simply assume that bosses are supposed to consider staff their lackeys (or their competition), or that certain positions are less honourable than others, and treat each other accordingly?

Leaders (and future leaders) out there, you may want to check in on that particular “measure of productivity”… We all want to belong to something good. It’s that simple. Whether our sense of belonging is to our work in the world, or to our family of faith or our extended family, if we feel we belong to something we’re proud of, it means we are happy in the social part we’re playing. And the more people who are happy playing a social part, the more alive and humane is the society they create together.

I want to contribute to the Good Society. But let’s start with a boss who won’t break agreements, and a group of long-time coworkers who are kind to the new hires.
Is that naïve? No. There are still buses worth boycotting, and love will still walk all the way home with politics.

Nothing to lose but our chains

In my reading for homework the other day, an author reflected on the early Christian communities (under Rome) in terms of class, and their class struggle. I found this refreshing in scholarly writing, about theology or anything else, and said as much with a wink to my classmates. Alas, the professor informed us that the author, a theologian, is in fact a Marxist and perhaps his terminology is not the most helpful.

alas, say I ... can't somebody raise the notion of social class, if not struggle, without defaulting to a Marxist position? With tongue only partly in cheek, I make public displays of sympathy with Marx (if not with Marxists) because the recognition of class structure in these post-modern times is usually illuminating. Certainly the notion of class has been discredited and mostly dispensed with, at least in conventional wisdom, because (1) this [pick your geo-political identifier] is a democracy and the people choose their government and (2) the free market is free to everybody, right? Unfortunately, that's the convention among the wage-earners and consumers who do not make capitalism's major decisions. The view from the elites of our time is rather that there is a clear gap between those decision-makers and the decision-followers. And hopefully the decision-followers will forget all about the the shell-games that were exposed in last year's economic meltdown.

Personally, I identify with the working class, and I know lots of workers who would resent any such label. However, I don't use it to describe my relative value in the world, since all of us are contributors to what we call society. I do use it to reflect my location among all the groups it takes to form a society. I am not lower-class; but I am a worker, who implements the decisions of the decision-makers in my industry. The decision-makers are more like theorists; the workers move the widgets, and we all get to see if the widgets do what the theorists planned for them to do. In this world, there are also people who teach; people who nurture; people who are mirrors (artists). Society moves and grows and hums along with all of these living, acting parts. I have no problem naming them "classes," even though it's kind of a loaded word.
But naming them is preferable to pretending they don't exist, pretending that each of us has individual "autonomy" as promised by the Enlightenment while none of us are taught to practise collective agency. If we do not individually recognize and claim the part we play in maintaining society (which ought now to be conceived as global), we can never really experience our own autonomy; that is, we will not connect to decision-making about the larger forces in our daily life. My point is, the group we belong to is one of those larger forces.
The corporate agenda is to have us believe that we are "free to choose" ... what to buy. If we have money. Last year's economic meltdown ought to be an object lesson for all of us consumers: for a moment the emperor stood naked, and all those financiers were called to account for putting profit above honest participation in society. (I don't know if the consuming class learned from that lesson yet, though.)
True democracy, true self-determination, is political agency. It is participation in the shaping of society: the conditions under which we go to work, secure shelter and food, celebrate our milestones and even recognize our significant relationships. Each class (and each of us probably belongs to more than one) has valuable and unique input into the shapechanging of society. People who labour, that is, carry out others' ideas, need to contribute their own innovations drawn from their experience, if an overall enterprise is to function optimally. The working class has something necessary to the entrepreneurial class ... for increasing profit, sure, but more holistically for making the enterprise a vital contributor to the health of our society. The entrepreneurial class does have something necessary to the working class, or to the non-waged working class, or to the class of elders who've left the daily grind of wage-working behind: in a capitalist economy, entrepreneurs activate the machinery of cash flow. This does not make the entrepreneurial class any more valuable than the rest. Government regulates behaviour, divvies up wealth, supports those outside the wage-working world.
-- wait a minute -- "outside the wage-working world??" Well, who says the government should support anybody who isn't earning their own keep? (you know where this is going.)

Because we all need reminding that we -- the collective, national, income-reporting variants of "we" -- value more than the creation of profit. We value people who are too old to work any longer; who are unwell; who are physically different from the norm and who therefore participate in our world in different ways; people who are too young or still uneducated; people who are just people. We want to take care of everybody: that's why we have a tax system, a federal government, a provincial government. Our structures are where WE put them, so that the mighty wouldn't exploit the weak, so that the Industrial Age wouldn't eat its children; so that more and more of us might participate in the vast web of relationships on this planet. Some through wage-work, some completely outside of it. It takes many classes of people to make the world go 'round. 6 billion individuals on the planet can never know their value and earth-moving strength, but millions of groups of them can build the world we want... the world we need.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR is a medical & political commandment

The health care debate in the United States is breaking my heart. I'm a Canadian, and I am battling to keep our universal health care. I don't want a system designed to profit from my illness or accident; I don't want a system that must "choose" profitable disease over expensive disease. Illness is not, should not, ever be an arena of economic opportunism. Surely there are higher values among us than the profit motive; surely we can educate and hire innovators and nurturers who will do very special work for fair remuneration, in a system universally applied to all who are in need regardless of their economic station.

Surely everyday folks can see the wisdom of replacing a sickness-for-profit model with a care-for-all model. In the health care arena, why is profit important? Sustainability is important. Prudence and integrity and oversight are important. Why does it have to be run by and for private profit? Can the American people [in their democratic role as political agents] not conceive of ANY undertaking that should be EXCLUDED from the profit game?
Or do those critics of universal care actually believe that health and healing is only for the chosen?

"Bless Us With Discomfort"

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Adam Lambert is …

on the cover of Rolling Stone! “And it should come as no surprise to anyone” that he’s gay, says he in his own words.

How will his audience, or the general pop audience, respond? We can only wait and see. His career will be something of a social experiment, as we are clearly in an age that is increasingly accepting of alternative self-identifications. Certainly social acceptance is demographically patchy at best: LA, Vancouver, the big cities, yeah, maybe it's kind of all right being yourself. Arkansas, or Alberta, maybe not so much. If you're 20-something, maybe it's no big deal; if you're in your 50s or 60s, maybe it's a little more difficult to wrap your head around. At least that’s what statistics are telling us about the current state of things.

The appearance of someone like Adam Lambert on the scene is still cause for cautious optimism, as I suggested in my last post. Our community is finally capable of raising such an assured young man (kudos to his parents, of course); and the likes of American Idol is prepared to support him -- if only for the dollar signs in their eyes. But we know too well we have not fully exited a time or place when all the dollars in the world would not breach the wall that went up when "homosexual" was whispered about you. Come to think of it, that wall used to spring up pretty fast when someone uttered so benign a word as "divorced" -- you baby boomers might remember that, when you were kids? And never mind the whispers, you weren’t even on the guest list if you were brown-skinned.

There was likewise a time (not yet past) when it was considered "not natural" to marry outside one's own race (operating on the flimsy assumption that each member of each race could remain “pure.”) It was once considered in certain quarters not "natural" for a woman to have desires, or to have them fulfilled. It was once considered not "natural" for women or people of African descent to be educated. And it was once considered "natural" in some circles to keep certain classes of human beings as slaves. All of these things have been changing, over the generations. Painfully slowly, for everyone crushed or crippled in the machinery of collective fear and oppressive policies. But visibly changing, nonetheless.

Society – the great collective of souls with hearts and minds indelibly marked by each other – is a fluid, living organism. It changes, adapts to new stimuli. It changes, because growth is life, and stasis is death. Norms change. “Normal” changes. Painfully, often with great sacrifice and also with great celebration.

Mostly, though, it changes one person, one small moment at a time.

Last January I had the privilege of being invited to preach at a local church on the Sunday following President Obama’s Inauguration week. (Oh yes, I am in Canada, but the world shared in that party.) I had been particularly captivated by the furious debate surrounding Obama’s inclusion of three very different clergymen, who were to lead prayers accompanying the public celebrations. Public prayer on such a scale doesn’t occur very often, and when it does it’s nearly always in response to some horrific tragedy such as 9/11. For once, we as a world community were held together in joy and thanksgiving, in not just one moment of public prayer, but three. That is a powerful force – to unite so many in an invocation, in a wish, in a sacred vision for peace and affirmation. I wanted to reflect on that in church that Sunday.

Oh, I noticed these particular clergy were (1) all male and (2) all Protestant (or at least, non-Catholic Christians), which was a gross oversight if one actually wants to make a statement about inclusiveness. But that sorry misstep was countered by other stark differences in their social locations.
Pastor Rick Warren (evangelical author of The Purpose-Driven Life) offered the prayer for the Inaugural moment itself; Rev. Joseph Lowery, lion of the civil rights movement alongside Dr. King, powerfully closed the Inaugural ceremony by invoking memories of a darker time in the American family, contrasted with the breaking light of a new day.

But the week had begun with an opening prayer for the Inauguration Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, for which Obama invited Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson. Rt. Rev. Robinson is a politicized, if not controversial public figure because he is openly gay. His prayer was conducted in advance of the concert’s live telecast – discuss that unfortunate coincidence amongst yourselves – but it was all over the internet.

I also wanted to share Rev. Robinson’s lovely blessing litany in church, since many probably missed it. And because I was addressing an active Affirming Congregation, it seemed especially pertinent.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people…

At that point there was a bit of a commotion in the pews, and a man stood and shouted out in protest. He wasn’t completely coherent, at least from where I was standing, but his voice grew strong enough to say something to the effect that he would never be coming back, because the presence of gays in the church somehow spelled the end of the church … To which one of a gentle gay couple in the front pew replied rhetorically, “But we’re still here.”
The sanctuary door slammed behind the man, and a breathless silence hovered in the church. I resumed reading Rev. Robinson’s prayer where I had left off:

Bless us with discomfort –
Yes, that was the very next line, the place erupted in laughter, God smiled (I think) at the teachable moment, and I continued the service.

…at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

During the communal prayers, later in the service, someone made a point of offering up the angry heart of the nameless man to God’s mercy and understanding. I think the rest of the congregation felt as compassionate and realistic about the conflicts we daily face, in small ways and in big ones.

“Bless us with discomfort.” This is a powerful prayer. Prepare us to be changed. Unbuckle our certainties and prepare us to grow. Discomfort is actually a critical part of creativity. My very spiritual friend, a creative writing teacher, calls it “divine discontent.” Adam Lambert pulled the tooth, popped the balloon, yanked the grist of speculation away from the media. Now he just wants to be a musician, create something worthwhile, and hopefully sell records.

Meanwhile the consumers and the pundits will have to squirm and twitch and decide if their horizons have grown broad enough for the likes of Adam Lambert … and for all those artists and executives and mechanics and clerks and students and regular folks behind him, who just want to be themselves, living and working among us.

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

James Weldon Johnson (1871 –1938)

WE GET TO CARRY EACH OTHER

Kris Allen has my vote … for the classiest man of faith on prime-time television.

Oh yeah, he won that Fox TV talent thing last month? Yeah, that one. But the real drama, the storyline that put some reality in “reality” TV for once, was and is his new friendship with the runner-up, Adam Lambert. The understated Mr. Allen probably wasn’t looking to change the world when he auditioned for American Idol – he apparently wasn’t even looking to win, God bless him – but I think he and Adam together will deserve some credit for having altered the cultural landscape. I’m well aware that the lion’s share of press has gone to Adam Lambert, not to mention the stratospheric numbers he’s generated on Google. Yet, if Kris hadn’t played the part he did, Adam’s story would have been quite different. And not nearly so powerful.

Adam Lambert is completely magnetic, and not only because of his astounding voice. He has charisma, he has star power; and he has what many "stars" do not: manners. Grace. Thoughtfulness. And did anyone else mention he's as beautiful as a screen goddess (hair and makeup by The Cure)? Oh, you probably noticed that.
I had never watched an American Idol episode in my life. But one of my Fave Fab Females started sending me cryptic notes and pictures: "You have to see this guy. Click here, and here, and here...And oh, wait ‘til you hear him sing 'Brigadoon!' " 'Scuse me, Brigadoon? Sure, and there's internet footage of Adam in an elegant suit, singing The Prayer at the Yitzhak Rabin Tribute concert; there's him upstaging Val Kilmer in The Ten Commandments; there's some extraordinary clips of him vamping some hard-rock burlesque surrounded by dancers of various sexes and persuasions... the boy is clearly a club creature, openly glam, proudly theatrical, but also well-trained and a serious professional.

So he struts into American Idol's carefully contrived world, and apparently blows it apart, one sector at a time.

Week after week, he kept showing up and wowing his audience, and probably drawing in more and more people like me, who otherwise would never watch. I don't know what American Idol usually looks like, but it was pretty thrilling by ANY standards to see the likes of Glambert in full-throated sex-machine howl on Whole Lotta Love -- and props to the band who also rode it hard -- in American prime time.
Yet, at the end of every Idol performance, he steps out of his hellcat prowl (or purr) and instantaneously becomes the boy next door. He's articulate and self-aware, shrewd about his career but spontaneous enough to gush about the cool outfits he gets to wear for work. The world is his oyster now, and he will be one to watch for the next few years (especially once he's off the Idol leash, after this year's tour).

Adam is a compelling personality because he appears so completely at ease in his own skin -- and in this world. He knows what he's good at; he knows what he has to work at, he's educated about his medium. His confidence -- however hard-won it might have been -- is ... well, kind of infectious. He treats everyone with respect and puts people at ease. In a word, he is likeable. Flamboyant, theatrical, goth, guyliner and all, he is genuinely likeable.
But he is more than just "nice." So much more. He doesn't speak in spiritualized terms, but he does speak with disciplined positivity and, I dare say, a certain sense of mission about acceptance and inclusion of difference. Given a new and vast platform, he's using it to encourage parents to applaud and support their children who are a little "different," who want to be creative. Send them to dance class, give them vocal training. "Artists are a little bit special, they need the support," he says.

Now, the (pink) elephant in the room is nudging me to mention the difference that all of America is talking about, and it ain't about practicing scales. But Adam has been more honest than any of the speculators or gossips, because all of us know of some poor boy who was taunted and tormented and called "gay," NOT because he yet had any carnal inclinations at all, but simply because he was different. Adam's is the most relevant message we could hope for, because he refuses to let anyone be reduced to labels and be filed coldly in some moralistic category.
And he may just be the most effective messenger we could want, a goth boy of the demi-monde who is perfectly comfortable with Middle America (read: American Idol); but one who respects that audience enough to offer them "something maybe they didn't know they wanted." Creativity is his message, more than cultural disruption. He isn’t Marilyn Manson – he wants not to bludgeon his audience, but to woo them.

But none of that fully explains why he's on my blog.
It’s true that audacious creativity and originality and self-awareness like Adam's does alone merit spiritual reflection. The creative process is a deeply spiritual process, even in those who would never call it that. So I'm not presuming anything about Adam's beliefs.
I do think he’s an old soul. Yet, prudently he has no pretensions to Deep Thoughts or Political Statements (in public), he says he just wants to sing, and be judged on his art. Of course he’s more sophisticated than that, and he knows full well that asking to be judged for his art alone IS his political statement.

Countless commentators wanted the Idol competition to be about more than just singing. With Danny Gokey rounding out the Top Three, many wanted to make it a tally of endorsements for, oh, shall we call it “lifestyles?” You know, Danny (and likewise Kris, the dark horse bringing up the rear), the card-carrying Christian versus Adam the flamboyant one who hasn’t said he’s gay.
Let us pause to decode that snapshot of American pop culture. In social shorthand, those characterizations imply juxtapositions, i.e. a Christian can’t be flamboyant, and the one who “looks gay” can’t (or wouldn’t) be Christian; or, the one is restrained, temperate, and “good,” the other is … not. (Alternatively, the one is open, creative, and "good" -- while the other is not!)

Whatever. Moving on now, to real three-dimensional people, and the reason Adam Lambert and Kris Allen are important to our spiritual health.

Now, it is American Idol after all, folks: it is a popularity contest. And in the end, maybe the guyliner was a little more than America could stomach in its new American idol. But the punchline in this story is that it wasn’t squeaky-clean Danny whose votes ousted Adam. The showdown finale was between Kris and Adam – tagged respectively, Christian and flamboyant, yes, but demolishing the rules of American hit television by refusing to stay in their boxes.

I know next to nothing about Kris Allen’s non-musical life, except that he’s married, he calls himself Christian and he’s done missionary work across the world. I heard about the exchanges among the other contestants that made reference to what is supposedly “godly” and right in relationships, but Kris’s name wasn’t part of that. I don’t know what kind of Christianity he practises, or how he envisions his God. I do know this: he declares himself Christian to the television audience – i.e. to the world; and he freely, publicly, verbally, and especially non-verbally, loves Adam Lambert like a brother.

The blogosphere of Idol fans --"prolific" hardly suffices -- have dedicated millions of keystrokes to the warm relationship between Adam and Kris.
I needn't reiterate what everyone from Rickey.org to the New York Times and Ryan Seacrest have had to say about the contrasts between the two men. There’s the obvious: LA glamboy, Arkansas country boy; but also their personalities could not be more distinct. Kris was self-effacing even in his moment of triumph, while Adam was eating the Idol soundstage for lunch with Feelin' Good and Whole Lotta Love. Meanwhile they were assigned as roommates in the mansion midway through the season, and they obviously clicked.
They’ve both spoken freely about becoming friends, and joked publicly about their differences. Online fans have dubbed their relationship a "bromance," which is charming and maybe not inaccurate; nonetheless it is flip and much shallower than the bond that is apparent between them.
In an interview the day after the finale, Adam departed from the usual breezy soundbytes required of him to emphasize what he felt was most important about the competition -- that the friendship and respect between himself and Kris might be an example for others in transcending difference, for the reward of becoming enriched by it. Both of them become animated when they talk about how much their new friendship has meant to them. Still, their words never exceed generalities.

But pictures do.

One blogger dedicated a whole .jpg- and .gif-stuffed page to the story of the “bromance,” which brings together all the images (collated from a hundred other sources online) that speak more eloquently than any interview. Kris really isn’t much of a talker anyway, and Adam is nothing if not deliberate and professional in his public comments. But body language is like soul-talk, direct and poetic. Certainly between Adam and Kris, it has been.

Watching them together, both before and after the results, we saw no wariness or distance between them (compared with, say, Danny’s cold, take-no-prisoners duet with Kris). And heck, didja see those hugs?? Sure, there’s a lot of hugging on Idol, and I take most of it as genuine: the 5 months of competition are grueling, especially for the finalists, and I’m sure many of them feel a bit like comrades-in-arms. Certainly Kris and Adam must have felt like that.

But their physical way with each other is more than social or circumstantial.

And let me make this abundantly, loudly, perfectly clear: I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ROMANTIC ATTRACTION. Kris obviously loves his adoring wife, and Adam is quite capable of feeling platonic love for other men, hey, just like regular folks. So let my words not be misconstrued in any way, shape or form. End of Disclaimer.

A brilliant (and hilariously insane) male blogger from the equally brilliant website Television Without Pity summed up the sub-cultural tremors we are feeling this way: And if that's the choice that America's handing us -- the choice between these two men who are soft, but manage to be anything but weak, and are the only two out of the whole Top Twelve you could say that about -- that's the best news I've heard in a long, long time.

Say amen, brother. It’s joyously evident that Kris has no qualms whatsoever about his trust in Adam, or about the message he’s sending to viewers. When they hugged, they hugged for real – there was none of the typical back-slapping not-too-close! hugs between men in public. To pick just one, there’s a telling moment in front of the press corps immediately after Kris’ win. Adam is patiently doing his post-episode 10-minute Q&A beside the Fox logo, when Kris comes around the corner into camera range and nearly tackles Adam with a broadside bear-hug. It’s spontaneous, genuine, and affectionate, for the world to see.

They’ve had each other’s backs. They’ve learned from each other, and they’ve advocated for each other. With and for each other they are respectful and generous. Open. Trusting. And loving.
Adam Lambert could not be happier for his friend, Kris Allen, American Idol 2009. And Kris Allen admires and celebrates the extraordinary gifts of his larger-than-life friend, Adam Lambert.

Kris Allen is my kind of Christian.

THE LEFT, THE RIGHT, THE PRICELESS

Years ago I was genuinely puzzled by people I knew and liked who voted conservative. If they're perfectly nice, ethical people, what makes them so different from me that they vote for a party that doesn't care about people in trouble? What is "the Left" and "the Right," anyway?

Well, to start with, the terms came out of the French Revolution, when the radicals sat on the left side of the government chambers and the incumbents of the upturned status quo, the Royalists, sat on the right.

In the broadest strokes, there are a couple of critical distinctions. The conservative right-wing really really believes in individualism and in the so-called “free” market. Government – regulations, oversight, heaven forbid, public agencies – is a necessary evil, to be limited in influence at all costs. This used to be known as “liberalism,” just to confuse matters … from a time when the autonomy, the liberation, of the individual from restrictive social convention was a new and radical concept. Today we’re more likely to call the right-wing “neo-liberal.”

Sadly, the right-wing definition of ‘the individual” has deteriorated into a caricature of the Entrepreneur, the person who wants to be solely responsible for his/her own income and profit. That has morphed into elevating Business itself as an entity, as a social value to be protected at all costs. As for those people in trouble? They should just follow the entrepreneurial model, and they’ll be okay! See the film/read the book The Corporation. You’ll see what I’m getting at.

Right-leaning Americans prefer to call Democrats and anyone politically left of themselves, “liberals.” Maybe as in, “they’ll let people get away with anything!” because another primary value of conservatives is moral authority – external authority. Rules…that limit moral freedom. But NOT, mind you, regulations that limit commercial freedom. Why? Because profit-making has nothing to do with moral character! So goes the fable.

On the Left, we have a more positive view of government, as an agent of collective values. As a social democrat, I see the tax base as the pool of resources we use to take care of communal concerns. In the conservative view, maybe that should be limited to infrastructure: roads, water, building codes. (You know, those things that help business function.) The view from the Left would add education and health care and other systems that empower our view of the dignity of all persons, whether or not they have money. Some people simply do not function within the consumer market, they don’t directly serve the purposes of profit-making … but as community-builders we want to ensure they have a safe place to serve the community in their own way. Children, students, artists, parents, intellectuals, the physically or mentally challenged, the free spirits and the innovators. On the Left, we value the combination of moral autonomy and communal responsibility.
Socially, Canada as a whole is situated distinctly left of the US. We value social programs as part of how we want to live, despite a minority of voices (unfortunately one of them, the Prime Minister) who are trying to sell privatization.

It’s been fascinating to watch the American reaction to President Obama’s budget. As a Canadian, of course I’m watching closely the discussion around his health care reform … I cherish universal health care as a jewel of a mature society. It is under assault in this country, by the proponents of profit-making. I don’t believe the profit motive is a guarantee of quality – not by a long shot. The current American system is the best argument against that. The right wing will always try to sell for-profit health care – or education, or social services, anything – in terms of “consumer choice,” as if that’s empowering.
It’s only empowering for those with money, and enough money at that. (Which raises a tangle of other issues, starting with a minimum wage, a living wage, a social safety net ... for another conversation!) Some things, some social goods, exist outside the market system – they cannot be commodified, they can’t be exchanged for something of “equal” value. One individual's choices are impotent against, say, the threat of illness or the hunger for spiritual sustenance.

But “individual choice” is the mantra of the current, failed global economy. I'm talking about an inflated value on individualism that has obscured the role of community in shaping our lives.

Nobody is self-made. Nobody succeeds – or fails – entirely by their own resources. The values and customs of a community, whether that’s an ethnic community, a region, a nation, contribute to a person’s failures just as they do to successes. This is the great lie of the “rugged individualism” myth, of the “consumer choice” charade. And I think it’s the great lesson in the current economic catastrophe.
At least, I hope it is.

OBAMA ROCKS MY WORLD (AND YOURS TOO)

I’m a fan of Barack Obama. I have a t-shirt and everything (from the Party campaign office in St Petersburg, where I happened to spend election week) – even a picture of him on my office wall. His White House even has a Director of New Media, or some such, which I found via the new user-friendly, plain-language White House website the day of his inauguration … and then I decided I wasn’t a supportive observer any more, I became a fan. It ain’t the best word, maybe, but it evokes something that’s otherwise hard to get across.

From watching the campaign coverage for all those months, it quickly became apparent that Obama is W’s opposite number in almost every regard. Which instantly ranks him way high on my Moral Integrity meter.
Now, I choose my heroes mindfully, and I don’t use the F-word lightly. Springsteen; Bono, Adam, Larry, Edge of U2; Walt Whitman; Louise Arbour; Whoopi Goldberg; Tommy Douglas; John Cobb, just off the top of my head. There are plenty of other folks, obviously, whose work I respect and applaud, but who do not inspire that special level of admiration that makes one a “fan.” Let me define it this way: a combination of their talents, their integrity, and a particular mission that in some way dovetails with my own, will tip mere appreciation into unqualified (if not uncritical) support on principle, even when they stumble – a bias, even fondness, because I share their demonstrated values and I want them ultimately to succeed.

I confess, it’s pretty weird to find myself so completely engaged by American federal politics, and admiring of a sitting American president … Crusaders, reformers, novelists and theologians – and friends! – of American breeding? Of course. But the American political culture is so different from Canada’s, and much less attractive to my RED-WHITE-DYNAMITE! patriotic eye, that its political machinations just aren’t that compelling. And I came of age at the dawn of Reaganomics, grew into political consciousness by the harsh light of Mulroney and Thatcher. My default position on American capitalistic politics is suspicion and dismay. I’d rather spend my time at the hard work of politicizing my own people, thank you!
But like many around the world, of course, I am hooked on the saga of Barack Obama in this chapter of geopolitical history. The United States is a marquee name on the world stage, and his presidency is the best plot twist many of us have seen in a long, long time. For those of us on the side of social democracy and social justice, it’s a feel-good story. (I’m sorry the Republicans and neo-liberals cannot relish this historic moment with the same glee as the rest of us!) So I’m disclosing my bias, letting everyone see me in the cheering section.

Fan moment #2: Obama made Canada his first foreign visit as president a couple weeks back. Thirty minutes with the Prime Minister, 10 minutes with the Leader of the Opposition. Weird life, politics. Anyway, my compensation for enduring any news coverage that includes Stephen Harper, on this occasion, was the President’s ‘impromptu’ detour for some Ottawa shopping for his wife and kids. Bought a maple-leaf pastry (the clerk wouldn’t let him pay, though), posed for photos and autographs, generally got down with the people. BRILLIANT political move, but not cynical or staged … the store clerks were genuinely bug-eyed and thrilled by the unexpected visit.
Of course I know the Secret Service will not let the President do anything completely spontaneously, and I’m pretty sure the whole street was sussed out before his plane even landed. But it strikes me that, just as Obama is using his much-discussed political capital to reform Washington, he seems to be aware that he must continue to seed that good will – he must remain visible, accessible, open and unpretentious. Even in a foreign country.

For all that, I won’t be suspending critical consideration, precisely because …well, I will hold Obama to a higher standard. And everything he’s said publicly so far tells me that’s how he wants it. Now that the election campaign’s over and the electorate shocked itself and the world – not only by electing a black man, but one who rejects cowboy capitalism and who talks of sharing the wealth – the fascination for me will lie in watching a fellow social-justice worker attempt to reform the most individualistic society on the planet.