Tears

I gave half a sermon last weekend, ceding the other half to a visiting minister and his interesting comments about the election through Canadian eyes. My 10 minutes took half a week to write, and I finally settled on a "concession speech", ending my comical, run for presidency sermon of last month. There were, it turned out, an awful lot of folks to thank.

At the first service, I got choked up on the first sentence and never did quite regain my voice. It was better at the second service but I was still aware of being awash in feelings that were not all mere celebration. I didn't have time until today to wonder why, and I was helped by a NYT opinion piece by Judith Warner called "Tears to Remember,"
a Salon article called by Michael Lind called "Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic,",
and even a reading of the AP article by Alan Breed of what preachers had to say about the election, in which I was quoted. (One version is here)

Tears. I wasn't surprised on election night, but I was surprised on Sunday. They were not all tears of joy, either. They were tears held back over all these years of watching the ideals I grew up with withering away. Watching our nation re-learn the lessons of Viet Nam has been so painful. When will they ever learn? Ronald Reagan was elected a few months after I was ordained. My entire career has been spent in what seemed to be an increasingly threatened counter-culture. It's been hard.

They were mostly tears of hope vindicated, however. My faith in God IS faith in the arc of history bending towards justice. Lind's article documented an intuition which I'd been too scared to think; that Obama's election is as much as anything a symptom history grinding into a new gear. That's big enough to weep over.

That Was The Week that Was

Any other old-timers remember that TV program? News and variety and, best of all (actually, the only thing I remember) was a Tom Lehrer singing songs like the "Vatican Rag" and "Whatever Became of Hubert (Humphrey)" and "Garbage."

Last week certainly lives up to that title. My ultra-blue church last week was anxious, this week was practically giddy.

It's not ideal, to my mind, for churches which profess to value diversity of opinion to be politically monolithic, but that is what happened to my church over the past 8 years. I was mostly aware of conservatives or Republicans leaving after being subjected to less-than-perfect tolerance on the part of their fellow UU's, or just weary of being a minority, but my co-preacher of the morning, Stefan Jonasson, pointed out that another thing that had happened over the 8 years is that moderate Republicans had become Democrats, or at least voted that way.

The end result is the same, however, which is that there's political talk but no real political discussion, and that's too bad. I hope we have entered a more moderate era.

A Final Hand

An African American little girl is often on the bus I ride to work. She's about 5, cute as a button, and rides with her elegant and attentive mother. Extroverted to the nth degree, she seems to work at catching her fellow rider's eye and smiles radiantly at anyone who smiles at her. This morning her mother's need to put gloves on her little hands got in the way, but I still got my smile.

It was a special joy to smile at her this morning. She may never remember a time in which there was doubt in anybody's mind that an African American could be president. She'll have a wonderful role model to take her smile to whatever success she has it in her to achieve.

Barack Obama is an important role model for another large group of children and adults; those of any race who had a less-than-ideal childhood. Kids raised by single parents and grandparents, kids dragged all over the world, kids whose parents were not attentive to them. Unlike the hordes of celebrating African American youth we saw on the TV last night, that's a nearly invisible group of kids. I hope those who care about them help them take the point.

And on third hand...

The draconian abortion ban proposed for the second time in South Dakota was defeated. Now, here's a place where the Bradly effect (telling pollsters one thing and voting the opposite) might still be in effect. (It appears to be dead in matters of race).

Why did the abortion ban fail in a profoundly conservative state while gay rights failed in a notoriously liberal one? Perhaps because, while some sheltered folks can imagine that they don't know any gays or lesbians and therefore can't empathize with them, there are very few women and their male partners who do not face, sometime during their childbearing years, an unwanted pregnancy or unwanted pregnancy scare. Add that to the number of parents who face the fear that their teen aged children's lives will be derailed by a too-early pregnancy and you have a large group of people who in their secret heart of hearts, understand profoundly the untold side of the abortion story; what it would be like to give up the most fundamental freedom of all; the freedom to control to whom you give your body.

Need we say it again? It doesn't matter a whit whether a fetus is judged to be human or not. It has no more rights than any other human, and therefore does not have the right to use someone else's body unless that gift is given freely. People die every day for the lack of kidney, and liver donations...that's 'cause they don't have the right to commandeer yours. Nor does a fetus have the right to my womb. Case closed.


Yes, we need to say it again. Because you NEVER hear it, not from left or right.

But in our heart of hearts, most of us really do understand.

And on the other hand

It appears that California's Proposition 8 has passed in a vote that was polarized in two ways; coastal counties against by a large margin, inland counties for by and equally lopsided tally.

Proponents of this basic civil right, that gays and lesbians and their relationships deserve equal protection under the law took a hit amidst yesterday's celebrations; perhaps in part because of yesterday's celebrations. Most people can only cope with so much change at one time.

But the train on this track is picking up speed. This too, will change in time, probably in our time. I can envision watching the TV with my grandchildren as the first Gay or Lesbian president
is elected because he or she is simply the better candidate. Can't you?

Images

What a night!
What a dawning morning!

My heart is full of images of celebration. Jessie Jackson's tears, and the image of the middle-aged administrator of Howard University who was with her cheering students but who, when the microphone was thrust at her was too overcome to say a word. And the cheering students and their peers, all over the world. Maybe it is this generation that will change the world! And John McCain's gracious, healing, dignity, and Obama kissing his wife and his girls and sending them back, it seemed, to safety before standing alone behind a simple podium and claiming his victory.

And the crowd scenes from Chicago. Maybe the bright lights were washing out a rainbow of colors, but they seemed to be mostly white faces, and I thought...

In the end, America voted for a Black president, not because he was Black but because they thought he'd be the best president, not because of the color of his skin but because of the quality of his character, and mind, and heart, and values, and the people he had gathered around him.

That may be the greatest triumph of all.

Purple America

My state of New Mexico was besmirched two weeks ago by the head of the Republican Women of Otero County, who wrote an op-ed piece full of, bigoted, anti-Muslem fury. She was asked to resign, and refused. So...

The rest of her board of Republican Women of Otero county resigned out from under her. Every single one.

America Vindicated.

W's Great Accomplishment

The Vote America Act.

I was in a bad mood when I went to vote in 2004, and when I set out to vote after a quick dinner, I decided to walk to my neighborhood polling place to get over it. Turned out, they'd changed my polling place. It was too late to walk to the new polling place a mile away. As I spluttered about my predicament, a poll worker consulted another and offered me a provisional ballot. I'd never heard of such a thing but they explained it all to me, I filled out and voted in what turned out to be an extremely close race in my state.

Vote America brought us accountable voting machines, accessible voting places, provisional ballots and a variety of other mostly good reforms to voting practice. It was a bipartisan effort which was the result of the disastrous 2000 election.

I have my electoral passions (and I'm smiling at the moment), but the most important thing that seems to have happened today is the most people were able to vote their conscience and feel that their votes would be accurately counted. That was a victory of democracy, and a victory for democracy.

What will you be doing on Election Night?

They keep saying it's the most crucial election of the generation, and there are good reasons to be optimistic but there could be some tense moments. Not an evening to be alone.

Where are you going to be?

I'll be with my church extended family, or more accurately, they'll be with me, as we are gathering at our home with TV's, wi-fi, and NPR. I'm planning to serve Apple Pie...the kind you buy frozen and bake for an hour. I figure we'll have delicious smells for at least an hour to get us through the tense moments. Ice Cream and coffee...that should get us through. Eat your heart out, Plastic Manzikert; we'll miss you!

21st Century Elections

In the days of yore, it was fun to go with the whole world to the neighborhood polling place on the appointed day, , to greet one's neighbors on both sides of the issues and sign in in front of people who probably knew you. You Betcha.

Those days are gone. They've been gone for a good while. They probably never existed in lots of places but they're gone now.

How to have free and fair elections in the 21st century.

1. Election Day turns into Election Month, during which the polls are open six days a week, from noon to 8 or thereabouts. County clerks rent vacant storefronts in accessible places. School is not disrupted, parking is easy, you can vote near your home or your work. If there are problems, there is time to fix them. If fraud is suspected there is time to check into it. If intimidation is charged, there is time to put a stop to it. Lacking a mad rush, there is time to do things, as the Methodists say, "decently and in order.". (Maybe that's the Presbyterians.)

If the weather is poor or a person gets sick, no problem. Fewer voting setups are required. There are fewer possibilities for "October Surprise". The only downside is the nostalgic one....it's just not like the good old Election Day.

It is like the 21st century.

2. Settle on simple ID-checking rules. At my early voting site, I was asked for my name and address and given the most precious piece of paper in a democracy; a ballot. With a phone book and evil intent, I could have spent the past 10 days voting for every one of my (female) neighbors. I guess the poll workers were supposed to recognize their "neighbors.".

This is crazy nuts, 19th century idealistic small town foolishness.

I appeared to me from the signage that the poll workers had the right to ask me to tell them my birthdate, and to require me to take a provisional ballot if I didn't give the right answer. I wonder who they do ask? How can they ask some but not others without being open to accusations of prejudice.

I say, End This Foolishness! Require Voter Identification! You have to have identification to drive to the polling place and to buy decongestant at the drugstore. You need identification to cash a check and to use a credit card. You need identification to purchase a bottle of wine even if you are 55 years old.

I'm easy about what kind of identification. Drivers License, Utility Bill, Voter card...anything with your name and address on it. Liberals say that this will suppress voting because "lots of people" don't have these documents. Fine. Help them get these documents. They will thank you forever and remember you every time they vote.

Apparently there 's not much abuse of our current 19th century system, and requiring identification wouldn't change much. But it's not just the reality of sloppiness, it's the appearance.

And this is the 21st century.

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Election Anxiety

My seat mate on the bus yesterday was reading the paper. The editorial page headline was "Dems Seeing Ghosties and Ghoulies.". The point was that Democrats are so unaccountably anxious about their candidate that they don't believe the polls.

It's a conservative paper, and our liberal afternoon paper has closed within the year making that our only option, and I was annoyed at the innuendo. Then I got to church and all day the liberals in my congregation liberally shared their anxieties with me.

OK. Liberals are anxious. This doesn't have anything to do with their candidate and only a little to do with the worry that polls are wrong because of racism. It has to do with their belief that an election was stolen from them eight years ago and might be stolen from them again.

I don't share this fear, but I'm an optimist by nature and not very anxious as a rule about anything. I understand it. And of all the things that might happen Tuesday, it would certainly be the biggest disaster. Fair and Free elections are a defining feature of a democracy. I think a lot has been done in the past 8 years to solve the problems which surfaced then.

I have my private prayers for the outcome of election day. My public prayer is for our democracy.
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Yes, I Voted

I take voting very seriously. One of my first memories is going with my mother to vote when I was 4. I must have asked her who she was voting for and why, because I remember her answer. She and dad thought that generals shouldn't become president. I took my son voting we me until he was old enough to stay home by himself and we've always talked politics in our family. He's turned 18 now, and does not get election day off, so we all voted together in the Early Voting center a couple of days ago. It probably won't happen again; he's going away to college and will, presumably be voting from his college address in the future, so it was a sweet family moment.

Yesterday, a volunteer claiming she was from Obama headquarters called last night to ask if I had voted yet. I said yes, and she asked who I voted for.

Now, I was raised to think that that is a very personal question, akin to, "What's your salary", and "What kind of birth control do you use?" These are not things I talk to strangers about over the telephone. So I said, "I don't think I want to say."

"So," she responded, in an angry tone, "In other words, you voted for Bush".

I'm not one who is fast with cunning responses, so I said nothing. She hung up before I could recover. But I really was quite insulted.

What a wet blanket on an otherwise very pleasant (40 minutes, car door to car door) family experience. How sad to think that Obama volunteers, who have every reason to feel energized but relaxed about their work, have such a hostile streak to them which whatever training they have had has not erased.

Rude lips may not lose campaigns, but they don't make friends.

Come, follow, follow, follow

Remember that song from 7th grade music class?

Probably not. But there's a new way you can follow blogs...a sort of cross between blogging and facebook for the writing and reading classes. Sign on to Follow this blog in the right hand column. I'd love to see your shining face and know more about who my readers are!

Enterprises Requiring New Clothes

Henry David Thoreau said to beware of them. ("Beware all enterprises requiring new clothes"--Walden)

It's been a while since I read Walden but I can imagine that Thoreau had two hesitations about enterprises requiring new clothes. The first is that such enterprises may end up being too expensive. One of the reasons I've always liked to walk for exercise is that the only thing you have to buy is shoes. No Yoga pants, no bike shorts, no climbing harnesses, just shoes. The second reason to beware enterprises requiring new clothes is that new clothes make you a new person, and if you need them, perhaps were you are going is not who you really are.

iMinister did not buy any new clothes when she started her campaign. All she did was take off her preaching robe to reveal her ordinary Sunday attire on the morning she gave her campaign speech. But she is well aware that her campaign was a bit irregular. She has no problem with the idea that an unexpected candidate for Vice President of the US who is suddenly thrust into the limelight would need a major shopping spree. She wouldn't have been at all shocked to hear that it was necessary to spend some thousands of dollars on sufficient, high quality new clothes to get a new campaigner through her campaign.

But too much was too much ....way too much. Palin's buyers clearly forgot that they should be sticking with "necessary, high quality, and attractive" and wandered into the "foolish, expensive, and high status" categories. It was an expensive mistake in more ways than one. She may be feeling that about the whole campaign. I certainly would be!

Michelle Obama has always appeared to my untutored eye to be very well dressed, and somehow it does not surprise me the she's a bargain hunter. One gets the feeling that being the First Lady wouldn't change her very much, and that she won't let it ruin her kids. Even new clothes won't go to her head. Henry David Thoreau would be pleased.

Creativity in Politics

In a campaign year drearily and anxiously focused on disaster and even more drearily replete with lack of truth-telling (on both sides, but particularly, as one would expect but not excuse, the side that has the larger challenges), I find one delightful, creative, wonderful, win-win strategy.


The huge swing state of Florida contains many elderly Jewish voters who have often been Democrats in the past but who are wary of Obama. Every vote counts in that state. What to do? Send in Jewish young people to talk to their grandparents and grandparents' friends about politics, Obama, and, presumably, life. It's called the Great Schlep. What grandparent could resist a visit from a grandchild who not only wanted to talk to them but talk to their friends! Think of the fun, the heart-warming, the family values, the brag-potential. Sheer genius.

iMinister knew a Weatherwoman

oh, gosh, another reason I can't be president. I actually knew my would-be "terrorist" when we were both 20. Her name was Loralie. She dropped out of music school to hit the streets. I don't know if she actually hurt anybody, but she talked a good line. I was filled with morbid fascination.

And you know, I kind of assume that she grew up and grew out of her radical ideas, that she settled down, repented any evil she had managed to do, and became an upstanding citizen, raising good kids, and making a contribution to whatever her work turned out to be. If I met her today it would be with a glad heart. Because people change. Glory, Hallelujah!

It doesn't matter how old Obama was when Bill Ayers was a Weatherman. Nor does it matter when he came to know Ayers' past. All that matters is Ayers' present, which according to all who know it, is that of a peaceful, productive, good citizen.

Obama belongs to a church which requires him to forgive the repentant. So does Palin, but she seems not to have absorbed the lesson.

The Second Debate

Was as boring as the first debate was interesting...in part because the VP's went over the same, often shaky ground, the P's went over, even some of the same blatant mis-statements about the others' record. These candidates must think we don't think.

The part of me that always wants a woman to do a great job and had anticipated biting her nails to the quick if Palin continued to act like a slow High School student ended the 90 minutes with 9 nails intact. The part of me that wanted to see the Republican ticket continue to implode was disappointed and ashamed of herself.

The part of me that was a candidate last week, (Yes, I figured out a way to go ahead with my "Christine for President" sermon. It was a great hit, huge fun, and available here)
was awed at what a candidate has to go through and is glad that she suspended her campaign before any debating went on.

And the part of me that loves the truth and thinks it should be told and the rules followed was outraged more or less continually, and especially by Pailn who played fast and lose with both and did a great job of covering her lack of experience and poor education.


My son said it best. Palin won the political game. Biden won the debate.

The Debate

Well, it was a riveting 100 minutes, which is more than I can say about most 100 minute TV segments. I thought both candidates did pretty well. I was impressed by the breadth of their knowledge and I got the sense that they both have a dignity and integrity which the current incumbent has always lacked. Whatever happens, it's gonna be better than it was.

There was one thing that really irritated me. Even given the propensity of politicians to compare the best of their actions with the worst of their opponents, I thought that John McCain went overboard in a couple of his accusations of Obama's record, edging from putting one's opponent in a bad light, which is to be expected, to misleading the public, which I suppose is to be expected but I don't like it at all. A person who attempts to mislead the public about the task of ones opponent's committee assignment is a person who will attempt to mislead the public on other occasions when it suites him...like when he wants to go to war but doesn't have the facts on his side.

Clean up your act, Mr. McCain.

Pulpit Initiative to Tease the IRS

iMinister was going to run for president this week, announcing her candidacy in a sermon, but this brilliant sermonic ploy was spoiled by a real life civil disobedience campaign. iMinister is annoyed.

This campaign of about 30, mostly Evangelical pastors (they tried to get others involved) will challenge the IRS's rules that tax exempt organizations such as churches can't engage in candidate politics, only in issue politics. They are going to go ahead an endorse their chosen candidate from their pulpits this Sunday and take the consequences. They say they'll sue the government if they do loose their tax exempt status. Read more here.

iMinister thinks this is a bit foolish, but she's aware that the IRS has been both negligent (especially to conservative churches) in enforcing its rules and out of bounds (especially to liberal churches) in harassing ministers who are staying on their proper side of the endorsement line, and she'd appreciate a clarification of the situation which is, after all, what often comes out of court cases and high drama publicity.

She also thinks that any preacher who can't figure out a way to preach "on the issues" such that the congregation can't figure out who the preacher wishes his or her people would vote for is not a very skilled preacher, so she doesn't put much stock in complaints about this particular rule being any real infringement on religious needs. She suspects that this the real inhibition these preachers feel is to their own egos, which are pinched when they can't tell their flocks how to vote.

IRS specializes in slow response, so I doubt if we'll know by Monday.

And if you want to know about iMinister's platform, check here on Tuesday.

Dear Misters Paulson and Bernanke,

If you really believe that it is crucial for the congress to quickly approve this bailout, it was your responsibility to propose a reasonably balanced, passable bailout plan. Since the plan that you proposed was so unbalanced and unrestrained that not even Republicans like it, you must not really think this is an earth shaking crisis. So Congress, take your time. No more playing responsible villagers to the foolish shepherd's cry of wolf!