Having, Doing, Being

 Because I believe public confession is good for the soul, I confess I have an addiction. I'm addicted to books. The shelves and bookcases in our home are full. You will also find piles on the floor. Periodically, I will look over some of the titles trying to discern if I can't get rid of them. Inevitably, what happens is, I discover books I'd forgotten I had, that need to get back in line to be read and digested. Downsizing books is a slow process, especially when you end up with two more for every one you relinquish. Reading them all would take at least another lifetime, maybe two. And just think how many new books there would be I would want to read!

I blame the addiction on our consumer society. We are bombarded with advertisements constantly. Even watching the "news" on television, we receive half news and half ads, and sometimes the "news" is actually an ad for the entity being described. But in my case, TV is not at fault. It's businesses like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's Brookings Books and the Brookings Library book sales.

Once in a while, there's even an AAUW sale. At the last one, on my third appearance and carting off a pile of reading material, the clerk suggested they would make me the poster boy for the next sale (which I took as a complement).

We're all tempted to have things, often more than we need. For me it's books. For others it might be fishing tackle or barbie dolls or clothes or cars. But in our heart of hearts we have to admit, the pleasure we derive from things is temporary. We are encouraged to trade in the wired phone for a flip top, the flip top for a smart phone; and they just keep getting smarter and smarter as the dumb ones are discarded.

We're also educated by our society not just to have but to produce. It's all in the doing! We all want to do something with our life. Maybe it's to make a lot of money. Maybe we would prefer fame with the fortune. Maybe it's simply to raise a family you can feed and shelter and enjoy. So we buckle down and work hard and keep our eyes on the prize.

In the fifties we were told with all the time saving inventions and appliances increasingly available; with a strong and growing economy; with women joining the work force; bread winners could work half time and enjoy a life of leisure the rest of the time. Something happened! Now both husband and wife are often bread winners working overtime, just to keep bread on the table. There is so much to do and so little time to do it.

The reality is, fortunes disappear. Sometimes overnight. Watching the ups and downs of the famous makes one wonder if celebrity life is all it's cracked up to be. Neither fame or fortune appear sustainable. Even family life changes. The kids move on. Doing seems as transient as having.

A friend of mine was a teacher his whole life. In retirement he once questioned in my presence what he had done with his life. He wondered if he had made a difference, even for one student. I assured him, I believed he had made an enormous difference. I knew him as a person of high integrity for his profession and enormous care for the persons in his classes. It occurred to me then, and stays with me now, that whatever we do is not always a lasting and satisfying assurance toward the end of our life. Our work, what we do, also seems transitory.

Paul Tillich, a renowned theologian of the last century, wrote about God as "the ground of being." Instead of existing somewhere in the heavens, God came down to earth. For Tillich, we are "grounded" in God. Our little being is grounded in Big Being. The challenge is to know who we are and whose we are. That discovery is not something temporary or prone to disappear. That discovery is permanent and fulfilling.

Unfortunately, in our culture, people seldom have time to discover who, or whose, they are. Having and doing don't leave much space for being. If we constructed a society and culture where the last comes first, where knowing who we are is primary, then the other two, doing and having, would fall into place. Answer the question of who am I, and you'll know what to do and what you need to do it.

Focusing on being who you are would also making dying easier. Since your focus is on being who you are, with nothing you need to do or get, letting go of life would be a whole lot easier.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who wrote Letters and Papers from Prison. Imprisoned for joining an assassination attempt on the life of Hitler, Bonhoeffer included a poem in his papers titled "Who Am I." It is worth reading in its entirety but the last lines are instructive. "Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine."

Carl Kline

To Build Connection in the Places of Our Common Vulnerability

     

As I said goodbye to a visitor, a question was left with me, and so it has lingered. In a voice both perplexed and pained, I was asked, “Why is there such a negative view of Esau in our tradition, so much more negative than the Torah itself would suggest?” Esau, of course, is the brother of Ya’akov, the one from whom Ya’akov wrests both the birthright and the blessing of the firstborn. Long through the shimmerings of time and history, Esau, as Edom, comes to be associated with Rome, fierce oppressor of Jacob’s descendants. As in regard to so much strife in Torah, particularly in B’reishit, beginning with Cain’s killing of Abel as the first murder, much of the interpersonal strife and violence we encounter plays out in the family context, among those who are siblings. The first murder is fratricide, as every killing of one human by another has been ever since. The allusion becomes clear, all humanity are siblings, all children of a common Creator in whose image we are created, whose tears dampen the soil wherever we live in conflict with each other on this earth.

        A parent struggling to be lovingly present for each of his children, whether in fact blind near the end of his days or only willfully so, we are told of Isaac’s horror upon realizing that he has blessed his

younger son with the blessing meant for the elder. Having returned from the hunt and having prepared a meal for his father, Esau weeps and cries out, the Torah telling of a broken soul, When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly loud and bitter cry, and then he said to his father: “Bless me also, O my father!”

(Gen. 27:34). Of bitter tears and the cry of a wounded heart, we have already encountered the same pain in the father’s generation, the divide then between Isaac and his brother Yishma’el.

As migrants cast out and wandering in the desert, the water carried by Hagar and her son is spent. The forlorn mother places her son in the shade of some desert brush. We are told that God heard the voice of the child and that an angel called out to his mother, saying, Do not be afraid, for God has already heard the voice of the child, there where he is/ba’asher hu sham (Gen. 21:17). Drawing on midrash, on the words there where he is, Rashi teaches that a person is to be judged by the deeds they do in the moment, v’lo l’fi mah she’hu atid la’asot/and not according to what they may do in the future. The place of that moment was and remains a place of human vulnerability, and therefore a place that offers the greatest potential for human connection. It is a place that reminds of the times when we are each in greatest need of human connection, times when we are parched in body and soul, times when we each thirst for love and compassion and can recognize such need in the other.

Holding up a mirror in which to see ourselves, the Torah now brings us to the Torah portion called Vayetze (Gen. 28:10-32:3), along with Yaakov, to encounter Lavan, uncle of Jacob. Having already witnessed human vulnerability, we are reminded of our own as we come to see it in those we meet in the turning of Torah. Yaakov has fled his brother’s anger, arriving in Charan, there among his mother’s family falling in love at first encounter with Rachel. He agrees to work for his uncle for seven years in order to marry Rachel. In the familiar story, on the wedding night Lavan presents the undoubtedly well-veiled bride, who in the morning Yaakov discovers is the elder sister, Leah. Yaakov confronts Lavan and says, What have you done to me…? Why have you deceived me…? Responding to the one who has also deceived, Lavan’s words drip with irony, It is not done in our place to give the younger before the elder. 

We wonder how Lavan’s words touch Yaakov, whether they do in the moment of his own vulnerability, when he is the one deceived. The uncle’s words become a mirror in which Yaakov can see himself if he is willing to look, to gaze and reflect in all of his pain and vulnerability. Lavan’s words can also become a mirror for us if we are willing to look, to bravely accept an opportunity in which to gaze at aspects of ourselves that we may prefer not to see.

Through the years, Yaakov has grown abundantly, with his two wives, both Leah and Rachel, and with their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah, becoming the father of eleven children, rich in herds and flocks. Twenty years having passed, he now seeks to return home to his family in Canaan. Well aware of Lavan’s jealousy and that of Lavan’s sons, Yaakov sets out a plan, coordinated with his wives in defiance of their father, to secretly flee. When the time comes and the great procession makes its way into the unknown, distance is put between them and the sure to follow retinue of Lavan. Eventually the distance is bridged, if not the hearts of fleer and pursuer, an encounter that is hard to imagine, wondering who would speak first and what to say to the other.

The Torah sets the stage for us, telling us of human vulnerability as the place of the encounter, a place beyond time and space, a place carried in each of our hearts. We are simply told, And Yaakov stole the heart of Lavan the Aramean in that he did not tell him, because he fled (Gen. 31:20). That is exactly what Lavan says just a few verses later, you have robbed my heart…; and you did not permit me to kiss my sons and daughters…! As with Yishma’el earlier, and then with Esav, the Torah brings us to a place of human encounter, holding before us emotions that we can understand because they are our own. In the context of Jewish law, beginning in the Talmud ((Tractate Chulin 94a), Jacob is wrong to deceive Lavan, however much we may understand his actions. 

    Such deception is called g'neivat da'at/stealing of mind, accomplished when outer actions and spoken words belie inner feeling and intent. We are meant to ask, to wonder, what else might he have done; how differently might he have responded to the situation; how might he have directly engaged with Lavan to open the possibility of understanding and a different way of departure?

As we consider why such a negative view of Esau has developed in the tradition, so too with Lavan. We can surely draw negative inferences about both of them from the Torah text, but not at all to the extent of evil later ascribed to them. There is surely as much fault to find with Yaakov and others of our ancestors. My visitor’s question lingers, so why such a negative view as it plays out through time? Perhaps it emerges from our own vulnerability and pain, from our own experience as a people. That we might learn to break such destructive dynamics, Torah challenges us to think of our own lives and their contexts, of our own experiences with people. We are meant to ask what we might do to help foster reconciliation and the possibility of wholeness in all the varied ways of our own relationships with people as they occur in the living of our lives. The challenge for us then becomes how to avoid weaving new enmities and enemies from what are often scant threads of conflict as encountered in the texts of our lives.

The Torah is meant to be a context in which to wrestle with life and its encounters, and so we are meant to wrestle here, as indeed Jacob will soon do. As we encounter people at their most vulnerable, however much they may seem to us to be “other,” we are able to see ourselves reflected in their pain. The negative portrayal of the other emerges, perhaps, through our own inability to look at what is most difficult to behold in our selves. Torah offers a context in which to wrestle, a place in which to ask hard questions of our selves and of each other as we seek to understand the Esaus and Lavans whom we encounter along the way of our lives. We come to ask how and why we create enemies, why we foster images of the other that allow us to continue seeing them as an enemy.

While my visitor’s question still lingers, in considering the negative images ascribed to others, may we bravely seek to build connection in the places of our common vulnerability. From the place of shared human pain, may we come to know the heart that would be shattered if that which was most precious to it was stolen, and in protecting from such sorrow may know shared human joy. So the rabbis asked, who is a hero of heroes/aizehu gibor she’b’giborim? And they answered, one who makes of their enemy their friend (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 23).

 

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

2020 Vision?

    

Sitting here, looking out of the kitchen window, it is easy to settle into the illusion of a perfect and peaceful world.  In an orderly way, the November rains and winds have come.  The leaves have drifted down and heaped themselves into rake-defying corners around the cabin.  The skeletal trees offer a bony kind of beauty as ethereal branches lift toward the sky and lichens become more luminescent on oak bark.  No sun today, just November gray, soft, undemanding, comfortable.  But back in the reality of my kitchen, the ubiquitous masks rest on the kitchen table next to my wallet and keys - reminding me of the passage of a year like no other.   When the year began, I wondered how 2020 might be come a metaphor for clearer vision as we entered deepest winter, little realizing on January 1 that by the end of the month 2020 would become an apocalyptic year.  From the Greek, apocalypse means “uncovering” or disclosure or revelation of great knowledge.  

As the year unfolded television and phone screens around the world allowed us to witness the murder of George Floyd.  We watched as nonviolent protests in the nation's capitol were met with military presence and tear gas.  The daily report of positive Covid tests and then the mounting numbers of Covid deaths became a morning ritual on the daily news.  The statistics for illness and deaths among people of color and among the poor alarmingly surpassed the statistics for the general population.

We watched as the callous lack of concern and compassion, the ignorance and refusal to recognize the deadliness of the virus, the disdain for and rejection of the simplest, effective methods for protection paved the way for astronomical numbers of infections and deaths. 

White supremacy, food insecurity, economic instability, threatened elections, Black Lives Matter, poverty, homelessness, gross inequities in our health care delivery system,  job losses,  a stalled, contentious and uncooperative Congress - all have kept the country on edge as the pandemic has re-ordered our lives. 

2020 has been an apocalyptic year.  The veil is drawn back.  The revelations are undeniable. We can see much more clearly now, the inequities in our health care delivery systems.  We can see much more clearly now, how deeply white supremacy is ingrained in our culture. We can see more clearly the nature of police brutality towards people of color. We can see more clearly the results of our toxic political environment.  We can see more clearly the gross inequities in our health care system. This is the apocalypse we live with now - - the revelation - -  the disclosure - - the drawing back of the veil.  Clearer vision is deeply painful.  But through the centuries the notion of apocalypse has brought with it notions of hope for a new creation subverting and replacing the old.  So - here we stand, on the threshold of 2021 and now I am wondering how we will live into the coming year responsibly, given what we now see more clearly.      

May we anticipate a saner, more hospitable, more compassionate, more generous, less violent expression of our collective humanity as we prepare once again as the holiday season unfolds.  The light of the Hanukkah candles signify hope in a deeply suffering world.  

The Advent candles invite the contemplation of renewed peace and joy in the count-down to the Christmas celebrations as Christians prepare to welcome  the most truly Human One into our lives once again.  May the loving and compassionate wisdom of the Holy One invade our lives on the breath of a New Born, sweet and captivating.   May the blessings of complete healing, joyful reconciliation, peace of mind, adequate income, food in the fridge, outrageous laughter, meaningful work, and loving relationships be abundant for all in the coming year. 

Vicky Hanjian

"...to any who stood in need"

I've been thinking about the description of an event in the New Testament lately. One finds it in the book of Acts. It's probably the best description we have of the nature of the early Christian community. In the fifth chapter one reads, "The whole body of believers was united in heart and soul. Not a man of them claimed any of his possessions as his own,  but everything was held in common … they had never a needy person among them, because all who had property in land or houses sold it, brought the

proceeds of the sale, and laid the money at the feet of the apostles; it was then distributed to any who stood in need."    This is about as radical an idea, in a culture operating according to the tenets and values of vampire capitalism, as one can find. And like many of the other Biblical stories that counsel a priority for the common good, you don't hear much about this passage in Acts, except for those who label it as communism, and immediately dismiss it.

Unfortunately, the impulse in capitalism is for accumulation rather than distribution; for selfishness rather than generosity. That's not to say that there aren't generous people among the well off. It's the culture of our economy that makes the passage in Acts seem far fetched and other-worldly, fit for an ancient text but not the modern reality.

The passage should be a challenge to those who are throwing socialism around as a dirty word. What, may I ask, is so wrong about making the common good a priority. What is the drawback to emphasizing the social good at least as much as the individual good. It seems as if we should have learned by this time that if I am a better person and more generous, everyone is better off. If I am other centered rather than self centered, there is a ripple effect that changes human relationships. Generosity and compassion are contagious and help create the common good.

Might I remind folks that we do lots of things in common, as it's much more practical, efficient and effective. Consider the public library, the fire department, our utility department. Social security has been a game changer in our society giving millions of seniors stability in their elder years. These and so many other examples are what democratic socialism is all about.

Now the passage in Acts includes a radical and tragic outcome for those who continue to grasp some of their possessions. They drop dead. I read that part of the passage metaphorically. After all, you can't take your possessions with you, only who you have been. People my age gradually get desperate to downsize and de-clutter anyway. So although the Acts passage is unforgiving, I'm not suggesting coercion or punishment for having and holding on to possessions. Rather, we often ignore or dismiss opportunities to invite generosity for the sake of the common good.

Some years ago, on one of my trips to India, I had an opportunity to participate as an observer in the Bhoodan Movement. Started by Vinoba Bhave in 1951 after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, this movement was an attempt to redistribute land from those who had more than they needed to those who had none. Two of Vinobas' disciples, Krishnamal and Jaganathan, traveled the country asking the landed to contribute a tenth of their acreage for the landless. I was able, with other folks from the U.S., to accompany them on one of their calls. 

 

This landlord was notorious for his treatment of the poor. Once when the landless planted a far removed field never plowed by the owner, he plowed it under just  as it was ready to harvest. He regularly sent his workers to beat and burn the near-by squatter settlements. On this occasion he was approached by Krishnamal and Jaganathan on the basis of the state of his soul. He finally agreed to sell some land to the landless at a price they could afford. He made the announcement from his palace as the poor cowered outside his gated and walled home; then celebrated with us in their settlement afterward.

In all, those in the land gift movement collected more than four million acres for redistribution to the landless, not because of any government program; there was no mandate; but because of a human capacity for generosity too seldom tested.

Especially in this part of the country there is a heritage of mutual aid. Flood or famine, draught, danger, disease and death,, one has always been able to count on the neighbor. When we consider the distance from another living soul suffered by so many of our forebears, it was often a matter of simple survival, or not.

In a time of pandemic, a sign of things to come; in a time of fire and flood we've not experienced before; in a time of new phrases like "polar vortex" and "derecho;" in a time when islands are being evacuated and polar bears are found wanting a floe of ice; we must encourage generosity and a spirit of social good. We won't be able to survive alone and generous neighbors can make all the difference.

 

Carl Kline

Psalm 105 In Three Takes

 

Take I: An Historical Perspective

 
The RSV describes Psalm 105 as “the story of God’s great deeds on behalf of his people.” It is a psalm that celebrates Israel’s sacred history in a straightforward way. The opening verses are a call for thanksgiving and praise: “O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name” (v.1, RSV throughout). “Remember the wonderful works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of Abraham, his servant, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!” (vv.5-6). Continuing, the psalm enumerates God’s wonderful works and judgments, "The covenant which he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan’” (vv. 9-11a). The psalmist recalls the days “When they were few in number, of little account . . . wandering from nation to nation” (vv.12,13a). The narrative brings to mind the time of famine (v.16), how Joseph was sold as a slave (v.17), but then released, and made “lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, to instruct princes at his pleasure,” and “to teach his elders wisdom”(vv.21-.22). “Then Israel came to Egypt” (v.23).The story of the Exodus is remembered (vv.23-38), and the wandering in the wilderness--a place of miracles (vv.39-42). In the wilderness Israel is protected by “a cloud for covering,” and guided by “ fire to give light by night.” Here Israel received quail and “bread from heaven.” Here, God “opened a rock and water gushed forth; it flowed through the desert like a river.”

The closing verses of this psalm have strong verbs and few commands:“He led forth his people with joy, his chosen ones with singing. And he gave them the lands of the nations; and they took possession of the fruit of the peoples’ toil, to the end that they should keep his statutes, and observe his laws. Praise the Lord!" (vv.43-45). This is the sacred story that celebrates the birth of a nation.

Take II:  A Hero’s Journey
Drawing on the work of Joseph Campbell, Psalm 105 may also be interpreted as a  Hero’s Journey. Campbell said that this metamyth is common to every culture.The Hero’s Journey has lots of moving parts, but basically it is a story told in three acts: (1) departure, (2) initiation or crisis, and, (3) return. Psalm 105 prepares for the departure when God makes a covenant with Israel and promises to give Israel the  land of Canaan (vv.10-11). At the time of departure Israel is few in number (v.12), wandering from nation to nation (v.13). The journey is marked by a series of crises and supernatural miracles (vv.12-40). 

When the journey ends, God’s people are singing songs of joy as they take possession of the Promised Land (v.43-44). It is a home-coming. The Hero’s Journey comes to a successful conclusion. God is the Promise-Maker and Promise-Keeper. Israel is the faithful Hero who has successfully completed the initiation period and comes home.

I can identify the following elements of the Hero’s Journey as it relates to Psalm 105. First, this metamyth gives us an image of life as a journey. This is a very powerful metaphor that lends itself to a linear view of history. There is a beginning and there is an end--a purpose. Second, this metamyth affirms that change is always possible. No matter the odds, even if we are few in number, even if princes and principalities are arrayed against us, there is cause for hope. Change is possible. The Hero can be an agent of change. Third, this metamyth creates a moral framework that validates a belief in progress that may justify the use of violence. Creative destruction is an idea closely linked to the ideology of progress. Sacrifices are called for, but ultimately they are worth it. Creative destruction is the price of progress. History, we are often told, is written by the winners.

Take III: A Postcolonial Hope
Psalm 105 may also be interpreted as a psalm that bears witness of a postcolonial hope. The meaning of “postcolonial” has become a matter of debate. I use the term here to mean a critique of settler-colonialism--an ideology of superiority and a policy of land theft and genocide.To find hope in this settler-colonialist narrative, we must read Psalm 105 through Canaanite eyes.

I was living in Hawaii the first time I encountered this approach to the Exodus story. I was participating in a Bible study when a member of the group, a Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) said, “Wait a minute. We are the Canaanites.This was our kingdom before the United States took it from us.” 

When I moved back to the continent, I learned that many Indigenous people are reading the Exodus story in the same way. This was their land before Amer-Europeans stole it. Once we become sensitive to this history we non-Indigenous people must read Psalm 105 as a story of liberation​ and​ conquest. Must history be written by winners? What does this mean?

According to the sacred story, people who stand within the charmed circle of the covenant are “the chosen ones” (v.43). People who stand outside this magical circle are on the margins, or worse-- they are invisible--or worse--they are obstacles blocking the way of progress and promised fulfillment. Extermination of those who block progress is not too great a price to pay. Interpreted from the perspective of people on the margin, the closing verses of this psalm provide religious legitimation for land theft and genocide. Why do we have to accept this interpretation? Is there any alternative?

To answer these two questions we have to be willing to think about issues of authority, power, and community. These are political questions. Where does authority come from? How should power be exercised? What is the role of the community? There are no simple answers to these questions, but they are definitely worth discussing. In the course of the dialogue we will clarify our ideas about history, our image of the divine, and meaning of the holy.

My suggestion is that we must develop ways to interpret our traditions that do more than simply validate privilege and power and the status quo. What would it mean to the world today if faith communities stood in solidarity with marginalized and the oppressed? How would our story change? These are the questions that I wrestle with as I read Psalm 105.

Rev. David Hansen

Grounded in Time

One advantage of  being an elder and mostly retired is you have time for reading. Add a pandemic to it and there is a lot of time for reading. I realized the other day that I was going back and forth between six different books. That's never happened to me before! My usual habit is to read one at a time to the conclusion. Now, I read till the mood strikes me to move on to another. Fiction is always for just-before- bed, to escape the non-fiction and incredibly bad news of the day. With fiction on my mind, sleep might actually happen.

       

           Four of those six books made me start pondering the question of human origins and historical time. It's hard enough recognizing the changes on the planet in my lifetime. It's almost impossible to imagine the world 500 million years ago in the cambrian period; or the earliest reptiles in the carboniferous period, 300 million years in the past. How does one picture something like a million years when sometimes you can't remember what yesterday was like? I'm looking at the chart in The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. Measuring in millions of years, humans are only the very top thread on the chart. 

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book is an example of well researched writing on an important subject with readable prose. Kolbert travels to several sites around the globe to share her experiences with threatened and extinct species, all the while making us reflect on time, and on human origins and destiny.

A second book that made me reflect on similar issues was The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman. A novel, with an archaeologist as a main character, one is confronted with questions about times past but also with questions about timing; period! Why do things happen the way they do; is it really just coincidence, or good fortune, or destiny?

The novel made me reflect on our culture; the busyness to the point of exhaustion; the myopic orientation toward the future; the rampant materialism; the orientation toward doing big and important things; and the unexpected tragedies, like the great depression or a pandemic or climate catastrophe. How do we understand causality, or pure luck, or acts of God?

Both of these books made me recall a favorite author, Nikos Kazantzakis. One of his books made me ponder on the question of historical time and my connection to it in a new way. His Saviors of God invites the reader to savor and reverence their ancestry, all the way back to the beginning of time. And for Kazantzakis each of those ancestors is whispering to us through the ages, "climb higher, climb higher".

Elizabeth Colbert tells us something about our ancestors. Apparently, many of us have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, some thirty thousand years after Neanderthals roamed the earth. Maybe they are whispering "climb higher" in our genetic make-up? 

The other two books making me ponder the past have more of a pronounced religious orientation. Matthew Fox believes there is one religious river that feeds many wells. His book of that title, One River, Many Wells, is a study in religious ecumenism. Looking at all of the major religious faiths, he quotes readily from their sacred texts and stories on a series of subjects, including creation. One begins to see in this volume the common historical themes that serve as the foundation for all of the various traditions. 

When God Was a Woman has been on my shelf for several years. A pandemic can free some books from their dusty cell. This 1976 title reminds us that there was an ancient time when the feminine was not alien to divinity and gives us some insight into what happened to that understanding.

          Looking at images from the Hubble telescope can remind us of how small and insignificant we are in the greater order of things. These literary trips into the past can do the same thing. They can temper our tendency toward self importance and encourage some degree of humility. They can stretch our conception of time. (They might even encourage us to live our time fully.) They can encourage our appreciation of our ancient and good planet earth, the natural world we have been given. Maybe a deeper recognition of the past will help us face the increasing challenges of living in harmony with the earth and its creatures. I'm sure that's a hope implicit in The Sixth Extinction of Elizabeth Kolbert. 

Family members recently sent pictures of them climbing in the White Mountains. I was reminded that when climbing in those mountains in my younger years, I always felt "grounded." Those mountains were likely created some 100 million years ago. There is something about connecting to the ancient, in person or in literature, that not only humbles, but grounds us as well. 

Try it! Touch something from 100 million years ago, if only a piece of literature, that grounds you in time. 

Carl Kline

To Cry Out Within the City - LET EVERYONE VOTE!

        

In the current climate of voting rights under attack, particularly galling to me is the cynical chipping away at the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, which built on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Too young to travel south to help in efforts to register Black voters, I sought other ways to participate in the struggle. A small artifact on a shelf behind my desk tells the story. Appearing as a miniature sign or placard, it is the template for a larger sign to be held in a vigil. Formed of a business card folded around the thin slat of a tongue depressor, the block letters on the back of the card proclaim with urgency: LET EVERYONE VOTE! WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN NOW. The business card is that of the Protestant minister with whom I stood in a weekly vigil after school in Winthrop, Massachusetts through the school year following my Bar Mitzvah. We stood in front of the post office as the only federal building in town, the two of us alone, urging passage of what would become the Civil Rights Act.

Innocence was shattered during that year. I heard words I had never heard before, embarrassed to tell my parents, threats and taunts hurled from passing cars, the intent clear if not the meaning of each vile utterance. Barely aware of the words, I was introduced that year to the raw hate that feeds racism and antisemitism. Somehow they knew that I was Jewish, perhaps from a local newspaper article and accompanying photograph about the vigil. “Jew” and its pejorative forms that I had never heard before and the vile N-word joined with lover were for them fitting missiles with which to deliver their hate, words meant to demean entire peoples used as swear words with which to curse individuals. 

From a place of bewilderment and pain, though with an increasing sense of perseverance and pride, I struggled to understand how people could hate like that. So too, these encounters became lessons in learning to love in response to hate. I learned the role of the lone voice seeking to move others,

determined in tone and timbre to retain its own integrity and dignity, not to succumb to the seductively cathartic ways of hate and violence. Here, within the city, the public library and the town hall on the green across the street told of ideals and aspirations, of books and ideas, of civics and civility. Children made their way home from the nearby elementary school, some quizzical, the occasional one even stopping to ask why we were standing there, taking thoughtful note of our presence within the city, most simply delighting in their afterschool freedom. Younger ones walked hand in hand with parents, adults bemused or sullen as they hurried by, children wondering, asking, all inevitably touched by the swirl around them, souls imprinted with the sounds and sights of rage and witness, innocence offering no protection.

As encountered throughout life, from the first peeling away the veil, unraveling the skein of innocence, these are the questions that are meant to challenge us through the lens of Parashat Vayera (Gen. 18:1-22:24), continuing through Torah, and on into life, a portion filled with human triumph and tragedy, and in its midst a paradigm for speaking truth to power. They were questions intuited but unformed then for a young person standing in silent witness, a Torah portion that would become beloved to him, questions pulsating yet in this time - “LET EVERYONE VOTE!” - in all times: questions of justice and decency, questions of moral witness and its limits, of the one and the many, of collective responsibility and accountability, the guilt of leadership and the suffering of innocents. That we are called to act is made clear before Abraham models the way, rising to the call. Of cities consumed by violence and hate, as the text is read by the rabbis, it is the suffering of one young girl brutally tortured for showing kindness to a stranger, she whose cry rises to heaven. 

Responding to the suffering of one, even as it is one who will bear witness, in a moment of divine soliloquy, God weighs whether to confide in Abraham the contemplated destruction of the cities, needing to see what Abraham’s response will be, whether or not he will intercede, even for the sake of

the wicked. This is why God has sought out Abraham, only so that he may command his children and his house after him that they may keep the way of God/v’shamru derech ha’shem -- to do righteousness and justice/la’asot tz’dakah u’mishpat… (Gen. 18:19). Meeting the challenge, Abraham boldly steps forward and asks if the Judge of all the earth shall not do justice. Beginning with fifty, perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city/b’toch ha’ir, and God promises to forgive for the sake of fifty righteous within the city, and so the emphasis throughout, down to ten.
    We come to understand what is meant, for them and for us. There are those who are righteous at home, but who fail to raise their voices in public, b’toch ha’ir/within the city, those who fail to do righteousness and justice, who fail to resist and rebuke for the sake of the common good. In a powerful warning against the smugness that can infect religious observance, against the deceptive lure of withdrawing and seeing oneself as being above the fray, the Oznaim La’Torah, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (Poland-Israel, 1881-1966), probes why the emphasis on b’toch ha’ir/within the city: because there are righteous people who live in the city, but not within the city; who cloister themselves only within “the four ells (cubits) of halacha,” (only within the narrow, protective parameters of their own observance); righteous people such as these don’t seek to influence the people of the city, nor to return them to the right path/v’lo yach’ziru otam l’mutav…. Reminding that God’s call to Abraham echoes through the generations and that Torah is a context in which we are to wrestle through its stories with all realms of human strife and struggle, Rabbi Sarotzkin emphasizes the duty to so teach children, our own and all of those who pass by within the city: one needs to tell in the ears of children and children’s children/tzarich l’saper b’oznai banim uv’nai banim, that stories such as these/sipurim k’eleh are designed to train them and make them wise, to turn from evil and to do righteousness and justice/la’sur mei’ra v’la’asot tz’dakah u’mishpat….

Wrestling with the efficacy of the lone voice, hope carried in the question of a child, as though of those who stand in vigil within the city, Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, weaves a midrash that reflects his own horror before the crime of silence: A person came to the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to plead with the people to turn from their violence, to stop their killing. This person walked the streets of the city day after day talking and pleading, but alas to no avail; the people continued in their violent ways. One day, as the person walked through the streets of the city, a child came up and asked, ‘why do you continue to talk to them, you see that they don’t listen to you?’ And the answer came gently to the child, ‘When I came here, I talked to them in order to change them, now I continue to talk to prevent them from changing me.’

If only for the sake of one, the one of lonely voice, the child who barely knows how to ask, God in whose image of oneness all are created, however many times we have been there with Abraham, we nevertheless still sit at the edge of our chair, hoping he will keep going, pleading all the way down to one. Ten comes to represent the collective, the critical mass; the tipping point beyond which it is too late for survival of earth, of people and place, innocence offering no protection. Extended from a gathering of ten Jews for public prayer, minyan becomes the symbolic locus of moral responsibility.

   

From adolescence to young adulthood, less than a decade after the vigil in front of the post office for the right of all to vote, the Vietnam War by then in full fury, I was serving a jail sentence in the Worcester County Jail in Worcester, Massachusetts for sitting in at a draft board. My beloved rabbi, Rabbi Meyer Finkelstein, of blessed memory, wrote a precious letter to me in jail, affirming my path of witness. Drawing on Parashat Vayera, he offered insight into a midrash (B’reishit Rabbah 50:5) that ends with the words not one of them protesting, and so explaining, he spoke to my soul: “Abraham argued with God to try to prevent the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Rabbis explained that destruction by posing a question and then answering it. They asked – ‘surely not all of the residents of Sodom were people of violence. Why were all the people destroyed?” Then they answer – ‘Those that were not men of violence and crime committed an even greater sin. They stood by and never raised their voices in protest. They thereby acquiesced to violence and crime and sin.’”

The painful lesson of Torah is that more than one is needed to avert destruction. Sometimes, though, it begins with the voice of one, of one and one become two, of a child asking why we stand in the face of hate, become ten, become fifty, and in the echoing voice of Pete Seeger, of blessed memory, “if one and one and fifty make a million, we’ll see that day come round….” It is the hope of a small template for a sign to be held in a long ago vigil within the city, an artifact and its message that endures, words of witness to remind, words whose urgency is no less today than it was then, proclaiming in block letters, “LET EVERYONE VOTE!”

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

Creating the Society We Want

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed more than 230,000 lives; fires in the West have destroyed whole towns and are burning out of control;. the unofficial unemployment rate remains stuck at 11 percent; and the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights groups are marching in the streets. Although these disparate events may seem unconnected, they teach us that we are all bound together in an unbreakable web of mutuality. At our peril we have forgotten a truth that a gifted teacher taught me long ago: Our unity is not something that we are called to create; only to recognize. The imperative of our time is learning how to be a good neighbor.  

Psalm 119 has much to teach us.  It is an acrostic poem based on the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. It has twenty-two stanzas, with eight lines in each stanza. Jews use this psalm in the celebration of Rosh Hashanah. Benedictine monks include it in the Book of
Hours. The Greek Orthodox church recites it in their liturgy. Many people memorize it and incorporate it into their daily meditations. I want to focus on what this psalm can teach us about the proper ordering of power in the commonwealth of this nation.

The theme of the psalm is announced in the opening verses: "Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!”(vv.1-3, RSV throughout). The psalm is both a prayer for instruction and guidance, and a pledge of loyalty to the law--the Torah. In addition to “the law,” the word “Torah” also means “to teach. The purpose of the law is to instruct Israel in the ways of the life for the guidance and benefit of the whole of humankind.Thus, the psalmist says: “Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I will keep it to the end.Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart” (vv.33-4).The law has both a personal and a social dimension.

The political order in which we live deeply affects the way we live.The psalmist pledges loyalty to the law “even though princes sit plotting against me,” (v.23); prays for protection knowing that “Godless men have dug pitfalls for me” (v.85); and, vows, “I hate double-minded men, but I love thy law.” (v.113). The psalmist suggests that greed is corrupting the system, and says plainly: “Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to gain!” (v.36). The psalmist understands the law is a guardian of liberty and a source of hope in an uncertain time. Thus, the psalmist declares: “I shall walk at liberty . . . I will also speak of thy testimony before kings, and shall not be put to shame; for I find delight in thy commandments, which I love.” (vv.45-7).

I suspect that the psalmist was not grateful for the trouble he was in, but in the law he found a way to not to become cynical or to despair or to surrender to the status quo. The Law’s teaching and guidance gave him the strength he needed to fight for reform.

Perhaps it is this reformation spirit that attracted the well-known British reformer William Wilberforce to this psalm. John Newton, the author of ​Amazing Grace​, and other abolitionists had a profound influence on Wilberforce, but it was his faith and particularly Psalm 119 that sustained him in his long campaign to abolish slavery. A member of the British Parliament, Wilberforce introduced anti-slavery legislation into the House of Commons 12 times before it finally became the law of the British Empire in 1833.

In our own time when the struggle for ecological justice and social justice seems daunting, there are. two images of this psalm that I find particularly helpful.The psalmist prays, “Lead me in the path of thy commandments, for I delight in it” (v.35).Thus, when we think about the valence of the law we must take into consideration both an objective criterion--the path--and a subjective criterion--delight. The path of the law provides ethical standards that are necessary for social and personal well-being.The law commands us to: “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev.19:18), and, “Love the Lord you God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut.6:5). The fruit of the law is personal delight and social delight.

To bring delight to the heart the law must impose justice and inspire hope. We delight in the law when it helps us answer the question: What kind of society do we want? Let me sharpen this question. The United States today is a Neo-Feudal society.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, for the first time in our nation’s history, on August 23, 2020, the combined wealth of the 12 richest people in the United States surpassed one trillion dollars. According to Alexandre Tanzi and Michael Sasso, who wrote a story entitled “Wealth Floats” in the November 19, 2019 issues of the ​Bloomberg Report,​ the top10 percent of the nation’s households held 60 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the lower 90 percent held less than 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Not unrelated to these stories, the real income--income compared to the costs of goods and services-- of most people has flattened since the 1970s. The rising tide does not lift all the boats.

The events mentioned in the opening paragraph are not unrelated to the maldistribution of wealth in our nation. There is an inequality pandemic that is robbing the commonwealth of vital resources. Simply put, private wealth comes from the commonwealth and a fair share of that wealth must be returned to the commonwealth through taxes. We have a choice to make. We can choose to reclaim a greater share of private wealth for the commonwealth and rebuild our society, or we can give in to cynicism, despair, and the status quo. Just as William Wilberforce had to make a choice in the nineteenth century, each of us also has a responsibility to make a choice now in the twenty-first century. We can choose the way that delights and work to make it a reality.

  

The Torah teaches us that laws that delight provide for the poor and welcome the sojourner (Lev.19:9-10); pay honest wages (Lev. 19:13); and accomodate the needs of the deaf and the blind so that they are not blocked in any way (Lev.19:14). Laws that

Delight ensures that people can live in decent housing in safe communities, have access to affordable healthcare, receive a good education,and can drink safe water and breathe clean air. This is what love for our neighbor looks like in the public square.

In keeping with the pattern of previous meditations on the psalms, I am ending these reflections with a poem by Langston Hughes. The following is the last stanza of a poem he entitled: Freedom’s Plow.

A long time ago,  an enslaved people heading toward freedom made up a song:

​Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.

Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped. From that see a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow. That tree is for everybody,

For all America, for all the world
May its branches spread and its shelter grow 

Until all races and all peoples know its shade.

KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW! HOLD ON!

--The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes Arnold Rampersad, ed. Vintage Books

Rev. David Hansen

Dear Representative Johnson,

I appreciated the sentiment in your July 24 newsletter about how "Politicians Are People, Too." Although I don't blame the hyper-partisan divide in Washington on cable news, as you seem to, any efforts you or others make to bridge the partisan gap are praiseworthy.

You identify two members of the opposite party you respect. You empathize with them in their suffering. Once again, empathy is praiseworthy, especially in an age where the President seems unable to express it. To have you openly share it in a newsletter is heartening.

    

Representative John Lewis is one of those you mention, whose struggle with cancer drew the empathy of you and others in Congress from both sides of the aisle. You cite his commitment to nonviolence and rejection of toxic political rhetoric as things you admired. My guess is you would agree, along with so many others, that he was "the conscience of the Congress."
 

Hearing that phrase "conscience of the Congress" used again and again as the rites and rituals for Lewis proceeded, I was reminded of a personal experience early in my ministry. The first church I served as an assistant minister was at a time of both the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. Both campaigns warranted some prophetic sermons and got me in trouble with some members of the congregation. On the last Sunday of my presence there one of the members approached me and said: "Carl, I hate to see you go. You've been the conscience of the community."

On the one hand, that was a complement. On the other, I wanted to say: "What about your conscience? Where is it? What about the conscience of everyone else in the community? Where are they?" I'll wager Representative Lewis would have forgone all the hubbub and hoopla around his passing for a few folks deeply committed to following in his footsteps, willing to get into some "good trouble" in the cause of nonviolence.

The juxtaposition of your 24th. newsletter with your letter to me of January 23 was striking. I tire of politicians and others reverencing those committed to nonviolence like Lewis and his mentor King, then supporting a bloated military industrial establishment that threatens and commits enormous violence around the world.      In your letter of the 23rd., you justify your vote against cutting funds for the defense department ($140 billion more projected for next year than last year), on the basis of serving our men and women in uniform and their families. That's a worthy goal. However, of all the money sent to the Pentagon, most goes to military contractors. In 2018, the average taxpayer worked 63 days to fund military spending. 31 working days supported military contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin while only 13 supported the troops.

   

Another glaring juxtaposition for me was an advertisement on TV, the same day I received your letter. It was an ad for the Wounded Warriors Project, soliciting donations. It showed pictures of an armless vet and one in a wheelchair without his legs. One family is thanking the Project for money for food. What? Why must we have non-profits to care for our veterans if all of this money is supposedly going for their needs?


At least you don't raise the argument in your letter, like your colleague Senator Rounds in the Senate, that we need to counter our adversaries Russia (I wonder, has he mentioned this "adversary" to the President) and China. Rounds doesn't mention we spend more on the military than Russia and China and the next five nations combined; 37% of the whole world's expenditures. You, however, seem to understand the military as necessary to coerce our will in diplomatic and economic endeavors.

Lip service doesn't cut it! Memorials and naming ceremonies and holidays don't suffice! Although the evidence accumulates, if only one will look at it, nonviolence works. Start with watching Erica Chenoweth, Jamila Raqib and Julia Bacha on TED. It will only take one hour. Read Gandhi and M.L. King but Gene Sharp as well.

Violence only produces more violence. As long as we are addicted to an economy where the essential workers are preparing the instruments of death rather than working to restore and enhance life, we will continue our march toward nonexistence. As M.L. King said, "the choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence."

I have a few questions in conclusion. How much of the projected Pentagon budget will help mitigate the 17 veteran suicides each day? Are you in favor of the billions in military funding inserted in the Republican Senate version of legislation responding to the pandemic? Do you support the billions in the budget for "modernization" of nuclear weapons?

And your conscience, as our bombs kill children in Yemen, wedding parties in Afghanistan and threaten the planet with nuclear catastrophe? What says your conscience? Would you be willing to take a serious look at alternatives to violence and work to implement them in our country and culture?

Sincerely,
Rev. Carl Kline

Integrity

          Psalm 26 is about keeping and defending one’s integrity in the face of adversity. It bristles with issues that speak to us.The opening verses set the tone: “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.”(vs.1, RSV throughout). Integrity comes from the Latin, integer. Among the several meanings supplied by Webster’s Dictionary, the three that I think are most fitting are: incorruptible, adherence to a moral code, unity. Integrity is a personal virtue, and a public trust. The psalmist understands that integrity needs to be demonstrated, “walked in.” People who have integrity can be trusted because their words and deeds walk together. 

    

The psalmist demands vindication. Vindicate is a powerful word that comes from the Latin, vindicare. Among the meanings Webster’s Dictionary offers are: avenge, deliver, exonerate, justify, defend. Try to imagine the scenario. Does the plaintiff want to be avenged? Delivered from an injustice? exonerated? Maybe the psalmist has written “BLM” on a public street and been charged with defacing public property. Perhaps she or has been victimized in some way, and is demanding justice?
“Prove me, O Lord, test my heart and my mind” (vs.2). Translation: I know right from wrong. I have walked the walk, and talked the talk. I have the courage of my convictions, and the credentials to prove it.
     The psalmist then moves from the personal to the social: “I do not sit with false men, I do not consult with dissemblers; I hate the company of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked” (vs.4-5). We cannot tell if the psalmist is addressing political enemies, or perhaps there is corruption in high places, or maybe the courts have been swayed by the influence of wealth and power.
     Religious institutions and leadership have been compromised as we read in the next verses: “I wash my hands in innocence, and go about thy altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving . . . telling all thy wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory

dwells”(vs.6-8). Narrowly construed, “thy house,” is the temple. We could interpret this psalm as a religious feud between church leaders.Think of Martin Luther declaring to church authorities at the Diet of Worms in 1521: “I cannot and will not recant anything.” But, if “thy house” is the whole inhabited earth, then “where thy glory dwells,”(vs.8) means “thy  will be done on earth.” The psalm is calling for environmental and social justice. 

     The next two verses make me inclined to favor the latter possibility. They read; “Sweep me not away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthristy men, men in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes”(vs.9-10). Who are these men? I think Bob Dylan’s 1963 song, “Masters of War,” gives us a fair idea.You can read the words or listen to the whole song online. One phrase gives a sense of the song:

I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

         

Maybe the psalmist is facing time in jail because she or he is a member of the War Resisters League, or is a Conscientious Objector. We do not know.
  The psalmist returns to the theme of integrity in the closing verses: “But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord” (vs.11-12). The image of level ground implies openness, transparency, and mutual accountability. When will people get equal pay for equal work?
     The psalmist is teaching us that integrity is the antidote to cynicism. Consider the following example.The government has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy and increased the budget of the Department of Defense (once upon a time called the Department of War), but the political class would have us believe that we cannot afford public healthcare for all when more than 170,000 people have died from COVID-19. Or think about this. As recently as August 7, 2020, the Aspen Institute warned that in the next few months 30-40 million people could face eviction from their homes unless the federal government takes action to prevent it, but  politicians think $200 a week will give people an incentive not to work. Cynicism is devouring dreams. Integrity is the antidote to cynicism. Restored health begins with personal integrity, and demands integrity on the part of people who hold the public trust.
    

In our social contract, integrity in government is defined as government of the people, for the people, and by the people. “People” in this instance means flesh-and-blood human beings who live and die, not, as the US Supreme Court and later laws misconstrued people to mean corporations with charters that can never be revoked. Integrity is government for the people. That means a government that directly or indirectly provides for peoples’ basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and a safe environment. Government by the people means every vote counts, and it is the government’s responsibility to secure these votes.

     Integrity is the way out of personal and social conflict and chaos. However, there are cautionary notes to add to this psalm. Integrity is a double-edged sword. It is the antidote for cynicism and corruption. But integrity has also come to mean “purity,” in which case it can become a code word for racism, classism and phobias of many kinds. Crimes against humanity have been committed and are being committed to defend the integrity of “our” borders, “our” race, “our” way of life. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice should be required reading to accompany Psalm 26.
     Lastly, and in a timely way, the psalmist forces us to examine our prejudices. We all want a fair chance and a fair trial, a level playing field. Like the psalmist, we want to stand on “level ground.” The following is a poem by Langston Hughes that sheds light on the meaning of “level ground”:
 

Park Bench

I live on a park bench
You, Park Avenue.
Hell of a distance
Between us two.

I beg a dime for  dinner--
You got a butler and maid.
But I’m wak’n up!
Say, ain’t you afraid
 
That I might, just maybe,
In a year or two,
Move on over
To Park Avenue?
       

 Langston Hughes
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
Arnold Rampersad, ed. (NY: Vintage Books,1994)

Rev. David Hansen