Month: August 2020

How Many?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Faith and Politics, Uncategorized

As I watch the steady rise of the number of American deaths on the COVID scoreboard I remember the line from an old Bob Dylan song: “Yes, and how many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?” It’s apparently more than 177,000. It’s apparently more than George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and a host of other people of color cut down much too soon. It must be more than the police officers who fear for their lives because we live in an armed camp.

When I think about mounting death tolls I am taken back to the years of the Vietnam War. That war lasted on so long that I graduated from high school, college and seminary while it dragged on and then continued 4 more years! Like 2020 the death count in that war was served to us with dinner every evening on the national news. We thought we were winning because the scoreboard usually indicated we killed more of them that day than they killed of us. The scoreboard of course didn’t include the more than a million Vietnamese civilians killed, part of the infamous “we had to destroy the village to save it” mind set of our leadership. I guess Walter Cronkite thought that to know that ugly truth might have spoiled our appetites.

Dylan’s haunting question “how many?” can be asked about wars, hurricanes, floods, wild fires, even those caused by climate change, gun violence, racism, cancer, drunk drivers, and pandemics. How many must die before we say “enough!” What does it take to move us to action to correct the centuries-old injustices of racism? Or to suspend personal or political ambition to create a unified strategy for combatting a pandemic? Or meaningful reform of law enforcement? Or to enact reasonable gun regulations? How many, Lord? How long till we learn that violence in any form only creates more violence, over and over again in a vicious cycle.

For way too long we Christians have taken Jesus literally when he said, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matt. 5:39). Jesus didn’t mean we should turn ourselves into punching bags. He was talking about interrupting the cycle of violence which will never end until enough of us realize that as long as we keep trying to achieve peace by unpeaceful means we are perpetuating more of the same.

Just before that verse above Jesus says, “You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist an evil doer.” Someone has said that living by the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth philosophy just produces a world of blind, toothless people. Instead of that outcome Jesus later in that Sermon on the Mount goes on to instruct his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

2000 years later we are still trying to do things the old way and expecting different results. We have failed to learn the critical lesson that someone has to dare to go first to break the cycle of getting even instead of being peacemakers. And until we learn we will continue to ask “How many deaths will it take?”

33 Conventions

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Politics, Government Reform

In one of those sobering moments I dread I realized this week that I watched my first National Political convention 64 years ago this week! I have no idea how that’s possible, but I do have at least one vivid memory of the Democratic convention in 1956. That was shortly after my parents bought our first TV. It was also back when the conventions really mattered because they weren’t the choreographed pep rallies they have become in recent years. The conventions were actually the places where nominees for President and Vice President were chosen after much bargaining and compromise among state delegations. There was real drama because often we did not know what the outcome of the convention would be.

In 1956 the Republican convention was a slam dunk as the incumbents, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were renominated. My memory is a little foggy after all these years, but I am pretty sure there was a much more competitive environment at the Democratic gathering. What I do remember clearly is that a young senator from Massachusetts made his first appearance on the national stage in a surprising but failed run to be the Vice Presidential nominee on the ticket led by Adlai Stevenson. I certainly had no idea then who this upstart was or that the same John Kennedy would emerge four years later as the Presidential nominee and eventual winner.

You may wonder how weird it is that an 8 year old would be watching a political convention in the summer when I could have been out playing ball with my friends, and I suppose it is. But I have always been interested in history and politics. Even at that tender age I knew that what happened in the political arena was important, even though I had little comprehension of what it all meant. I have watched at least some of all 30 conventions since that summer of 1956 but none like the conventions of 2020.

Everything about 2020 has been strange; so of course the virtual conventions are no different. I’m starting this post on the first night of the Democratic convention, and so far I like what I’m seeing. There’s more content and less rah rah. More common folks from our diverse population are being given a voice. It’s biased of course as all conventions are, and in many ways it’s a two-hour political ad. I fear many in our badly polarized nation will only watch the convention that reinforces their political viewpoint. That will only widen the chasm between us.

I confess I already know I will not be able to watch 8 hours of the GOP convention next week. The lies that continually fall from President Trump’s lips make me too angry to consume very much of what he will have to say. But even more disturbing to me are the multitude of Republican officials who have refused to do their Constitutional duty and provide checks and balances on a man who is clearly dangerously incompetent and unstable. If just a few of those Republican senators had shown the courage in the pre-COVID days of early 2020 to vote for honesty, integrity and justice and remove Trump from office our nation would not be in as much trouble today as we are. The people who have put party loyalty over the good of the nation, those who value personal power and prestige over true patriotism are the real villains of this tragedy.

That 8 year-old kid watching this new invention called television in the summer of 1956 proudly identified as a Republican, the party of my hero Abe Lincoln. I liked Ike because everyone I knew was Republican; so I understand life-long devotion to the values and ideals we are taught as children. But the party of Trump is no longer the party of Lincoln or Eisenhower. Do you know that the divisions between our two major parties in 1952 were so small that both parties wanted war hero Eisenhower to be their candidate! Can you imagine such a scenario in 2020?

Of course we all know that America in 1956 was far more complicated than my naive self could imagine back then. The political universe was so different then that the “Solid South” was the stronghold then of the Democrats, the party of segregation from pre-Civil War days until Lyndon Johnson’s famous prediction that in signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that he had lost the South for a generation. How about a half century and counting? That political flip paved the way for Nixon’s evil “Southern Strategy” and the GOP has not been the same since.

In the ‘50’s women were still mostly seen as only homemakers and baby factories; we actually believed that separate but equal was true and just, and oh yes, we were just beginning to get involved in the politics of a place none of us had ever heard of, Vietnam. So I am not nostalgic for the days of my 8 year-old self. We were a long way from living up to America’s ideals in 1956, and we still are. But I’ve been around a long time, and I am very proud of the progress we have made for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and Civil Rights or at least I was until 2016. In the words of an old Kenny Roger’s song, “I’ve seen some bad times, lived through some sad times:” the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear arms race, the assassinations of 1968 and the burning American cities that followed, the violent Democratic convention of 1968, Kent State, the protests against the war in Vietnam that drove LBJ out of office, Watergate, the My Lai massacre, the impeachment of two presidents, 9/11, unending Middle East wars, way too many mass school shootings, immigrant children locked in cages, climate change, the on-going crisis of COVID-19, and now zoom calls, distance education, and virtual political conventions .

But I have also lived through some good times: the passage of civil rights act and voting rights acts, the establishment of Medicare, multiple lunar landings by American astronauts, including the very first one who was from my home town. I have witnessed the first women on the Supreme Court and increasing numbers of women in leadership positions. I was inspired by Dr. King’s dream and rejoiced when we elected our first black president and legalized same sex marriage.

We may differ on my list of good and bad things, but I hope we can agree that through all the ups and downs of our history the American Dream may in dark days be hidden behind clouds, but it never disappears. It rises and shines as faithfully as our daily sunrises. This political season like many before it is unique. But the process of selecting a president every four years has continued through Civil War, World Wars, the Great Depression, hanging chads, and the recession of 2008 to name a few. We still have a dream even in this weird suspended animation of 2020. That dream is stronger and truer than any challenge because it is a vision of liberty and justice for all people in this great diverse nation.

That dream is only as strong in our generation today as those of us who participate in the democratic process to become informed and responsible citizens. Voting this year like these conventions will look different than any election in our history, but not even a pandemic can stop us from letting our voices and votes determine the future of this great experiment we call American democracy.

Servanthood

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Kazantzakis, spiritual discipline

Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” That familiar quote comes at the end of a discussion between Jesus and two of his closest disciples. James and John have asked a big favor of Jesus, they want their faces carved on Mt. Rushmore. Oh, no, that was someone else who is even more foolish and full of himself.

James and John actually asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left when he comes in his glory. And Jesus, ever the patient teacher told them “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38)

This story got me to wondering what Jesus meant when he tells us to become servants. What does it mean for us today to be a servant? In this election year when we will choose those who we want to be our public servants that’s a very important question. Those who run for public office do it for a multitude of reasons, but for many of them servanthood is not high on the list of their motivations. They may want power to shape government policy in ways that favor them or their friends. They may want the perks of government service like a cushy lifetime pension. They may want the kind of glory and fame that James and John thought they were worthy of even though they had no idea, as Jesus points out, what they were asking.

Jesus had rejected the temptations of earthy power and glory immediately after he was baptized and began his public ministry. (Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4). Satan teases Jesus and dares him to turn stones into bread, to throw himself off the temple to prove God will protect him, and then with power and glory over everything he can see from the mountain top. Of course those things are not Satan’s to give, just as Jesus tells his disciples that the kind of glory they are seeking is not his to give.

Jesus instead relies on his God-granted power to say a firm and definite “no” to worldly temptations of narcissistic grandeur and even to the basic comforts of home and family. In his novel “The Last Temptation of Christ” Nikos Kazantzakis tries to show that point, but it often gets lost in our obsession with sex. The movie version of that novel drew loud protests because part of the temptation for Jesus was to forgo the suffering the way of the cross leads to and to just settle down as a family man with Mary Magdalene.

My point is that service or servant leadership is the road less traveled because it requires sacrifice. Running for public office in our hyper partisan society means giving up all hope for any personal privacy and having every part of one’s entire life put under a microscope. It can lead to physical danger for the servant and his or her family. Dr. Amy Acton, former Director of Public Health in Ohio, served our state brilliantly in the first few months of this pandemic in a reassuring but scientific way, but she paid a price for her firm insistence on sound medical practices. Those who were primarily concerned about the economy and those who refused to accept her advice drove her from office. She even endured protestors armed with assault weapons outside her home.

Candidates for public service in the age of social media (which is often anti-social) are especially vulnerable to attacks that are spread by people on every side of the political spectrum without bothering to fact check. Lies and insults can go viral in minutes. For example, just 24 hours after she was introduced as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate vicious, racist and sexist lies about Kamala Harris’ citizenship began circulating on the internet and in the White House briefing room. The same birther B.S. used against Barrack Obama has reared its ugly head again.

Senator Harris has devoted her entire adult life to public service at the local, state and federal level. She has overcome obstacles inherent in her gender and race, and she threatens the status quo, namely power in the hands of white males who have run this country for over 250 years. Why would anyone subject herself to such slander and lies? Why would Gandhi or Dr. King or John Lewis endure beatings, imprisonment and even death to be a public servant? Why not give into the temptation to live a safe, comfortable life at home with family?

The answer is in the words of Jesus, “One who would be greatest of all must be servant of all.” Those who lay up earthly treasures and glory that thieves can steal and rust consume are never satisfied. They always want more. More money, more power, more fame and glory because they have not learned the lesson of servanthood. They have rejected the truth:” For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:25). Too many of us have been so indoctrinated with the prosperity gospel that we can’t imagine putting our trust in a dark-skinned carpenter who refused to save himself when he could have. The tempter was still there even on Golgotha hanging on a cross next to Jesus begging Jesus to “save yourself and us.” But the other thief knew what it meant to be at Jesus’ side when he came into his glory, and Jesus recognized that request to be with him in paradise while ignoring the other thief who was only looking out for himself. (Luke 23)

Our nation is at a critical crossroads here and now where we must recognize the value of servant leadership and reject false claims of glory. If we fail to do so we will lose our national life by trying to rely on saving ourselves. To survive and thrive we must follow the example of the one who washed the feet even of those who would betray and deny him because he walked the walk as a true servant leader. He knew the truth that true greatness is found in service to others. Do we?