Saturday Night Reflection

One of the more interesting - and different - books I have read in the last few years is the collection of writings by former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold entitled Markings.

Thinking about the selection from the Book of Jonah as one of tomorrow's lectionary readings, I remembered this piece from the book:

To love life and men as God loves them - for the sake of
their infinite possibilites

to wait like Him,
to judge like Him
without passing judgement,
to obey the order when it is given
and never look back -
then He can use you - then, perhaps, He will use you.

And if he doesn't use you - what matter. In His hand, every moment has its meaning, its greatness, its glory, its peace, its co-herence.

From this perspective, to "believe in God" is to believe in yourself, as self-evident, as "illogical," and as the impossible to explain: if I can be, then God is.

Roe v. Wade

On the American scene, at least, issues relating to human sexuality may be the most contentious ones at the intersection of church and state. And, on this day in particular - the anniversary of the seminal Supreme Court ruling permitting legal abortions - our attention is centered on abortion.

Many of the arguments against the right of a woman to have an abortion are couched in religious language. There are those who claim that life begins at the moment of conception and often substantiate that claim by appeal to Biblical verses, like the ones describing the call of the prophet Jeremiah, which speak of God knowing and calling a person before birth. There are those who claim that abortion is wrong on the basis of the Biblical prohibition against killing as found in the Ten Commandments. Others use more generalized texts in the Biblical literature describing the need to care for the weak and the powerless to frame their opposition to abortion.

With this dependence on a religious foundation, a recent poll reported at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is instructive. Among the results is the finding that people with higher levels of religious commitment (those more likely to pray daily, more likely to attend church weekly, more certain of the importance of religion and of the existence of God) were more likely to oppose abortions in all or most cases.

Within the general population of the US, 18% stated that abortion should be legal in all cases, 35% saying legal in most cases, 24% illegal in most cases, and 16% illegal in all cases. This compares with the Jewish responders - 40% legal in all, 44% legal in most, 9% illegal in most, and 5% illegal in all - as the most open to abortion in the country and the Jehovah's Witness responders - 5% legal in all, 11% legal in most, 25% illegal in most, and 52% illegal in all - as the most opposed to abortion.

You might find it interesting to look at the entire poll results and other related articles at: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=384.

The questions I would ask are these: Is abortion purely a civil legal matter or is it also a religious one?; Which side of the equation - civil or religious - should trump the other?; Should any religious definitions - those by faith - on the beginning of life be part of the debate on the legality of abortions?; With 53% of the general population expressing the view that abortions should be permitted in all or most cases, should dissenters to that view from the more conservative religious groups win the day?

Regardless of which side you take on any of these questions, I would ask one last question: Have you ever talked to a woman trying to find the right answer for herself about having or not having an abortion and then talked to her after the decision was made? I have and that has influenced my position.

Inaugural Poem

On this day, much has been made and will be made of many of the public pronouncements associated with the inauguration. The NY Times is the only publication I have seen that included the text of the Inaugural Poem. In case you have not heard it, here is their transcription:

January 20, 2009
Transcript
Inaugural Poem
The following is a transcript of the inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, as provided by CQ transcriptions.

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

I was struck by the religious harmonies I heard in the closing of the poem. What if the mightiest word really is love, how would that change your life and how you see the world?

This is our moment

More than a week ago, the eminent sociologist Robert Bellah posted a piece on the website The Immanent Frame looking ahead to the Obama presidency and stating that he believes the new president will work for the common good. The entire article, which is well worth reading can be found at: http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2009/01/12/this-is-our-moment-this-is-our-time/. Let me share the concluding paragraph with you.

Late in the campaign, McCain and Palin began calling Obama a socialist, because he believes in a progressive income tax. There is a deep irony here. Every normal modern nation has been influenced by democratic socialism. If that tradition has been weak in America, it, or something close to it (the New Deal and Social Security, which, like the progressive income tax, was also denounced as socialist), has never been entirely absent. Universal health care would put it on the agenda again, leading possibly to reform in our deeply unjust educational system and other areas as well. In the context of comparative modernity, democratic socialist equals normal. For the first time in a long time the possibility that we too could become normal, that we could better realize our good exceptionalism and avoid more of our bad exceptionalism, seems to have arrived. It will take a very grown up leader and massive public participation to make that happen. But as Obama has said so often, “This is our moment, this is our time.” I am glad to have lived long enough to see even such a possibility in this great but benighted nation.

Now that you have had a chance to hear or to read President Obama's inauguration address, do you have a greater sense of hope and possibility for the future of our nation than you did, say, 6 months ago? Are you also glad to have lived long enough to see this?

A New Chapter in American History Begins

I grew up in the South. I know something about discrimination and prejudice because I saw it first-hand. I heard hateful, racist comments from relatives before I was old enough to know what racist meant. I started school just a few years after Brown vs Board of Education ended de jure school segregation, even though de facto segregation still existed. As a child during the early years of the Civil Rights movement, I sat through church meetings at which church leaders planned how to keep "undesirables" from joining our Baptist church. At the time of my ordination to ministry, I was interrogated by a minister, a friend of the family, about whether or not I would refuse to officiate at a wedding for a mixed-race couple.

The election of Barack Obama has been hailed - and rightly so - as a great advance in racial relationships in our country. Certainly, his election is something that many who grew up in the south - on either side of the issue - thought would never happen.

Yet, as a nation, we need to see this election as an important symbol of what can happen but not as a final step in the journey toward true equal rights for all people. This election is just the first page of the new chapter. It will only be when all people have the opportunity to seek and keep jobs, when all people are able to live wherever they want in a community, when all people have access to adequate health care, and when all people are accorded the same basic civil rights will we be able to say that, indeed, a new day has dawned in America.

May we endeavor to work for that shining new day to arrive.