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The long haul

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Only a few weeks into the pandemic, Leonard Pitts, Jr. — a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with the Miami Herald — noticed a change in the behavior of certain segments of the country. In the response to COVID-19 and the question of when and how the nation’s economy should be reopened, he observed that as a country,

“(W)e seem to have tapped the U.S. Strategic Stupid Reserve. The result has been a truly awe-inspiring display of America’s matchless capacity for mental mediocrity.”

Leonard Pitts, Jr., Miami Herald, April 24, 2020

This is one strategic reserve where the well never appears to run dry. Heck, in April we were just beginning to draw down on the stupid. I don’t have enough patience to cover even 1% of the calls upon this reserve since then, but one recent examples will suffice. Who would have thought back in April that this administration was going to smear the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the press while the president “was praising the public-health stylings of Chuck Woolery,* the former host of Love Connection, who logged on to Twitter to spout off some conspiratorial nonsense”?

That’s when the reality of our life today really hit me.

We are not coming out of this situation until a year from now at best. Eighteen months total of this COVID-19 dumpster fire is the best case scenario I can envision after reading the estimates of the real experts, our public health professionals. And it could easily be two years or later from the start of the pandemic, or March 2022, before we have enough confidence to live our lives with anything resembling our old normalcy. Of course, the doomsayers argue that we’ll never recover, but I’m not ready to sign on to that scenario. Yet.

Our death toll will likely be somewhere north of 200,000 by the election and many experts suggest it will be 300,000 by the end of the year. Consider that we lost 600,000 souls in the entire 1918 pandemic and you see where we are headed. We continue to lead the world in both cases and deaths from the coronavirus (and not because we test more — another example of the call on the Strategic Stupid Reserve). If we don’t change leadership in January, all bets are off. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in the July 13th New York Times,

“The country’s international humiliation is total; historians may argue about when the American century began, but I doubt they’ll disagree about when it ended.”

The realization that this will be a long haul led me to serious reflection.

I love our country and the democratic ideals on which it was founded but has never attained. In this crisis, we have to point toward those ideals and call out the political party and its leadership that refuses to stand up for the American people in the face of petulance, incompetence, and a stunning lack of empathy. And most of us need to recognize that we bear responsibility for, at the least, our complacency in defending democracy. Lewis Lapham says it best:

“If the American system of government at present seems so patently at odds with its constitutional hopes and purposes, it is…because the promise of democracy no longer inspires or exalts the citizenry lucky enough to have been born under its star.  It isn’t so much that liberty stands at bay but, rather, that it has fallen into disuse, regarded as insufficient by both its enemies and its nominal friends.  What is the use of free expression to people so frightened of the future that they prefer the comforts of the authoritative lie?”

Lewis Lapham from Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy

As we defend our democracy in the midst of a pandemic, we will have to fight those who, for whatever reason, pretend the virus is not a threat or who try to use their will to make it disappear. (There’s another of those draws on the reserve.) They are just playing into the hands of the virus and contributing to the disaster. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, says we need to learn to live with the virus.

“You have less chance of winning a policy debate against this virus than you do of … winning a debate against 2,000 angry 2-year-olds. People have to understand that. It’s like trying to defy gravity. Just because you want to doesn’t mean you can.”

We learn how to live with and ultimately defeat the virus by turning out the noise and listening to the experts. I recommend this early July online conversation between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health.** I found the information there on the current state of COVID-19 clear, thoughtful, and based in science.

Finally, although I will be essentially sheltering in place for the next year or more, I will dedicate myself to ensuring that I come out the other side with a real sense of personal accomplishment and change. My situation is rather benign compared to others and many fellow citizens face much greater challenges, so that’s the least that I can do. The number of friends and family members who have had COVID-19 is approaching a dozen in my case. One had a fever for six straight weeks while another was on a ventilator and remains in the hospital. Others had milder cases. We have good family friends who are grappling with very serious cancer issues in the midst of this pandemic. Some friends and former colleagues have lost their jobs or seen relationships frazzle. Others may be losing their apartments or homes. The saddest part is that it did not have to be this way, if we’d cared enough about our democracy and country to elect and support competent and empathetic leadership.

Accepting reality is the first step to beating the coronavirus and beginning to recapture the ideals our country was founded upon. This past week, I began to face those realities seriously. We are on this road for the long haul, and in many ways — if we want to fix our country — that’s a good thing. As the late John Lewis said in his 2017 memoir,

“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”

John Lewis, From his 2017 memoir, “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America”

Don’t stop caring.

More to come…

DJB

*In the “you can’t make this stuff up category,” Woolery’s son came down with COVID-19 just days after the former game show host tweeted that everyone was lying about the virus in order to impact the election. Woolery quickly took down his Twitter account.

**I was friends with Francis Collins’s parents and have watched his career for years, including his appointment to head NIH in 2009 by President Barack Obama and his reappointment to that position in 2017 by Donald Trump. Dr. Collins was also the 50th and most recent recipient of the prestigious Templeton Prize which celebrates scientific and spiritual curiosity. An evangelical Christian, he has long worked to bridge the gap between those faith communities who question science and the broader scientific field. Fletcher and Margaret Collins were both amazing people. I learned a great deal from them and I have a great deal of respect for their son.

Image by jplenio from Pixabay

Rest in Peace, John Lewis

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America just lost one of its most clear-eyed, moral leaders. John Lewis — civil rights hero on the front lines from lunch-counter desegregation in Nashville to Freedom Rides through a hostile South, the last remaining speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington, U.S. Congressman for 34 years, an activist to the end, and conscience for a nation — passed away Friday night after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Representative Lewis was a hero to many because in this age of nonstop blathering nonsense, he spoke plainly about the hope for an America that — as Langston Hughes wrote — is the America that the dreamers dreamed. And he not only spoke, but he walked the talk, most famously when his skull was cracked more than fifty years ago while trying to walk across an Alabama bridge working for justice. 

There are many wonderful tributes to John Lewis pouring in. I recommend the statement of President Obama, who — when given a ticket to his history-making inauguration as the nation’s first Black American president to autograph — wrote, “It’s because of you, John,” to Lewis on January 20, 2009.

In his statement, The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II hits at the need to restore the Voting Rights Act, which was passed soon after Lewis spilled his blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. That law was eviscerated in a cynical decision by Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court in 2013 in spite of 25 years of consistent and strong bi-partisan support for maintaining controls over attempts at voter suppression in states which had shown no inclination to allow the full flowering of democracy. Within hours of that Supreme Court decision, states in the South began restricting voter access and their efforts continue today.

I was privileged and honored to meet Congressman Lewis twice and to hear him speak on both occasions about how important history — and the telling of the full American story — is to our understanding of the present and to building hope for the future. When the National Trust conference was held in Nashville in 2009, Congressman Lewis — speaking in the historic sanctuary of the Downtown Presbyterian Church that was founded by one of my ancestors — challenged us to believe in the idea that,

“My house is your house. My story is your story. The history of my people is the history of all Americans not just African Americans.” 

John Lewis, Nashville, Tennessee, October 2009

Hearing, understanding, and honoring the full diversity of America’s story is a lifetime of work that helps provide the connective tissue between the me and the we, and leads us to care for something larger than ourselves. The Congressman’s long-time quest to see a museum to African American history on the National Mall in Washington was part of his work for civil rights.

In June of 2018, Lewis sent out the following message on his Twitter account:

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis

Lewis knew — from more than five decades in the trenches — that despair creates apathy, and apathy destroys activism. One activist who was in Lewis’s training camps in Mississippi in 1964 noted that “Giving in to despair is lazy surrender.” John Lewis was never lazy, and he never got lost in that sea of despair.

Finally, I encourage you to read the tribute of columnist Eugene Robinson, who wrote that Lewis lived, fought and triumphed by the words of Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

How, then, should we remember this great man? Not with fuzzy, feel-good encomiums but with a clear-eyed look at his monumental accomplishments and the work still left undone.

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, July 18, 2020

That seems to be as good a place to start in how to remember John Lewis as any.

Rest in peace, John Lewis. For everyone else, we need to get back to work on what really matters.

More to come…

DJB

Image: John Lewis in 1964 (l) and in 2006 (r)

UPDATE: Former President Barack Obama gave a very moving eulogy on Thursday, July 30th, at the funeral for John Lewis, held at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It is long, but worth the effort.

Saturday Soundtrack: Songs for social distancing

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I was listening to Oscar Peterson recently when he began the familiar Duke Ellington tune Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. I quipped, “Well, that could be my theme song for sheltering-in-place.”

Here we are, still pretty much stuck in our own bubbles for the foreseeable future, and not getting around much at all. While musing on our situation, the thought came to me that it could be fun — or at least distracting — to have a look here on Saturday Music at this testimonial to social distancing.

We’ll begin our exploration of this beautiful “I miss you” song with the version that put me on this quest — the Oscar Peterson arrangement, which I believe features Peterson on piano, the incomparable Ray Brown on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums.* Then we’ll turn to Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald — jazz royalty — for their take on the standard. This out-of-focus clip is from the NBC telecast the Ella Fitzgerald Show, from April 1968. According to some online commentators, in the same show they recorded “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Lush Life”. Bass and drum are played by musicians from the Ella rhythm section: Keter Betts and Louie Bellson.

It isn’t just the jazz cats who can make this number swing. I was surprised to find the 1987 version of a middle-age Paul McCartney rocking away on the Ellington standard. And New Orleans’ own Dr. John also has a great version of this stay at home anthem.

To shift the mood a bit, is there anyone more soulful than Sam Cooke? (That’s a trick question.)

And finally, from a 1992 concert, here’s Natalie Cole singing the song that she “recorded” as a duet with her dad, Nat King Cole, on Unforgettable.

You know the song is great when a wide variety of artists can make it their own. Enjoy…and stay safe by wearing your mask and social distancing as you venture out into public.

More to come…

DJB

*The YouTube video doesn’t indicate which record this version came from, and I’m not sure the picture goes with the album in any event.

Image by Gretta Blankenship from Pixabay.

In praise of teachers

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As we debate schools reopening in the midst of a pandemic, this seems like a perfect time to say a few words of praise for teachers who work in our public and private school systems across the country and around the world.

Teachers have been very important in my life. I am married to a retired teacher. One sister is a librarian (another form of teaching) as was my mother, and the other sister trained in education and used those skills in various ways with preschoolers. My sister-in-law is a retired teacher, and I have nieces who are currently public school teachers. In almost 20 years of formal education and 65 years of informal learning in the world, I’ve had many teachers — a number of which I remember very fondly and a few of which changed my life.

Every now and then I find a link that sends me to Twitter and today was one of those days. Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, author, and professor who lives in Cleveland, Ohio.* She recently had a feed that told why teachers matter. You can click on the link above to see her feed (and retweet it if you are on the platform), but I’ll lay it out here for those of us who prefer our thoughts in more than just a handful of characters at a time.

When I was 6 years old, right after first grade had ended, my teacher invited my mother & me to her home. Unthinkable! We wore Sunday clothes. I was so nervous & excited that I sat wedged next to Mom on Mrs. Behrendt’s sofa. I remember two things about what came next.

Mrs. Behrendt gave me this framed Award of Honor, signed by her and the principal — and the superintendent! Mom talked about that for weeks. It was displayed on our dining room wall for years.

As we were preparing to leave that day, Mom walked onto the front porch and Mrs. Behrendt pulled me back for a hug and whispered into my ear, “You are a very smart little girl. Let the grown-ups worry about grown-up problems.”

Her secret message is why this award still hangs in my home. My teacher knew me better than any other person in my life. I learned early why teachers matter. So many parents have learned firsthand during this pandemic how hard it is to teach. Now is the time to advocate.

Most teachers never come close to making what they earn, but they show up anyway, day after day. No teacher should be returning to classrooms in districts that refuse to protect them, and all the staff that keep schools running.

This is a grown-up problem, and it is ours to solve. Our teachers need us.

Connie Schultz

That says it all. Let’s work to support our teachers. Their lives, and the lives of our children, depend upon it.

More to come…

DJB

*I notice in her feed that Schultz grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, which was the hometown of one of my most important mentors and teachers. Must have been something in the water.

Images by congerdesign and akshayapatra from Pixabay.

Tone deaf and tiresome

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Daniel Snyder is — with apologies to Judith Viorst — the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad owner of the Washington National Football League (NFL)  franchise.

As sports columnist Martin Fennelly chronicled back in 2018, there are many instances one can point to of Snyder’s terrible stewardship of what many foolishly consider to be a community asset. (Those who think this way definitely do not include NFL owners.) With so many to choose from, where does one start? Well, one of the worst examples could be when the team’s cheerleaders said they were used as escorts on a trip to Costa Rica where stadium suite owners and sponsors could “check out” those women topless. Then there is the sycophancy. Like other bosses who thrive on obsequious behavior from their staffs, Snyder hires sycophants in his operation and runs through coaches like — oh, I don’t know — White House chiefs of staff or press secretaries.

But many considered his most egregious behavior to be his defiant refusal to consider the impact of Washington’s stereotyped racial image on the larger community. That is, he defiantly refused until events overwhelmed him. In the midst of Black Lives Matter and a national racial reconsideration, Snyder’s corporate supporters (not to mention the NFL) apparently gave him an ultimatum: change the name or lose millions in our support.

So earlier today the team announced the “retirement” of the old name.

I was speaking with friends who had moved to the Washington area from Atlanta, and one asked about that name change. He assumed the team would talk with the community and get a great deal of input before making the change. I laughed. Snyder has been reported as “bunkered in” as he makes this decision. Hmmm…I think I’ve heard that phrase used recently with another embattled and tiresome “leader.” In any case, Snyder doesn’t really care what the larger community thinks. Daniel Snyder doesn’t listen to many people, but as he showed in giving in to pressure from sponsors like FedEx and to governments like the District of Columbia (where he hopes to locate a new, taxpayer-supported stadium), he does listen to money. From the statements coming out from team headquarters today, Daniel Snyder is clearly going through this process kicking and screaming.

Columnist Colbert I King noted that Snyder’s one consistent success was in leveraging the good of the community to the point where the team, at $3.1 billion, ranks as the NFL’s fourth-most valuable franchise. “The team’s brand equity has fallen, however,” Forbes magazine writes, “because the (insert old name here) have been a train wreck on the football field for much of Snyder’s tenure.” 

Does that record of stewardship sound like anyone else we know? Daniel “I will NEVER change the name of the franchise” Snyder and Donald “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” Trump sometimes appear to be twin brothers from different mothers. Both are tone deaf and petulant to a fault. In other words, just plain tiresome.

I no longer follow pro football, for a variety of reasons. But I do know that the Washington football team will soon get a new name. It may actually be a decent one. But — like our country — the team will never get out of the morass of its current state until it gets rid of the current tiresome leader who tries, without much success, to run the show by the old “my way or the highway” adage. At least for the country, we get to vote on our leadership this November. Washington football fans can only look at the actuarial tables to address their problem. Daniel Snyder is 55 years old. Good luck with that.

More to come…

DJB

UPDATE: And in the category of you can’t make up stuff about how bad Snyder runs his organization, the Washington Post had an exclusive saying 15 women were accusing former employees of the club of sexual harassment. The team had one full-time human resource staff person who also performed other administrative duties — for an organization of more than 200 employees — so it was difficult for the women to call on HR with their complaints. One quote from the story sums up Snyder’s approach to management:

“I have never been in a more hostile, manipulative, passive-aggressive environment … and I worked in politics,” said Julia Payne, former assistant press secretary in the Clinton administration who briefly served as vice president of communications for the team in 2003.

Image by Samuel Stone from Pixabay

A plethora of pithy proverbs

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Late last year I showcased a series of pithy proverbs — those bursts of truth in 20 words or so — in a new blog feature entitled More to Consider.* Six months later, I’m back with the ones I’ve highlighted since that original post.

My love for the short and to-the-point adage comes from my Grandmother Brown, who was known to say things such as, “Some folks are born in the objective mood.” Grandmother did not have a lot of patience with folks who were always complaining and objecting to what others did.  Both my grandparents, as well as my father, always had a positive outlook and attitude toward people. I wonder what they would think of our president?

Well, let’s don’t go down that rabbit hole! Instead, here are the More to Consider proverbs, quotes, adages, and sayings from the last six months, beginning with the one that is on the blog at this moment, from African American poet Langston Hughes. In this time of reconsideration of our nation’s direction, it seemed especially appropriate for the July 4th holiday:

“Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— / Let it be that great strong land of love / Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme / That any man be crushed by one above.”

Langston Hughes from “Let America Be America Again”

Dutch journalist and historian Rutger Bregman is having a moment these days, speaking truth to power. I chose a passage from his most recent book after reading several articles about his work.

“An old man says to his grandson: ‘There’s a fight going on inside me.  It’s a terrible fight between two wolves.  One is evil – angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant, and cowardly.  The other is good – peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy.  These two wolves are also fighting within you, and inside every other person too.’ After a moment, the boy asks, ‘Which wolf will win?’ The old man smiles. ‘The one you feed.'”

Rutger Bregman, “Humankind: A Hopeful History”

The quote from Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh came to me when reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s most recent book, Holy Envy. I thought it was especially illustrative in helping us see how our view is only one small part of a much larger landscape.

“While living the life of a wave, the wave also lives the life of water. It would be sad if the wave did not know that it is water.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Author James Baldwin’s life and work has never been more necessary than in this time of upheaval around social injustice and the racial profiling of African Americans by the police. In the book Biased, I came across this quote which struck me as helpful to remember as we each undertake our journeys in life:

“A journey is called that because you cannot know what you will…do with what you find, or what you find will do with you.”

James Baldwin

While undertaking some research for another post, I came across this gem from the running guru George Sheehan. It seemed a good reminder as we sit in our sheltered places in the midst of a pandemic, perhaps eating and drinking too much.

“Don’t be concerned if running or exercise will add years to your life, be concerned with adding life to your years.”

Dr. George Sheehan

Speaking of global pandemics — and our country’s absolutely idiotic response to a virus that doesn’t care about political ideology, re-election timelines, anti-science tomfoolery, or much else — I thought columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. hit the nail on the head when he wrote in an April 24th column:

“(W)e seemed to have tapped the U.S. Strategic Stupid Reserve. The result has been a truly awe-inspiring display of America’s matchless capacity for mental mediocrity.”

Leonard Pitts, Jr.

One of the wonderful people we lost as a result of our nation’s horrific response to COVID-19 was the singer/songwriter John Prine. In April I used More to Consider to quote a favorite Prine song, which he sings with the incomparable Iris DeMent.

“In spite of ourselves, we’ll end up sitting on a rainbow / Against all odds, honey we’re the big door prize / We’re gonna spite our noses right off our faces / There won’t be nothing but big old hearts dancing in our eyes.”

John Prine from “In Spite of Ourselves”

One of the more thoughtful people I know is my friend Deborah Meister. As the full extent of the challenges we find ourselves in as a country came into (even) clearer view this spring, I thought her take on the subject was spot on. And I’m always looking for quotes from people — like Deborah — who have thought deeply about a variety of topics, which is why I decided to highlight two in March from economist Albert Hirschman and President Theodore Roosevelt:

“The good things in our nation did not come about by chance, and they will not be preserved by indifference.”

The Rev. Dr. Deborah Meister

“This is probably all one can ask of history, and the history of ideas in particular: not to resolve issues, but to raise the level of the debate.”

Albert O. Hirschman

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Before the pandemic slowed everything to a standstill and led to a reckoning with multiple crises at once, I was considering the question of potential in a rather simplistic fashion. Today, this Angela Duckworth line still rings true, but perhaps in a much deeper and broader way.

“Our potential is one thing, what we do with it is quite another.”

Angela Duckworth, from “Grit”

And to begin the year, I selected three quotes from three very different individuals: a relatively young American novelist, one of the 20th century’s most important African American voices, and a world-renowned theologian. In different ways, they were setting me up for the year that we’re in without even knowing it.

“When we accept diminished substitutes, we become diminished substitutes.”

Jonathan Safran Foer

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

James Baldwin

“What power people always discover is that you cannot finally silence poets. They just keep coming at you in threatening and transformative ways.”

Walter Brueggermann

Listen to the poets, read widely and deeply, and strive for quality in our work and in our leaders. Those all seem like good thoughts to remember here in 2020. I hope you found something to make you stop and consider, if even for just a minute.

More to come…

DJB

Image from Pixabay

*As a reminder, to capture some of my favorite sayings without having to write an entire blog post about them, I created a feature on More to Come that I labeled More to Consider. Every other week or so I update these quick bursts of truth. This section of the website is easiest to see on a laptop, where it resides near the top of the right hand column. But most people read my posts from their phones, where you have to scroll almost to the bottom before finding the saying for the week.

Billy Strings, the wizard of bluegrass and beyond

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Billy Strings was born William Apostol on October 3, 1992, and grew up listening to his stepfather’s bluegrass music as well as the more broadly popular rock and metal genres. As he started playing music, all those influences come tumbling out of his guitar in ways surprising and often refreshing. His aunt gave him the moniker Billy Strings after recognizing his talent as a multi-instrumentalist.

I’d say she hit the nail on the head.

In 2016’s Meet Me At the Creek, Strings and his band head off on an extended jam that sounds like bluegrass meeting indie rock. One of the funniest online comments (apropos of nothing) makes the observation: “Forest Gump 3 months into his run on the upright bass…” but the music is great.

With this 2017 version of Turmoil and Tinfoil, Strings and his band head off down a path of bluegrass metal music.

Two of the best next generation bluegrass guitar players — Strings and Molly Tuttle — play the old chestnut Sittin’ On Top of the World at the 2019 Grey Fox festival, and the guitar interplay and fireworks are terrific.

Bluegrass fans will be glad to know Strings can also go back into the tradition and sing a chilling acapella version of the Charles Wesley hymn And Am I Born to Die.

Billy isn’t your normal play-it-safe country star, as seen when he uses his Grand Ole Opry debut in 2019 to sing about a life of sin in Dust in a Baggie. Yes, reflecting on one’s misdeeds is pretty standard fare with country singers. What’s not is the direct reference to methamphetamine, played with a blazing bluegrass backing.

“This life of sin / has got me in / got me back in prison once again / I used my only phone call to contact my Daddy / Got 20 long years / for some dust in a baggie.”

Strings was to be at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival this weekend, before the event was cancelled for 2020. He is scheduled to play a series of streaming concerts online from Nashville and other cities this month and into the fall, so if you are interested and want to see the artist that Rolling Stone named as the “Bluegrass star you don’t want to miss,” check out one or more of these offerings.

Enjoy.

More to come…

DJB

Image: Billy Strings performs at Winter Wonder Grass, Steamboat Springs, CO, on Feb. 23, 2020 (Credit: Mr.schultz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pathway Free-Photos

The lens is not the landscape

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How did you respond when you first discovered the many ways there are to view the world?

For some, this isn’t a problem. From an early age they have looked at the world through a particular set of glasses, assuming that their view is the correct one. They learn how to describe what they see in terms that others who wear the same glasses understand. And unless they have some life-changing jolt — perhaps a worldwide pandemic that doesn’t care about their nationality, religion or political ideology; or an especially graphic picture of systemic racism that refuses to be ignored — they never ask questions about the things that are not clear.

But for those who see another perspective or choose to try on different pairs of glasses, all of a sudden they realize that their world view is not the only one. They have to choose how to respond. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh describes this broader existence when he notes, “While living the life of a wave, the wave also lives the life of water. It would be sad if the wave did not know that it is water.”

Writer Barbara Brown Taylor puts it simply as, “The lens is not the landscape.”

I recently finished reading Taylor’s latest book, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, where she writes about the questions, worries, and concerns that arise in most of us when we encounter “difference” and “others.” Her focus is on spiritual riches, but we can all look at how our minds and worldview are expanded when we are open to the wonder that is all around us.

We are living in a time when many ask us to look at world events or religious belief through only one set of glasses. This is a perspective lacking complexity and nuance, and often seen, as the writer Robin Givhan describes it, “in gloriously righteous white and suspicious, dangerous black.” Having our worldview handed to us by our family, friends, political party, church, temple, mosque, or choice of media is certainly easier. It doesn’t require much thought. And even for those who do work at understanding the broader nature of the world, it is natural to try and translate everything into our own language or frame of reference. Unfortunately we miss a lot in the process.

A closed mind leads us to accept something as reality without asking the deep questions required to experience a thoughtful, wonder-filled life. Those questions open us up to the discovery that what we think we know can be very different from the realities in front of us. “While we spin our wheels trying to control things beyond our control,” Taylor writes, “we ignore the one thing that is within our power to change: our way of seeing things.”

Taylor’s encouragement to not only think deeply about our beliefs, but to look to others outside our tribe and traditions for the many truths they tell, extends to areas far beyond the spiritual. I recommend her book because we are at a moment in history where so many people are having their “truth” upended.

  • Their economic worldview is failing.
  • People we know and love are sick and dying because of a virus that doesn’t care about nationality or political ideology or incompetence.
  • For some traditions, political and religious leaders seem more focused on hate, power, and “otherness” than many in those traditions want to see in their search for truth.
  • We are all separated at a time when we want nothing more than to hold and hug and laugh and cry and eat and drink with those we know and with strangers we meet.

The truths we have believed — often uncritically — are upended and so many of us don’t know what to do about it.

Taylor has a suggestion. In her telling, many who never venture beyond their own spiritual traditions not only miss what lies in front of them but often fail to notice unconscious language of contempt and exclusivity. When we become aware of this tendency and begin to see language of this type, or come up against condescension toward others who are not of the same worldview, she encourages us to look in the opposite direction. In her experience, “There is almost always a counternarrative in scripture just waiting for someone to notice it.” For example, when discussing a condescending attitude toward those who are not Christian, Taylor — an Episcopal priest — discusses the Persian magi and their role as “agents of the God who transcends religion and never met a stranger.”

“In the case of the Persian magi, their appearance in Bethlehem is as surprising as a delegation of Methodist bishops arriving in Dharamasala to recognize the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama. Once they deliver their gifts to the starlit Hebrew baby, they go back to where they came from, presumably to resume their vocations as Zoroastrian priests. Yet every Christmas we sing of them in church, as if they had never left.”

Having a problem with their otherness, many Christians fix that by baptizing them “as anonymous Christians.”

We may ask for certainty, but instead we are given relationships. We may ask for solid ground and instead are given human beings — “strange, funny, compelling, complicated human beings — who keep puncturing my stereotypes, challenging my ideas….” Taylor turns to a story from her Christian tradition that Jesus told about how we will be judged. It is clear that what is more important than what we believe is how we live. Matthew 25:34-37 recounts all the disguises for “the king” who rules at the end: hungry person, thirsty person, strange person, naked person, sick person, imprisoned person. They show up in our midst in need of welcome. “Welcome is the king’s solution to the problem of the stranger,” Taylor notes. “Always has been, always will be.”

Instead of trying to convince someone to believe as we do — because we forget (or never considered) that our religious experience and worldview is not singular but plural — we do best to welcome those who are different and in need. We can certainly learn from them. And who knows who they will be.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

Image by Free-Photo from Pixabay.

You can’t choose your family

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In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee famously wrote:

“You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.”

In this time of global pandemic, many of us find long distances and time zones separate us from our families. We don’t have the opportunity to see our kin face-to-face. Instead we rely on technology to connect and share the stories, meals, game nights, music, and long conversations that support those familial ties and weave together the family tapestry over years.

Tom Brown and Family
Tom Brown (yes, the one with the suspenders) gathers with his five children and all his family members to celebrate his 90th birthday on July 5, 2015

I’ve been thinking about my family in recent weeks. Ninety-five years ago today Tom Brown entered this world. Born July 5, 1925, Daddy lived a full and rich life, staying on this earth long enough to have his five children — a small part of his expansive and loving family — join together to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2015. He passed away the following spring, just weeks short of reaching his 91st birthday.

Tom Brown is easy for me to acknowledge, as I learned so much from my father’s example about how to live in this world. When it comes to family, I have more than acknowledged them, having written a great deal about my parents, my wife, and my children over the years. But I’ve only skimmed the surface when talking about my four brothers and sisters.

It strikes me that Tom Brown’s birthday is a good time to rectify that situation. This is an acknowledgement of my family, a note of thanksgiving for my brothers and sisters.

Our parents encouraged each one of us to find and become the person we were meant to be. At the same time they taught us to respect and love the other members of the family for the perspective and individuality they brought to life. As a result, the five children of Tom and Helen Brown are very different. Each of us more than followed our own path. Between us we have an arts administrator who has worked for opera companies and symphonies around the country, a preservationist, a civil servant who kept the water department running smoothly for years, a blacksmith artist and part-time preacher, and a missionary/librarian. All five of us embraced mother’s love of music. Four play piano, we have three guitarists, two play bass, and one plays banjo while another one picks at the mandolin. (I may have missed an instrument or two.) There is one published author, but most of us read extensively, following the example of both parents. Between the five of us we have thirteen children and a number of sons-and-daughters-in-laws and grandchildren.

We don’t see eye to eye on politics, religion, food, sports, and probably a dozen other areas. And that’s okay. We more than acknowledge each other, we love each other either in spite of, or perhaps because of, our differences.

A friend and former colleague shared an article with me some time ago about how different generations view the world. It helped me to focus (again) on the fact that my worldview isn’t the only one. The lens is not the landscape. Perhaps I’m mellowing as I age, but I have come to appreciate — if not totally agree with — the viewpoints of my brothers and sisters who were influenced by different events in their lives. I listen to their perspectives now and for the most part let the differences slide off my back when we disagree.

There is much to love and admire in each of my siblings, so I’ll just touch the tip of the iceberg.

Steve is three years older than I am, and we probably spent the most time together growing up. He has a wide variety of interests and is a talented musician who has that classic “math/music” brain. (I missed out completely on the “math” part of that equation.) I don’t know how much self-motivation I possessed at an early age, but it really didn’t matter. As I came along in school and the teachers learned I was “Steve Brown’s brother,” the bar was already set pretty high and they pushed me to reach it. Plus, I always wanted to be smart enough to be able to carry on a conversation with him. We’ve shared many of the same perspectives on culture, politics, and life through the years, and I can say Steve has expanded my worldview and enriched my knowledge in a number of areas. His career in arts and stage management is a good fit for his many interests and talents, and I’ve appreciated his support of my professional career. Through the years he’s become a thoughtful “big brother.”

Debbie was born 16 months after me, so we are the closest in age among the five children. We spent a lot of time together growing up, since we were only one year apart in school. Ever since I can remember, Debbie has been generous with praise. It is probably one of the reasons she was such a good fit during her years in the city’s water department, as she works well with a wide variety of people, no matter their concerns or personalities. I so appreciate her example of looking on the positive side of life. Grandmother and Daddy always said, “If you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything.” Debbie absorbed their lessons and lives them through her faith and actions every day. Finally, Debbie is the “glue” in our family. When mom died too early, she was ready to step into her shoes as the matriarch, seeing everyone’s gifts and keeping us all together, while still nurturing her own beautiful (and growing) family. Joe and Carol also played key roles in this regard, but Debbie is most like our mom…and that’s high praise!

Some five years my junior, Joe has never met a stranger. I marvel at how easily he moves among people — he is truly Tom Brown’s son in that respect. For some of us it isn’t that easy to be so open with others. Joe’s is a great gift, and I’m thankful that I’ve seen and learned from his example. Joe — like my sister Carol — has always been willing to try new things. After a stint in the Navy and work as a mechanic and manager at the Nissan automobile plant, he stepped out on his own to become a talented and sought-after blacksmith artist. Joe also designed and built his own home! (How did my two brothers get those DIY genes, when I can barely screw in a lightbulb!) I love seeing where his creative energy will take him next. Every single morning I am privileged to look at some of Joe’s utilitarian artwork, when I remove our skillet from the beautiful Dutch Crown he designed and custom built for our kitchen. So much of what Joe does shows a spirit of wonder that is a reminder of what we can do if we just accept the newness in life.

My sister Carol is nine years younger than me. As the “baby” in the family, she had a fearlessness that comes, I suspect, from trying to keep up with her brothers and sisters. From an early age she was willing to try just about anything. Carol went into Baptist mission work after college. She took off to the Ivory Coast by herself and later lived with her husband and boys in several countries in one of the world’s great hot spots, the Middle East. After moving home Carol followed Mom’s footsteps and became the branch manager at Linebaugh Public Library. Nothing fazes her. When she was younger, Carol took my ribbing and gave it back as good as she got it. As life threw challenges her way, she made sure that her family was loved and cared for. And Carol and I seem to be the two in the family who most often scratch the itch passed along by both parents to put pen to paper. As I work to finish a book, I am inspired by her life as a writer and author. Carol’s eagerness to put forward her views for consideration in the public square is admirable.

As you can tell, I’m proud of each of my brothers and sisters. My mother and father could not have imagined the family they would bring into the world when they married some 70 years ago. But here we are — still together as we find ourselves smack in the middle of our global pandemic, economic recession, fights against racial injustice, and threats against democracy! Even with all our differences, I’m not sure I could have chosen a better family, even if that were possible.

Love to you all on this special day in Brown family history.

More to come…

DJB

Picture of DJB (left) with my sisters and brothers: Debbie, Steve, Carol, and Joe (l-r) in December 2015

Saturday Soundtrack: This Land is Your Land

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Happy July 4th!

In the spirit of the day, let’s celebrate the Woody Guthrie 1940 classic This Land is Your Land. Many of us believe, for a variety of reasons, that it should be the national anthem. No less an authority than Bruce Springsteen has said, it is “one of the most beautiful songs ever written about America.”

  • Avenue of the Giants panorama

Guthrie wrote This Land is Your Land during the Great Depression in response to Irving Berlin’s God Bless America. There’s a wonderful book by John Shaw entitled This Land That I Love: Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the Story of Two American Anthems. As Shaw describes it, Guthrie was hitchhiking his way to New York City when he became upset over hearing the Kate Smith version of Berlin’s song over and over again during the trip. Guthrie sat down and wrote a song in anger, but his revisions over time turned it into one of the most shared and beloved songs in our nation’s history. Here’s the unvarnished recording from Woody, with the bonus of a picture of him playing his famous “This machine kills fascists” guitar. (Note: The song ends about the 2:40 mark in the video)

As with most folk songs, This Land is Your Land has a complicated and convoluted history. Verses were added along the way that fit with Woody’s belief that the vast income inequalities in America repressed the working class and kept the country from reaching its promise. And those verses were changed, sometimes by Woody, sometimes by other singers, over the course of the decades.

“There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;

Sign was painted, it said private property;

But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;

This land was made for you and me”

Most of these verses (such as the one about private property) are omitted in the versions sung at school functions and other community gatherings, but singers such as Pete Seeger and Woody’s son Arlo have retained at least some of those verses to ensure the song’s true meaning is understood. Here’s Arlo singing the song with an all-star supporting cast at the 1987 Farm Aid concert.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings have a wonderfully up-tempo soul version that goes all the way with the inclusion of the verses usually left out. Jones commands the stage, and I could listen to this celebration of America over and over again.

To my mind, one of the most moving versions — with an emotion that cuts to the heart of what Woody was saying — is the one by Bruce Springsteen, which he began adding to his live shows in 1980. In this deeply felt and chilling version from a 1985 concert at LA’s Memorial Coliseum, Springsteen notes in his intro that, “What’s so great about (the song) is that it gets right to the heart of the promise of what our country was suppose to be about.” He adds that he sings it with the reminder that “with countries, just like with people, it’s easy to let the best of yourself slip away.”

“As I was walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

I saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.”

“One Sunday morning, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I’d seen the people.

And they were hungry, and they were wondering,

If this land was made for you and me?”

“This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.”

In this year of turmoil and challenge, let’s go back to that promise of what America is all about, and work to make it a land for everyone.

More to come…

DJB