Let's Give Up Despair for Lent!

Cross at a construction site in our neighborhood today.

My imperative title is not intended to apply to those enduring clinical despair or depression that require professional help and/or medication. I’m thinking of those of us suffering “ordinary” despair from the political situations in which we find ourselves: demagoguery, racism, nativism, extreme partisanship, polarization, disinformation, manipulation, corruption, and so on.

Rarely do I write a post the day before I put it on my blog, but here I am, doing just that. If you only read the title you know what I’ve been thinking about for weeks as we begin this holy season of Lent today, Ash Wednesday. Lent reminds us of the interval of our lifetimes from cosmic dust to dust, our own “brief but spectacular” moments to shine in this universe. (Thanks to PBS for that phrase.)

Context is important. I’ve been watching a series on Netflix called The Universe that reminds me how fabulous and fantastic, fearful and far-flung the universe is as well as how opportune it is for these short-lived bits of human flesh (me and you) to wonder in amazement and awe and gratitude to even be a tiny part of it!

In preparation for a contemplative retreat I’ll be co-leading (to which you are welcome) I’ve been rereading Kathleen Norris’s book The Cloister Walk, looking forward to conversations about its many spiritual subjects. Synchronicity would have it that today she writes about despair, though in a different way than I expected.

Norris quotes early Christian spirituality historian Benedicta Ward, “For all sins, there is forgiveness. What really lies outside the ascetic life is despair, the proud attitude which denies the possibility of forgiveness.” Norris elucidates:

As for designating despair as an aspect of the sin or “bad thought” of pride, I find it enormously helpful. Among other things, it defeats my perfectionism, my tendency to give up when I can’t do things “just right.” But if I accept the burden of my despair, in the monastic sense, then I also receive the tools to defeat it. I have a hope that no modern therapeutic approach can give me (p 129).

Quoting another scholar, Douglas Burton-Christie, Norris explains that the first Christian monks believed scripture “possessed the power to deliver them from evil. They believed that the Word of God has the power to effect what it says.”

So, in our political morass, we are not defenseless. But we do need to consider and confront our all-or-nothing perfectionism which we apply not only to ourselves, but to our political candidates and parties. I was astounded to learn recently that in the last U.S. presidential election, tens of thousands of Bernie Sanders’ supporters voted for Donald Trump when the Democratic party chose another nominee. (See New York Times columnist David Brooks’ February 6, 2020 column, “How Trump Wins Again.”)

Whomever you support, don’t despair! Please volunteer and/or donate to campaigns you believe in, not forgetting that “down ballot” choices are also vital. Or, if politics is not your thing, please volunteer and/or donate to programs, centers, and causes near and dear to your heart.

Despair is a luxury we cannot afford in these troubled times!

I was invited to be among the contributors to Ashes to Rainbows: A Queer Lenten Devotional that includes meditations for Ash Wednesday, the Sundays of Lent, and the days of Holy Week. Go to: https://justiceunbound.org/queerlent/

You may support this blog by clicking here. Please scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

I will again be co-leading “Beside Still Waters: A Contemplative Retreat” with Debra Weir April 27-May 1, 2020 at Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman, Alabama. It is open to the public, and some limited scholarships are available. Three readable texts are recommended to prepare but are not required to have been read by opening day.  Here's the link: 

https://app.certain.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x3039640abcd

Justice: Delightful Pleasure or Grim Duty?

Given challenging political times, I believe liberals and progressives need to reconsider our strategies to be effective.

Anyone who has read my books or this blog probably knows I believe people are best motivated by the pleasure principle. Better, in the words of The One Minute Manager, to “catch somebody doing something right” than “catch somebody doing something wrong.” Best, in the view of Pollyanna, to know and proclaim there are more blessings than curses in The Bible.

Many of us got so “judged” by the biblical god that we turn around and judge others harshly too.  And this is not just those who are fundamentalist or biblical literalists; liberals and progressives do it too. A progressive friend of mine once said that the word “justice” had become a weapon that we use on those we believe don’t measure up to our standards. And I’ve written before that progressives and liberals can have our own fundamentalism.

Two weeks ago I wrote of multiculturalism and multinationalism as a pleasurable thing, explaining how my spouse and I “delight in finding out the origins of someone’s name, or accent, or heritage.” I added, “This is the pleasure of a multicultural, multinational world.”  I was attempting to lead all of us out of a fear-based nativism by presenting a positive case for welcoming others—into our countries, into our lives, into our neighborhoods and homes.

Admittedly I had intentionally tweaked the beak of those who consider it a “micro-aggression” to ask “Where are you from?” I said as much in the first paragraph.

On one of the progressive Christian Facebook pages where I post the link to my blog posts, I was taken to task by someone—white and well-informed—for my “racist” assumptions that clearly came from my “white privilege.” Ironically, my intention had been to address a nativist rant, and I had referred to white privilege that shields many of us from its sting.

In several back-and-forth volleys, I explained that I exercise discretion in discovering someone’s origins, just as I do in conversation with someone who may not be “out” as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

But the point of my post was to help others see that multiculturalism can be fun, not just an exercise in a dry diversity training program, not just a grim duty that justice or God requires of us.

There are times when justice may be a grim duty. Even then it can feel good to do what’s right. But if it is most often or always a grim duty, then we might wonder at our motives for pursuing it. If it is not also a delightful pleasure, then we might question our character or values or personalities.

Multiculturalism doesn’t exist for my pleasure or delight, I was told. Now, I have wondered about a kind of cultural imperialism whereby a dominant culture appropriates habits and customs and dress and wisdom of other cultures. As a Hispanic, third-generation Californian friend of mine observed, witnessing a white minister in traditional African garb, “Why do you guys have to take on other people’s cultures?”

My Facebook opponent ultimately retorted with her own brand of “micro-aggression”:  “Check your privilege.”

Weeks ago I considered writing a post about white privilege, but didn’t get beyond my opening illustration. As Wade and I took one of our neighborhood walks, it occurred to me that even in our multiracial community, if we weren’t white, we might be regarded suspiciously as we pointed out features of a house or its yard.

We all have the privilege of welcoming those different from ourselves and celebrating those differences. I do not do it simply because it’s “right” or “just” or “liberal” or “progressive,” I do it because it is beneficial, healthy, wise, and wonder-full. And dare I say it? Pleasurable!

Think what a better world we’d have if everyone felt that way.

Relevant posts:

Black Lives Matter

Black Museums Matter

Please support this blog ministry: 

http://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Be sure to scroll down to the donate link below its description.

Or mail to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

What I Pray for These Days

Hindus at prayer on the Ganges, 1983. 

A Facebook friend puzzled over my last post, wondering if it implied a kind of us-vs-them outlook. What I intended was assurance to those of us apprehensive about the Trump-Pence inauguration, including possible Trump voters, who may themselves now face loss of health care coverage, rising prices, diminished Social Security and Medicare benefits, reduced personal safety, and international insecurity.

That’s not to mention immigrants, refugees, women, minorities, and the environment who may suffer as a result of everything from current executive orders to future Supreme Court decisions.

To me, these are not simple “political” issues, but more vitally, moral and spiritual concerns.

I find myself praying for President Trump more intently and regularly than any previous president. And I am praying for the electorate and the electoral process that put him in office.

I am praying for our healing, and I am praying that our demons will be cast out.  It’s easy to point to our leadership in Washington as possessed by ideologies or ideologues at odds with our American dreams, but demonic possession, as cultural anthropologist René Girard has pointed out, is as communal as it is individual. It takes a village to make a person crazed with fear, prejudice, self-absorption, and self-certainty.

It’s easy to judge another; harder to judge ourselves. In my first parish after seminary, on Holocaust Remembrance Sunday, I gave a sermon entitled, “The Holocaust of Our Minds and Hearts.” The gist of my talk was that we can easily point to historical expressions of hatred, violence, and prejudice, but we are less inclined to examine our own minds and hearts. Within us there is another Auschwitz and another Selma: a place where we curse, confine, scourge and crucify those different from ourselves.

Those who deny the Holocaust or the cruelties of slavery or the indignities suffered by women over the ages or the inequities of class are likely those most fearful of confronting the Holocausts in their own minds and hearts.  That’s something the LGBT movement surfaced as we recognized those most opposed to us were fearful of their own sexuality and gender expectations. 

Though, with the poet Robert Frost, “there is something in [us] that doesn’t like a wall,” we build our own walls to exclude those of different cultures, faiths, races, gender, gender identity, and sexuality. The contemporary examples of this ghettoization are our social networks, which often serve as echo chambers for our limited perspectives.

Our better natures—God’s own image—often keep such feelings in check, and our spirituality may redeem and transform misguided passion, making it instead work for justice and peace, sisterhood and brotherhood. That’s what conversion is all about. But conversion is not a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience: it is a constant effort of the will to align with God’s will that we love our neighbor as ourselves, and that we find ways to love strangers, even enemies.

The demons of anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, nationalism, nativisim, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, and more, need to be cast out. Like the Gerasene demoniac, their names are Legion.

Another response to my post suggested a “yes, and” to its spirit, which I never intended to exclude. We are not only to be comforted that “this too shall pass” or that God or Jesus are with us “in the mess” (to quote Evelyn Underhill)—we must be challenged. We must be challenged to speak up, not to silence others, but to encourage others to tell us what’s on their minds and hearts, what are their needs, fears, hopes, and dreams.

We are also challenged to actively resist the demons and temptations of our time, in ourselves, our communities, our nations. Naming them in others will put them on the defensive; confessing them in ourselves may lead to conversation, if not conversion.

And we must put our bodies, voices, resources, and votes in the direction that our better selves urge us to go.

This is what I’m praying for these days, in myself, in others, and in our leaders.

To support this blog ministry:  http://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Be sure to scroll down to the donate link below its description. Or mail to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.