Good Historians

I'm grateful for historians.
At least a certain kind.

Not the David Barton kind, who manufacture
history to suit a darker purpose.

Usually a conservative purpose.
To serve White Interests.
And evangelical priorities.
The rich and the powerful.

Sure, all historians write from a perspective.
They bring themselves to the table.
Their values and dreams.
Their DNA and childhood hobbies.

But there's a difference, sometimes slight.
A difference, nonetheless.

I think it has to do with fundamental honesty.
Good historians acknowledge the darker elements.
The ugly stuff that most of us would rather not know.

Honesty, to uncover the unconscionable.
But as well to reveal the best.

To read the primary sources.
To dig deep and think it through.

Honoring the mystery of the better angels who hang around.
Seeing justice and mercy in the ebb and flow of our days.
Celebrating, or lamenting, that we humans make choices.
And sometimes, lo and behold, make good choices.

Choices that reflect justice and mercy.
When nations sometimes rise above self-interest.
And make the hard choices to promote the best.

Good historians:
See the evils of white supremacy, and racial pride of any kind.
The narrowness of so much religious posturing, and all
The blather that radiates from the super pious.
The lies we tell to cover the fault.
And the faults we lionize because we think they're great.

Good historians are not likely to be praised by the self-interested.

Good historians are not likely to be read by those who choose ignorance.

Good historians will not make it on the megachurch market.

Good historians won't be hired by Liberty University.

I'm grateful for good historians.
We might call them nerds, and they smile.

They bury themselves in libraries with dusty documents.
They read voluminously.
They love books.
They think deeply (which is a form of prayer).
They love the truth, whatever it is.

And of such things, God is pleased.

I Am a Democrat

I'm a Democrat.

I made that decision when D and I registered for our first Presidential election: 1968.
I was in my last year of seminary.

Then and now, the values of the Democratic Party align with my Christian faith ...

My parents were Republicans, though politics never seemed to be much on our minds ... nor that of my friends.

I recall no political discussion, though I remember JFK's assassination ... it was deeply moving ... and we all watched the TV.

College days freed me from my racism ... in seminary, I changed my view on the Vietnam war and came to oppose it.

My first ministry in the storied hills of West Virginia gave me an experience, deep and disturbing, with poverty and the cruelty of the coal companies.

Throughout my years, I've supported labor unions, civil rights, marriage equality and women's rights. These things all arise and flow out of my faith, my reading of Scripture, and the larger Christian Tradition. This is how it shakes out for me.

Humans are sinners, I know that.
So nothing and no one is a pure shining light.
But this much I know.
The Democratic Party over the years, beginning with FDR, has consistently fought for The People.

I guess I could resign from the political and simply pray.
I could refrain from voting.
But Jeremiah encourages the refugees in a "foreign land," to go about their everyday lives and seek the welfare of the nation in which they now live.

I think it's my Christian duty to be engaged in the life of my nation, and that means I have to make choices, and, as Bonhoeffer noted, rarely is the choice between good and bad, but between good and good, and bad and bad. It's messy and unpredictable, but for me, I have no choice but to be engaged.

To know myself, my values and hopes.
And to bring those to the public square.

I am devoted to The People.
Because I am devoted to Christ.

Walls Are So Foolish

Glued to the TV, 1989
watching the Berlin Wall
meet its match in The People.

Walls never work,
though we continue to build them,
in the vanity of our own foolishness.

We build walls
to keep others out,
to keep some within ...

we build them
as a testament
to fear and bigotry.

Every wall built is a reminder
of our failure to live up
to our own best interests.

Every wall
shall fall,
sooner or later.

Every wall
will fail to curtail
the energy of freedom.

Though for a while,
a wall might prevail,
in the end, walls are weak;

they cannot contain the Spirit of God,
constantly moving across the plains
of the soul,

constantly
creating and recreating
in the darkness and in the dreams.

Walls are so foolish.

Art and Politics

It's all politics, really.
Art and preaching.
Writing and care.


It's how we think.
Shaped by the place of our birth.
The moments of hurt and happy.


The news we absorb.
The times, the stress and strain.
It's called history.


The stuff we live.
Our lives in private.
Or public.


The faith we profess.
Or deny.
Or somewhere in between.


We like a candidate.
They fit with our values.
What we hold to be true.


We see a world.
And say, "Go that way."
And that's politics.


Art is always expressing what the artist sees.
And what the artist sees is shaped by the soul.
A soul shaped by a billion small things.


A soul that can be dark and sad.
Or bright and confident.
Or, as is so much of life, somewhere in between.

American Tax Fetish

American's have a fetish on low taxes ... and what a price we pay:

Our infrastructure is crumbling.
Our health care system sucks.
Higher education costs are skyrocketing.
Public schools are dying on the vine.

Right ... but I'll be darned if I'll pay more in taxes.

I enjoy driving on lousy roads.
I like to pay astronomical deductibles, and if I can't afford medical care, well I'll just get sick, and then die, but, by gum and by golly, no more taxes.

I love it when youth are saddled with education debt; serves 'em right for getting so uppity.

I can hardly wait to send America's children to private schools, homeschools and charter schools. Enough of this public education stuff; sounds communist to me anyway. And in public schools they teach science, and that's contrary to gawd's word.

I love it when the rich take it all.
You bet.
They know what they're doing.
They're gawd's anointed.

So,

Let's cut health care all over the place.
Cut Social Security, too; what the heck, get rid of it.
Get rid of Medicare, too.

And all the stuff that supports the poor, the underserving, the illegals and all those other kinds of people who talk strange and wear clothes different than my all-American caps and jeans.

It's just socialism, and that means taxes, and that means I don't want it.