GOD BLESS THE CHILD

My wife and I like to watch the BBC News that comes on PBS at 10 pm in Minneapolis.  A different perspective, more international focus.  But last night, as you might imagine, the news was all about the baby prince that had been born.  Live shots outside the hospital, the “reaction of the world” and so on. We switched to the local “news leader” and got the usual mix of mayhem and misdemeanors, followed by a cheerful, indeed chirpy weather report (low humidity is on its way!), and a sport reporter’s righteous indignation about a baseball player being suspended for the year for steroid use (“I’m shocked! Shocked that gambling is going on here!” declaimed Inspector Renault)

I hope the Third in Line to the Throne has a blessed life.  I hope the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge get some help with their interrupted sleep (I imagine they will).  Having raised two daughters, I know the joy and the travail of that great work.

But seriously, is this child more important than all other babies born July 22, 2013?  Is his life going to make that much of a difference?  We say in this country that we are all equal, but we know that circumstances of birth make such a difference.  A child born in an affluent neighborhood has a leg up in so many ways in relation to a child born in a poor neighborhood. 

I’m not discounting family values or individual initiative nor the power of people and communities to change.  But Grosse Pointe, Michigan has received a lot more political and economic favors than Detroit, Michigan, no matter how much people scream about those receiving food stamps.

We humans have built an economic system and a political system in which there are many winners and many, many more losers. We humans built it, not some unseen hand or divine idea.

There’s been a lot written and said about Trayvon Martin—whether George Zimmerman saw him as a threat because he was black.  I haven’t heard or seen much that maybe Zimmerman saw him as a threat because he was young.   So many of the youth in our parish have related stories about being followed in a store, or stopped by police, because they are with a group of other youth.  So many youth feel judged by adults in their community.  True, many of these are people of color, but even the white youth have had that experience. 

It is so easy to see “the other” as a threat, and when there are more than a couple of “them”, our fear rises up.  One reason we run a youth leadership program at our church—where youth go into the neighborhood and engage adults—is to help break down adults’ fears of youth.   I hope we’re making a difference.  “Stand your ground” with a gun usually begins with “this is my ground and not yours” in the mind.

I’m not Pollyannaish about the world (look it up, young people!), but I want to see the world today as a blessing—for the little prince and for all the little ones we call human beings.

Be blessing. Be justice.  Be beauty.

Patrick

P. S.  Here’s the beginning of a poem of mine in progress, about the role of fate.  I’d love to hear ideas about where to take it:

CHANCE

Maria was born in Reynosa

and Mary in McAllen; one has
the right to drive across the Rio Grande,
the other the right to swim across the Rio Bravo.

Abraham was born a Christian

and Ibrahim a Muslim, and both
believe the other will live forever in hell.

Delwyn got to the party a half hour

after the fight broke up, but just
in time for the bullet.  A tornado
took Paulette’s good tree, and left
the bad one standing…

THINKING ABOUT FREEDOM

I was in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago, where we had lived from 1993-2005.  Part of the beauty of that city is being able to buy a coffee and sit in the park next to Congress Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was voted upon.  Not to mention seeing Betsy Ross’ house, where Ben Franklin lived, and on and on.  And Rocky, of course.

There’s also a lot of contradictions about our national conception of freedom in Philly.  There were people active in the Underground Railroad, and there were people who hunted, harassed and killed them.  Philadelphia was the capital during George Washington’s time as President, and photos of recent excavations of the house he lived in showed the quarters for his slaves, right across the street from where the stirring words were ratified: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

On a hot day, after walking around the historic area, I went in the air conditioned interpretive center, and watched a movie filmed around 1976, where key players of the Independence movie met up 200 years after the revolution, and then re-told the story of those days and years of the founding of our nation.  A couple things struck me: one was the scene of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a more somber moment than its raucous passage.  One of the voices said something to the effect that “we thought we were signing our death warrant.”  I tend to forget at times what courage that took to be so publicly identified with the cause.

The other thing that struck me was that, except for a brief segment about appointing George Washington as commander of the army, very little of the story presented was about the battles, the military, the war itself.  Rather it was about the ideas.  The idea of government based on the consent of the governed.  The idea of liberty for all, as compromised as that was in reality. 

I think about that today because many Face Book posts I saw this morning were about “thanking the troops for our freedom”.  I have become more and more wary of that sentiment.  I understand and honor the sacrifice that many of our troops make.  But I worry about our core belief as a nation that it is our military that makes us free.  I could argue that war may have been inevitable to win independence from England, and that war was inevitable to end slavery.  I can make the case that by the time we entered World War II, we had no choice. But so many of our wars that have been promoted as protecting our freedom are not about that at all: the Mexican War, the wars against the native nations, the Spanish-American War had nothing to do with freedom, but with gaining land and projecting our power.   Our recent adventures: Iraq, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama—how was our freedom protected there?  You could make the case that the initial invasion of Afghanistan was needed to weaken Al Qaeda, but can you make the case that our 12 year occupation is about freedom?

I would like to see posts today about Thomas Paine and Abigail Adams as defenders of our freedom. I would like to hear the commentators at “A Capitol Fourth” and “Macy’s 4^th of July Fireworks” leave the military out of it for just one day, and lift up Sojourner Truth, Eugene Debs, Bayard Rustin, Clyde Bellecourt and Cesar Chavez as defenders of our freedom.  I would like to have an honest discussion in our nation about why we spend more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, and I would like to have a discussion about why our nation—the land of the free and the home of the brave—has been involved in more wars than any other nation since the end of World War II.

My parents both served in World War II, and I honor their service.  I know people who have come back from wars who suffered terribly, and we need to do all we can to help them heal.  But I would love to see this Independence Day, or one soon, be an independence from our love affair with war.   And I especially would love to see me, and my fellow Christians, live out our freedom maker’s call to love our enemies.

A happy and reflective 4^th of July!

Be justice.  Be beauty.

Patrick