“The American People” are …who?

OK. So I am confused. The Constitution of the United States, that sacred document to which we all refer to understand what our country is all about, says that government is to be “of the people.” President Lincoln, in the Gettysburg Address, referred to that constitutional sentiment when he said that government in this nation was to be “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

But who are “the people?” As the Congress leads yet another effort to destroy “Obamacare,” House Speaker John Boehner gets out and says that “the American people” don’t want this Affordable Care Act. And I would suppose that Rep. Eric Cantor, who has been a leader and a voice in the move to cut domestic spending, would say “the American people” the latest proposed cuts, which would slash $40 billion from food stamps, want the same.

My question is, who are “the American people?”

Every time I hear any politician say “the American people” I wonder the same thing. “The American people,” if the Congress be believed, don’t care if the government shuts down, because opposing the Affordable Care Act is that much of a cause to fight against. So, the people who would lose their jobs, affecting their ability to survive, are not “the American people?”

Is the Republican Congress that when they say “the American people,” while simultaneously cutting back on programs that help the poor survive, that they are cutting out a huge portion of America’s population? Do they care? The argument is that people being cut need to find jobs, but is the Republican Congress aware that people are working, some two jobs, and still do not make a living wage? Aren’t they “the American people,” too?

In a New York Times article, some members of Congress were said to have supported the measure slashing funding for food stamps because “the food stamp program, which costs $80 billion a year, had grown out of control.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/us/politics/house-passes-bill-cutting-40-billion-from-food-stamps.html) Um…isn’t part of the reason for that is because thousands of “the American people” were thrown into economic despair because of the Great Recession, which was caused by the machinations of corporations who became more wealthy on the backs of …”the American people?”

Aren’t people with pre-existing conditions, people who are unemployed, people with children who have serious medical issues and who are under the age of 27 with no insurance …are not they part of the quilt which makes up the body of “the American people?”

Mr. Boehner, and others …can you please explain who “the American people” are? Can we finally deconstruct this phrase so that we, “the American people,” can understand who you’re talking about?

Because it just seems that a huge swath of “the American people” have been left out of the club.

A candid observation …

Motherpain, working

Sometimes I wonder if, had it not been for women and children, would there ever be real change in the world?

Women in Liberia were responsible for stopping civil war there. Women and especially children were the ones who faced fire hoses and dogs in Birmingham, Alabama, as the South tried to hang onto segregation. College students endured amazing humiliation and some pain as they defiantly sat at lunch counters in the South, demanding to be served. Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of a bus; Fannie Lou Hamer demanded that there be justice for all, especially and including, black people. Ida B. Wells Barnett fought to wake up a complacent and disinterested Congress about the horror of lynching in this country.

And mothers, heartbroken over the deaths of their children, have been a force to contend with, over and over.

Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett Till, refused to let America miss out on what a lynched human being – who happened to be her son – looked like. She demanded that her son be sent home to Chicago to be buried; it is said that the stench of his deceased body, though it was in a coffin, could be smelled from blocks away as he was brought home for burial. That didn’t matter to Mamie, though it must have broken her heart. This was her baby. He had been lynched. Someone, no, everyone, would know …

It was those things that I thought about as I listened to a woman this past weekend in Valdosta, Georgia. There was a rally held in that city to energize and mobilize people to help fight for justice in the case of Kendrick Johnson. Johnson’s body was found in a rolled up wrestling mat earlier this year. Officials said it was an accident, that Johnson apparently died while trying to retrieve a shoe, but his parents never bought that explanation and pushed for an independent autopsy, which revealed that the young man, only 17 years old, had died of non-accidental blunt force trauma. The rallies are being held to draw attention to the case, and to inspire law enforcement agencies, including the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, to open an investigation in the case.

At that rally, a young mother approached Ruby Sales, who is keeping tab on these suspicious deaths of young black men. This mother, who had driven to Valdosta from someplace in central Florida, told a horrendous story of what happened to her teen son. He was shot by police officers, she said, and was left on the side of the road to die.

He didn’t die.

What sticks out for me is this woman’s courage, tenacity and determination to get justice. She is a single mother. Her funds are limited. She doesn’t have a high-powered attorney to plead her case for her.

All she has is her mother’s love, not unlike that of Mamie Till.

These women are what the Bible calls “Rachel, weeping for her children.” Specifically, the verse, which is found in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, says, “A voice in heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping. Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

How many mothers are “out there.” seeking justice? How many young mothers are fighting the scorn of a system which basically blames victims, too often, for what happens to them at the hands of law enforcement? How many mothers are “mourning and weeping” because their children are suffering, or have died, and there has been no justice?

I realized, as I listened to this woman in Valdosta, that my role as pastor has expanded some. My heart bled for her as I listened. Justice in this country is not a given; indeed, many people have tasted injustice, made all the more painful and difficult to endure because we exist in a country that promises that there is “liberty and justice” for all.

Not so much.

As she talked, I stopped taking notes and looked at her eyes. I saw “motherpain,” a term I have just made up, but which is not a new phenomenon. She needed strength for this journey, a journey she is not going to stop, no matter the barriers and frustrations.

I prayed with her, and hugged her. Her journey and quest for justice will be long and difficult.

She is not the only mother fighting for her child. She is not the only mother who will, again, fight for justice in a world which is so reluctant to mete it out. Our world is bent on saving the status quo, which is not, in the long run, all that concerned about justice for us common folk.

So, the mothers and children will continue to be the Davids of this world, going against Goliath, with so few resources, but hearts full of love. They will be going up against a society where the Prison Industrial Complex would rather they sit down; they need bodies to fill their new prisons for profit. Justice isn’t an issue. Profit-making is.

And so, I’ll continue to pray and offer hugs to these women as I listen to their stories, functioning in an expanded pastoral role. I am learning that one does not have to be in a church …to be a pastor . Mothers and children will make change in our world, but it won’t be without experiencing a fair amount of loneliness and fatigue, and, probably, some harsh criticism from people who will want them to go and sit down and be quiet. They will wonder why God has allowed their situation to happen, much less linger on. They will need a pastor.

Because for sure, they won’t stop fighting. They can’t. They musn’t. “Motherpain,” accompanied by “motherlove” will drive them. And at the end of the day, somebody is going to hear their cries for justice.

A candid observation …

» Just Seven Percent Of Republican Voters Actually Want To Defund Obamacare

» Just Seven Percent Of Republican Voters Actually Want To Defund Obamacare.

Justice Matters

Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deuts... — Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deutsch: 1964: Martin Luther King Português: Martin Luther King (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I traditionally abhor marching, the Martin Luther King -type march. It’s my opinion that there are too many marches and too little action.

The march planned this weekend, then, in Washington D.C., commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech doesn’t move me. Sorry. It just doesn’t. That thousands of dollars have been raised for this march, to be used to pay for porta-potties and parking privileges, and probably for noted people who will speak is troubling to me as well. All that money being spent for one or two days…when communities of black, brown and poor people are floundering …does not make moral sense to me.

But the work being done by a group devoted to empowering people and informing them about the social justice issues of today does excite me. The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, Inc., (SDPC) named in honor of a civil rights icon, the late Rev. Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor, deserves attention.

SDPC has invited 50 students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to participate in teach-ins. They will learn about the social justice issued faced and addressed by Dr. King in 1963, but they will also be taught about the social justice issues facing black, brown, poor and marginalized people today: issues including mass incarceration and the lack of jobs for “the least of these.”

This group, through an initiative called the “To Be Free At Last Movement,” has created spaces for individuals and institutions to come together and forge partnerships that go across racial, ethnic, professional and denominational lines. That seems wonderfully Christian to me, reflecting an understanding of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. That seems, as well, wonderfully indicative of an understanding of Dr. King’s desire to build a “beloved community,” where capitalism, militarism and imperialism are pushed aside as groups within the boundaries of the United States seek to make the way for justice to be meted out to those who need it most, but for whom it seems most elusive.

During this weekend, and in the days leading up to August 28, these students will learn what’s before them, and will plan a rally honoring A. Philip Randolph that will be held at Union Station in our nation’s capital. On Sunday, the torch of leadership will be passed to them by veteran civil rights and labor leaders including John Thomas and C.T. Vivian. They will also participate in a Town Hall Meeting with Judge Greg Mathis during the weekend’s events.

With as much as there is at stake for “the least of these,” it is comforting to feel like someone gets it and is being intentional about training people to carry on what was begun back in the days of slavery. A high note was reached by Dr. King when he gave his famous speech, but many people have said that his dream has become a nightmare. African-Americans are still struggling, as far too many African-American men are incarcerated, and young African-American men still cannot get employment. There is still an overlying spirit of racism that suggests that black people are bad people, unworthy of freedom and too apt to complain when they have access to anything they want.

In theory, perhaps, but in actuality, that is not the case, and that’s why the work of social justice as concerns “the least of these” is so important. It is important that young people be trained and strengthened even as they enter the fray. Obtaining social justice for and by “the least of these” is some of the most difficult work ever. Those who fight for it fight against power, which, we all know and as Frederick Douglass said, “concedes nothing without a struggle.” These young people are being sent into the lion’s den, so to speak, a lion’s den that people like Dr. King and Rev. Vivian and Rep. Lewis knew and know well. They are being equipped to carry on the work – with all of its attendant opposition – of people like the late Fannie Lou Hamer and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. They are being equipped to struggle not only for black, brown and poor people, but people in the LGBT community as well. Justice is a right of all American citizens. Dr. King said he looked forward to the day when all of America’s children, black and white, Christian and Jew …would be able to walk and work together. It hasn’t happened yet, and in the name of globalization, the spread of people needing justice has grown. Justice matters.

That an organization is willing to take on the behemoth task of equipping young people to carry on the work that Dr. King talked about is exciting. It is worth tapping into.

The march? Not so much.

A candid observation …

Moses, Crazy Faith, and Waiting for God

I wrote this book called Crazy Faith: Ordinary People; Extraordinary Lives. In it, I lift some characters from the Bible and from life and

talk about the incredible, crazy faith they had to have had in order to do what they did.

What I have come to realize, however, is that crazy faith, or having crazy faith, does not mean one does not feel fear or anxiety as he or she waits and works for God to “show up.” I have come to recognize something that I have dubbed “the Red Sea moment” that all bouts of crazy faith must have.

This “Red Sea moment” is, of course, about Moses. The Bible is good about telling stories without getting into the “meat,” or the human factor …of being human as one waits for divine intervention. Moses has been told by God to lead the Israelites to The Promised Land. What should have been 11 days, two weeks at most, turned out to take 40 years. No doubt when they finally reached the Red Sea (or, more correctly, the Sea of Reeds), they were all ready to get on with their lives.

That desire would have been shared by Moses, maybe even more so, since he had been leading the people for so long! Moses had been roped into the job of leading the Israelites through the wilderness by God, and he had relied on the voice and direction of God throughout the journey, albeit he acted in frustration and not faith when he hit a rock that God told him to merely speak to, a breach in faith that cost Moses getting into the Promised Land.

So, maybe Moses thought about what his frustration and doubt had wrought for him as concerns that rock as he now stood on the bank of the Red Sea. Can’t you see him? Standing there. holding a rod over the vast body of water, because God told him the waters would part? There he stood, as the Israelites, murmured against him …and as the Egyptians got closer and closer. Moses and the others could hear the hoofs of the soldiers’ horses, and might have been able to feel the earth vibrate and tremble as “the enemy” made its way to the exact place where Moses and the Israelites stood.

But stand there he did. With the rod in his hand, holding it out “over the water,” which would only have been over the edge of the sea, ebbing and flowing onto the land. How crazy is that? Moses most assuredly had doubts and fears….but he chose to believe that God would do what God had said He would do. And God …did.

That’s a wonderful story …but the point is that before there was the parting of the Sea there was probably a trembling of Moses’ very soul. Where was God? And when was God coming? His disobedience and frustration, which led him to hit a rock that God had merely told him to speak to, convinced him that God was 1) present, even when we don’t know it, 2) unimpressed with disobedience based on doubt, and 3) eager to show His/Her children that He was in fact, God.

The Red Sea moment had to have been terrifying for Moses.

Our “Red Sea” moments are terrifying to us as well. When we stand on the bank of a “sea” or on the edge of a “precipice,” needing God and believing God will come to us because God sees where we are standing and knows the situation we are in. when we can hear the “hoofs of the horses” getting closer and closer to us, we are being allowed to feel what Moses most probably felt.

The key is to “stand our ground” while we wait for God. That is hard and that is scary …but that is what God would require, if the Bible is to be believed.

The edge of the Red Sea, waiting in faith for God to “part the water” in our lives so that we can get to another place, perhaps THE place God has put in place for us, is not a comfortable place to be. We may even look at it as a test to see if we have faith or just give lip service to the same. Crazy faith means having stilled voices but enlarged spirits that are making room for God to do a new thing.

Moses, in spite of feeling terror for sure, and worry about what the Israelites were thinking about him and what they would say if the Egyptians got there before the waters parted. Hr might have been seen mouthing quiet prayers as he waited for God.

Many people have waited, like Moses, swallowing their fear and trying, working, to regurgitate their faith. Such regurgitation of faith has its own rewards.

A candid observation …