A New Narrative

National Public Radio is currently featuring a series called "Divided States" in which reporters from NPR's Morning Edition program interview potential voters before and after each televised political debate.  The idea, I think, has two aims; first, to highlight the effect the debates may or may not be having on voter opinion, and secondly - and more importantly - to shed light on how divided our nation has become in 2016.

Can I attempt to paint a different narrative?

Our lives are driven by narrative in ways we don't even realize.  I suspect in another 50 years, psychologists will have a much better understanding of how the story we create about the events around us affects our moods, our desires, even potentially our ethics in ways we're only beginning to understand.  I'll blog more about this later, most likely (I can't help it, ok???) but...I digress.

Narrative.  What NPR and other members of the media are building, without perhaps realizing how much they're participating in it, is the narrative that Americans have never been more divided than we are right now.  The idea seems logical.  When you read the vitriol on social media you can't help but recoil in horror seeing mutual friends lob bombs at each other and the situation only seems to be getting worse.  It's right there in front of you, virtually every time you long onto the Internet.

People SEEM to be getting ever more entrenched in their positions and it appears there is little hope of getting people to compromise on anything any more, not in 2016.

And so...a story.  From our collective past.

It's January 21, 1861.  Two months earlier, in November of 1860, Abraham Lincoln had been elected president - for reference, he hadn't won a single southern state in the election.  And now two months after the election, word has spread that several southern Senators will be making an announcement on the Senate floor.

With the Senate chamber and galleries around it packed with onlookers, Senator David Yulee of Florida takes the Senate floor to announce his resignation from the Senate.  Stephen Mallory, also of Florida, goes next and does the same.  They are followed moments later by Benjamin Fitzpatrick and Clement Clay, both Senators from Alabama, who also resign.  And finally, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi takes the floor.  Instead of an impassioned argument, Davis simply states why he's resigning; Mississippi had become convinced the Union was depriving it of its basic rights as a sovereign state.  And finally, Davis ends with the following:  "...it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu." 

He is met by silence.

Then, a burst of applause follows, mixed with...weeping, at least among some members of the gallery who realize the chance to maintain the Union peacefully is almost certainly gone.  There will eventually be EITHER a Union, or two separate states - but not before war.  Most likely, not before many deaths.

A nation can't get much more divided than the U.S. was during the Civil War.  It would cost the U.S. three percent of its population of about 31 million.   If a similar event occurred today, the U.S., with a current population around 320 million, would sacrifice some ten million people.  

Ten million.  For comparison, it's estimated that World War II claimed around 419,000 lives; World War I around 117,000.  

And can you imagine the spectacle if five U.S. Senators all took the floor on the same day to announce they were resigning?  Especially if the resignations meant their individual states desired to secede from the United States...an act of treason...it would be mass chaos, and we wouldn't see anything else on the news for weeks.

So, back to today - and here's the thing.  The narrative we're using to describe the world we see is that America is becoming more and more divided, and we think this because we see more and more disagreement, primarily in the media.  Social media, to be sure, but also in the news.  We see politicians - a tiny, statistically insignificant proportion of our population - shouting at each other from across the ideological aisle and we think we're a nation that's never been more divided.  We see ourselves in those politicians.

But allow me to try a different narrative.  The story? The one of a nation divided?  It couldn't be more wrong.

Rather than primarily being a nation of people who can't get along with each other, I would suggest we're a society that's simply trying to figure out how to appropriately use the abundance of technology available to us.  In the past, if you had an opinion or thought on your mind, you talked to your spouse about it.  Or your neighbor.  Or your coworkers.  But in all these cases, you communicated as humans were designed to: face to face. 

Now, however, when we have an opinion, the opportunity is available to state that opinion loudly and proudly through the use of technology.  This isn't bad; instant communication is potentially life-saving.  

However, the technology calls for us to rethink how often and in what manner we should be communicating.  In essence, the technology is DRIVING not only how we communicate, but WHAT we're saying (this is another blog post, so enough said for now).  I realize a thousand people have already parsed out what I'm saying in much greater detail in a thousand different PhD theses, but...the average person never sees that form of communication. 

I would ask you to consider this idea as you connect via social media;  we're not a divided nation, we're a nation in transition, and change is always difficult.  But we'll get there.  We're getting there, slowly, and with the three steps forward/two steps back approach, but still progressing.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a quote from Brene Brown that constantly inspires me:  

"When we deny the story, it defines us.  

When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending."

Rather than passively allowing the media to convince us we're divided, let's embrace the idea that we haven't collectively mastered social media and that's okay.  We just need to give it some time and some thought to get it right. 

Peace and blessings to you all - thank you for reading!



 

Election 2016: A Request for My Conservative Friends

As my family watches coverage leading up to the Vice Presidential debate (scheduled to start in about 30 minutes) I'd like to offer a suggestion to my conservative friends who are considering their choices during this election cycle:  vote for Hillary.


I'm painfully aware that the choice we're making as a nation seems like we're deciding which method of self-destruction we're most in favor of.  (Things aren't that dire, but you know what I mean.)  I'm also aware of how disliked Hillary Clinton currently is...and let me suggest that, if you've traditionally voted Republican, this is exactly why you should vote for her.

Let me explain.

Your current choices, as a conservative, seem to be 1 of 2 things:

1) vote for Trump, who has generally done all of the terrible things the media has said he has done (he's a misogynist, he's a bigot, he preys on people's fear about immigrants, etc.) or
2) vote for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate who holds many of the same ideals you do - lower taxes are preferable, less government regulation is generally better, less foreign intervention is better than intervening when we generally make things worse, etc.

Republicans who support the option to vote for Trump seem to be collectively hanging their hats on one issue:  Supreme Court nominations.  Never mind that his fiscal plan would add trillions to the national debt, or that there's no way of knowing what he would do with the nuclear bomb once it's available to him, forget  the terrible things he's repeatedly said about women, immigrants, minorities...and somehow, swallow your pride and vote for him because the number of Supreme Court nominations that may (underline that, MAY) become available to the next president make it seem like this may be the one chance that Republicans have of overturning Roe. vs. Wade.

The problem with that logic is flawed, mostly because, in my opinion, it's a crap shoot whether the next president will actually get to substantially change the makeup of the Supreme Court enough to change the likelihood that the Court would even consider taking up the issue of Roe vs. Wade again...and it's based on the assumption that the 2 oldest members of the Court (Ginsburg, age 83, and Breyer, age 78) have a better than average chance of being replaced in the next 4 years - which is far from guaranteed.  While it's possible, it doesn't seem like the thing you'd want to bet the farm on.  Especially not with everything else at stake.

Which brings us to Gary Johnson.  Considering he's the Libertarian candidate, and considering he's done so well in the polls, it's tempting to consider him as viable third party candidate.  The problem is the polls don't add up to him having a reasonable chance of winning, but that isn't why I wouldn't vote for him; rather, I couldn't vote for the Libertarian candidate because of 1 thing listed in their Statement of Principles, 3.5 which states the following:  "Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts and other free-market solutions."

The short-hand version of Principle 3.5 means this:  if an organization (read: corporation) wants to decide not to associate with a particular ethnicity, race, sex, member of religion, etc. the corporation is free to do that...with the idea that people, because of the choices available in a capitalist society,  may choose to boycott against that corporation, participate in demonstrations outside the corporation's property, etc.  The power of communication, through demonstrations and other forms, would be the people's way of making known how offensive the corporation's actions are and, hopefully, it would be in the corporation's best interests (read: economic interests) to change its ways.

It would mean that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if the Libertarian party had its way, would be overturned.  Restaurants in the South would again be able to put up signs designating certains areas as "Whites Only".  Perhaps most damaging, employers would decide to ONLY hire whites, or protestants, or natural-born American citizens.

Doing this would - in my opinion - do irreparable damage to race relations in this country.  If you've watched the news for the past year, you've undoubtedly seen news story after news story featuring names like Trayvon Martin, and places like Ferguson, Missouri.  If the Civil Right Act of 1964 were overturned, the number of cases like this seen in the media would increase exponentially.

It would be a nightmare.

Hear me out, though.  The problem I have with the Libertarian party isn't that they would be able to do this...the issue I have is that Libertarians don't see this as an issue government should be involved in.  In the Libertarian view, an individual doesn't have a guaranteed right to obtain the services of a particular business.  Which is true;  no one can be forced to open a business.  But the point is this:  an individual SHOULD have access to the same OPPORTUNITIES, regardless of race, nationality, sex, etc. as anyone else...and this is where Libertarianism becomes impractical.

Remember, before we had the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we gave capitalism 200 years to try to get this right.  It didn't work.  In places like Alabama, and Mississippi, and Louisiana, people of color didn't have access to the same services as whites.  And by services, I don't only mean restaurants; think access to health care, private schools, and other local businesses.  Consider this:  you're non-white, and you have a job interview, and you need to buy a suit...where would you go?  What if all the local stores in town refuse to service blacks?  So...you don't get to buy the suit, and you don't get the job, which means you're denied the basic right of the Pursuit of Happiness.  This is what we would potentially be going back to.

So, back to my original request.  Please, for the love of all that is holy, at least CONSIDER voting for Hillary.  My reasoning is simple.  Her approval ratings are abysmal.  They're among the worst of any candidate running for office at any time in history, if the media is to be believed.

And if you want to send a message to your party, this is your chance.  It would only take a small percentage of people to make a YUGE difference in the election, and the message you'd be sending is this:  Republican Party, pull your heads out of your asses and give us a viable candidate, someone that can string 2 sentences together without managing to offend half the people listening.

Love/Hate #5: A Diversion About Diversity

I registered at Davenport University this fall to go back for another degree, this one in Computer Science (long story for another time).  The registration process involved online forms, a payment schedule, and...transferring credits from another college.  Despite the fact that my credits from the other university totalled around 200 I think, I still have a number of pre-reqs to complete, which was somewhat disappointing.

One class I'm required to take is Diversity In Society.  I wasn't originally enthused about this...after all, I've worked in multiple environments with hundreds (thousands, maybe?) of people of all ages, ethnicities, religions...would a course like this prove interesting?  Worthwhile?

I'm surprised to say that, so far, I'm really loving it.  In large part that's due to the textbooks we're referencing, written by Kent Koppelman.  Our first reading assignments - which have proved more challenging than I thought they would to keep up with - dealt with an explanation of how, as Americans, we often SAY we value one thing, when in fact our actions paint a different picture.

We were asked to write about 1 of the several values the author describes.  I chose individuality; as Americans, Koppelman writes, we say we value individual achievement -- when in fact what we're really striving for, on a subconscious level, is conformity.

It was a good read, and I could go on for pages about it, but it got me thinking about something else, related to this series of blog posts.  As "The Church", we must do this, right?  We must, admittedly, in SOME instances at least, say we value one thing, then prove with our actions that valuing something else...right?

I think about the structures of my own church, not just the building but the organization, the activities, the resources we expend to complete certain tasks.  What picture would these paint to the average person who wasn't raised in the Church? What would that person think we value?

For example, consider our Sunday service.  We have many, many individuals involved...that's a good thing, right?  Especially when many of those involved are teens who probably couldn't give 2 cents about what's being preached and, if given the chance, would probably choose to sleep in on Sunday rather than waking up to be to an early Church service in time to operate a video camera or a Powerpoint presentation. 

I would guess it takes several dozen people to "produce" Sunday morning worship...this including our Worship Team, tech people, speakers...but is it more production than heart?

That's a difficult question to answer.  I don't know that it's really possible to know.  I've attended many churches.  The ones I've connected with the most had the LEAST produced services, to be sure.  Consider the church I mentioned in my last post.  This is a church holding services with around 5000 people attending.  Yet there isn't any huge light show, nearly no decoration on the stage which sits at the center of sanctuary.  The church is located in what used to be a shopping mall...you can tell by the way the building is shaped...and outside of paint and carpet, little has been added to change the building.

Or consider a church I attended in Chicago.  It's a congregation of maybe 50 or 60 people that meet on Sunday in a building that could hold maybe 3 or 4 times that many.  The service doesn't feel "produced" as ours sometimes does...for example, one time that we visited, the worship leader introduced a song he'd learned on a recent trip to Africa.  It was somewhat traditional, very simple, and the whole feel of the experience felt more about people connecting through raising their voices, rather than watching others lead as the congregation sings from another part of the room.  We felt unified somehow.

I'm not sure what to make of this.  As it relates to my previous posts, I'm meditating on the idea of connection.  As humans we need this connection, this community - it's in our DNA. 

What to do when you seldom feel connected to those you're worshipping with?

As I asked in a previous post...when is it time to leave???

Love/Hate #4: Discovering Home...Elsewhere...

So, a slight diversion from my other posts...but really, the same thing.

So around 5 years ago -- just around the same time the friends I had described a couple posts ago, the post about the hurt 30 or 40 of us had experienced together -- I visited my brother and sister-in-law's church.

It was amazing.  It was magic.  Precisely because...it wasn't magic.

I should explain. 

Like you reading this, I've attended many churches over the course of my life (I'm 46 for the record).  I've attended big churches where no one was affected in any meaningful way by anything occurring in the service, and I've attended services with 50 or 60 people that felt electric - you know that feeling, right?  It's the same feeling you get when you attend a U2 concert and caught up in the moment, you look around and realize you're part of a group of people experiencing a moment, one of THOSE moments, the kind that only happen maybe once or twice a year if you're lucky.

I digress. 

So I'm at this church and my family is in the middle of this crisis when the tension between us has been terrible, when everyone is exhausted and angry and hurting.  And then, it happens.  A sermon is given that isn't just a sermon.  It's the kind of message that you, as a group, make you think, "that message was straight from the mind of God...and was meant for us."  And I'm sure there were a few thousand other people in the sanctuary that felt the same way.

It was a sermon from Second Kings, Chapter 2 (I can still remember it pretty vividly, 5 years later!) and it was about Elisha.  The people have come to him because the water source for the city they're in is bad -- making the land 'unproductive'...so Elisha instructs them to bring a new bowl and put salt in it...and Elisha takes the salt to the spring, throws it in, and the water is purified.  Amazing.  But in the context of the sermon it became something much more than a story about a miracle involving a water source.  It became the story WE were going through at that very moment...and the message was essentially this:  the problem you're experiencing seems like something you couldn't possibly overcome.  It seems like no solution is in sight.  Yet Elisha says to the people, bring me a NEW bowl and salt...a fresh start.

And a miracle.

It's hard to describe the experience of being moved in the way we all were.  The last portion of the sermon involved an invitation.  Anyone who felt they were at a similar point in their lives in some way could come forward, grab some salt from one of several bowls at the front of the room, and throw it into a vat of water.

Here's the thing.  I'm not the type of person who's repeatedly experienced miracles in my life.  There have been moments I couldn't explain, to be sure, things that left me with the hair on the back of my neck standing up.  But this sermon was something I'd rarely experienced before.

I say rarely because...well, here's the thing.  The times when I've experienced the same type of thing HAVE ALL BEEN AT THAT CHURCH.

What do I make of this?  It is absolutely undeniable to me that there is a God.  There is meaning to this life, to this World, and you'll never convince me otherwise.  But I'm the sort of person who rarely experiences what most people would think of as something "beyond the norm" - do you know what I mean?  Don't get me wrong.  I believe in the miraculous, the unexplainable.  I believe in God, and God can and will do what God will do.  But for me to have this experience multiple times, in different ways, but at the same church...

I can't describe it.

I mention all of this because if you were to ask me what I would like to see in my own church it's this:  I would ask for the experience I'm describing above for people attending our church.

But here's the rub:  multiple people in my own congregation would say that's invalid.  That isn't what we should be wishing for.  Why?  Because God isn't about experience...God is about Truth.

It seems odd, doesn't it?  That someone would feel they have the right to label the experience another person has as "invalid"...yet this is the kind of thing I can't share with others in my own congregation because they would give that experience a label.

And so...here I am...12 years down the road, wondering just exactly how long I can continue to experience -- or NOT experience -- what I long for so much, but that is so offensive to others I attend church with.

More to come...

Love/Hate #3: Tipping Point

So if some people leave, but some people stay...what's finally the tipping point for those who leave?

That questioned has been asked over and over and over.  I just Googled "why do people leave the church".  The answers are all over the place...stuff about how church productions don't seem sincere, the church isn't adjusting to the times (holding onto the same language they've used for a hundred years that people don't understand), and of course, a number of studies have mentioned people indicated they wanted "something different" such as different musical styles or different preaching.

All of these are relevant and true.  However, consider this.  None of these things have changed, right?  Churches tend to stay pretty much the same year after year, right?  While things like musical style change (as new worship leaders choose new songs written by recent musicians), usually as a family leaves one church for another, it isn't -- in my experience -- because of something as shallow as music.

I say this because having attended the same church for around 12 years, I've seen a number of families who had attended for years (like my family) decide it was time to pack up and move on.  And not one of those people said anything about the music or the lighting or the sermons.

So what gives?  Christian publications I think would say that churches are struggling to stay relevant to the culture.  At the same time that some within the congregation are saying they wished they could just get back to the way things were 40 or 50 years ago, when preachers "preached from the Word", others within the same church aren't experiencing an organization they want to be a part of.  They're seeing the desperate looks on the faces of their fellow churchgoers -- people on staff and on the governing board -- and perhaps what's being mirrored back is the kiss of death for churches in the 21st centure:  lack of authenticity.

What's fascinating to me, though, is to consider what this means to the average person.  While some people might say something like "they just didn't SEEM authentic" - without ever being able to express in words what that meant -- others know exactly they're seeing -- or not seeing.

They want relationships.  Real, meaningful relationships with people who are willing to share and invest and endure all sort of dysfunction in an attempt to build community -- and they aren't finding it.

So this leads to the ultimate question.  If you grabbed 100 people from various churches - no, let's make it 10,000 -- and you asked those who have experienced these exact things -- a longing to experience relationship when their church ain't cutting it, when they're seeing a lack of authenticity in church leaders desperate to remain "relevant" - WHY DO THEY STAY?

I would like to survey them, and here's what I would ask:

• Have you ever considered under what circumstances you would finally decide to leave your church and attend services elsewhere?  What are those circumstances?
• If you could change 3 things about your church with the wave of a magic wand, what would you change?
• Do you have any friends outside of your church (that don't attend elsewhere) that you WOULD NOT feel comfortable asking to attend?  If so, is there something about your church that they would find awkward or uncomfortable?
• If you decide in the future to attend elsewhere, what does your current church have or do that you hope a future church would have?  In essence...what's the BEST thing about your church?
• If you grew up in the Church, is the church you're currently attending like the one you attended growing up?  How is it different?

I've pondered how I would answer these same questions, as someone who's felt a growing discomfort with the church I attend...the answer to the first question is in my last blog post, so I'll skip to numbers 2 thru 5:

2. Regarding what I would change, first, it would be how we do the offering.  We make a production out of taken an offering, and I don't think "church" is meant to be this way.  My favorite way that I've seen churches address this is to have boxes at the back of the sanctuary that people can deposit into on their way out (in addition to giving online).  Very little was said in this church about the offering -- yet it's church with a yearly budget in the tens of millions of dollars.

3. Regarding friends outside of the church, I have many I wouldn't invite.  There are too many things preached from the pulpit they would find offensive. For example, a couple weeks back our pastor prayed "that Planned Parenthood would be defunded."  The problem I have with this isn't our church's stand on abortion, but rather, consider this...what does a statement like this mean to someone who's unemployed and who is receiving health care services from Planned Parenthood because it's the only organization she's been able to get help from?  Or what about the single mom with a live-in boyfriend who gets free birth control from Planned Parenthood?  How does a prayer like this seem to them???

4. This is a tough one.  The times when we succeed I feel are all related to holding events that build community...yet we often do this no stated purpose for what those events are supposed to accomplish...so it's difficult to know if anything meaningful is being accomplished.  Apart from anecdotes about how much people enjoyed special events, we tend not to take meaningful measurements...so if no goal is stated, is anything achieved?

Really, though, I'd give anything to feel like I attended a church with people that I could be authentic with.  I'm much, much more liberal than virtually everyone else in my congregation; I often feel this in a palpable, tangible sense, and based on what's stated, based on people's expectations and values, I feel isolated.  There are a very limited number of people I could share this with.

5. The church I attended is much larger, but of the same denomination.  What's fascinating to me is that both were the 'large' church in their conference.  Yet the one I grew up in averaged about 120 in attendance on Sunday morning; my current church probably averages 1300 to 1500 between 2 services.

Would other people give similar answers?  I'd be interested to see - but I'm guessing many feel the same way...