October 28, 2022
Dear Interested Readers,
The Tension Is Building
The 2022 midterm elections are just eleven days from now. On the one hand, I am sick and tired of the inflammatory political ads that are laced with lies or exaggerations coming from both sides that should be obvious to anyone who is unfortunate enough to hear one of them, and I will be glad for the relief from this torture that election day promises. On the other hand, I wish there was more time for everyone to process just how important this election is to the future of our nation and secondarily to the future of our individual and collective health as well as the health of the planet. I don’t think there was any hyperbole in that last sentence. In truth, I think it was an understatement.
I may seem stuck to you because last week I also expressed my frustration with the run-up to the midterm elections. I wrote:
In my state, there are two races for the House, and we are one of the states where Republicans hope to pick up a Senate seat. The choice for me is easy. In each of these contests, one candidate has the endorsement of Trump. From their own words, it is obvious that a vote for any of them would move us yet a little closer to illiberalism and the end of democracy as we have enjoyed it, even in its imperfect state. All three Republican candidates focus on the lie that electing them will end inflation and return the world to the way it was back when America was great. All three have asserted that there was fraud in the 2020 election. All three claim to be militantly pro-life. All three claim to be able to end the inflation that Joe Biden caused, but none of them mention how they will accomplish the task. All three claim to be “strong” on crime, but none of them are specific about how they will “defeat” crime. Obviously, none of them are advocates of any changes that might limit anyone’s access to guns Their message is a con learned from and supported by the biggest con artist of our times. When you go to vote, don’t be fooled and fall for the con offered by those who pledge allegiance to Trump and make their claims about what they will do to “defeat inflation” without making any plausible policy suggestions.
Most of my “energy” behind that statement came from the fact that I am sick and tired of the lies, twisted facts, and character attacks that displace constructive policy discussions on the real issues of the day in the mind-numbing repetitive ads that are the most obvious part of the campaign efforts coming full force from the Republican candidates, and too much from Democrats. In the occasional debates real discussion of issues is a rarity, and what you usually get is a live version of the infuriating ads.
I was delighted this week to get a newsletter that supported my point of view from Garrison Keillor, a man who was once my hero and a source of great entertainment before he was “outed” by the #MeToo movement and discharged in disgrace from his popular weekly radio show on public radio. I “discovered” Keillor’s unique blend of humor, music, and biscuit nostalgia about 1981. For almost forty years before he succumbed to the “#Me Too” movement, I would record his show every Saturday evening. Sony invented its “Walkman” tape cassette player in the late 70s, just in time for me to make Garrison my running buddy. His show was two hours long, from 6 PM to 8 PM on Saturday evenings which was often not a convenient time for a man with a family. If I was at home, I was busy with family affairs but would arm myself with two-hour tapes and “flip the tape” at 7 PM. If my wife and I were out for the evening, the babysitter had three jobs: take care of the kids, make sure the house did not burn down, and “flip the tape” at seven. The young ladies that forgot to flip my tape were not invited back. During the week, I would enjoy listening to the show on my commutes and while running with my “Walkman.” l have trotted over thousands of miles while I listened to Garrison’s offering of eclectic music, poetry, and nostalgic stories from Lake Woebegon that often felt like sermons. I have hundreds of tapes that seem sacred to me that sit in boxes on a shelf in my office. Retaining the tapes seems silly to my wife who considers them to be clutter because if I want to hear him most of his shows are now archived on the Internet.
Since Keillor was dropped from public radio because of his #MeToo failures of character, he has become a less important fixture in my life. It is disorienting when your heroes turn out to be flawed. Unlike Matt Lauer or Charlie Rose, Keillor has made a rather effective comeback. He has published books, has a huge presence on the Internet, and gives live performances just as he always did. He is remarkably active for a disgraced eighty-year-old man who has had mitral valve surgery twice and owns a pacemaker.
On Wednesday Keillor published a piece on his website entitled “Sitting in the sixth pew, brooding on things.” As the title suggests, he is writing to us about his recent musings in church. He begins with a family story:
My grandpa Denham grew up in the tenements of Glasgow back when the residents leaned out the window and shouted, “Comin’ oot!” and threw the contents of the chamber pot into the street. Grandpa got sick of being dumped on and brought his brood to Minneapolis and he never looked back. He wasn’t nostalgic about his origins. He was happy to be here.
I thought of him when I took the train to Washington last week, a city he wanted to see and never did. I go to Washington to remind myself what a beautiful city it is despite the contempt brought upon it by so many elected officials, many of whom are emptying their chamber pots in the form of campaign advertising. The Jefferson and Lincoln memorials are stunning but you look at the dome of the Capitol and remember the mob that stormed it in the name of a miserable lie that is being repeated this election year and how do you explain this? The mob went to the same schools we did, learned about Jefferson and Lincoln, and yet they are fascinated by fascism and long for a dictator.
Keillor continues by describing a less-than-satisfying Saturday night followed by his decision to go to church on Sunday. The first hymn was “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and was followed by a prayer of contrition which got Garrison thinking:
God is a forgiving God, as we know from our prayer of contrition, but if you raise millions and millions of dollars to broadcast lies and thereby gain power and do damage to society and its institutions, this is a sin of another magnitude than just telling your mom you didn’t eat the ice cream in the freezer. When you invest so heavily in a lie, you make it almost impossible for yourself to feel real contrition and thereby gain forgiveness. You leave yourself no way out.
Next, the scriptures referenced Jeremiah and David, and Keillor was on a roll:
A moment later, in our reading from Jeremiah, we see: “We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, the iniquity of our ancestors,” which has been a political issue lately, whether schools should be allowed to teach history or whether it should be sanitized. Jeremiah seems to favor honesty.
After we heard from him, we heard from David in his Psalm 84: “My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord … Happy are they who dwell in your house,” which happened to be true Sunday morning for me at any rate. I was surrounded by men and women absorbed in prayer, calling up the people in our lives, their needs, their troubles. And our leaders: we prayed for wisdom.
Garrison has the same problem I often have during sermons. My mind wanders. Since Garrison is one-half comedian and one-half philosopher his mind wandered to an old joke:
…during the homily I thought about November and about the rabbi who stood at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and prayed for hours a day, week after week, year after year, and finally a guy asked him, “What are you praying for?” He said, “Peace. Justice. Honest leaders who serve the people.” The guy asked, “So how’s it going so far?” The rabbi said, “It’s like talking to a stone wall.”
Keillor finishes on a hopeful note. At least I think that I can read a little hope between his lines:
We sang the closing hymn to the Lord who shelters us under His wing and were dismissed to go serve God and the organist played a powerful Bach fugue and I walked out the door, skipping the coffee hour. After hearing Jeremiah, David, Paul, Luke, I’m not in the mood for small talk over coffee, especially not about politics, which is what’s on everyone’s mind. I’ve made dreadful mistakes, wasted time, indulged in self-pity and prideful ignorance, but I am a believer and it was worth my while to confirm that. I believe we’re all susceptible to lying awake at night imagining horrible things but eventually the truth dawns and we rise up and find our way to where we need to be, following the light.
I registered a lot of “pew time” as a child because my dad was a minister and we were at the church for every service. As an adult, my personal theology has been on a decades-long journey away from regular church attendance followed by a course change toward attendance as my time on earth gets shorter. It seems that the harder I try, the more confusion and less certainty I have. As I approach the end of life, I feel like I am in one of those dreams where I am about to take an exam that I have not studied for and I can’t find my way to the library where I might find the book I am supposed to have read. Like Keillor, I find comfort in attending church even if when I am in the pew the answers I am seeking are still elusive. For me, the hymns are soothing even if the minister’s words don’t answer my questions. It is amazing that there is a benefit in being there among others, some of whom I imagine are as confused as I am. I am even more amazed when I realize that it is probably true that other than a need to be there I may share very little of the worldview and political opinions of people in the next pew.
Two things I do believe are that everything came from something and that the key to our survival is contained in the rabbi’s prayer at the Wailing Wall for Peace, Justice, and Honest Leaders who serve the people. I am distressed that the process of selecting our leaders seems to have morphed into an exchange of lies about lies. In my theology, I don’t see God as being quite as active in history as some fundamentalists would lead us to believe. We were created with minds. We have agency. We can solve problems. We are capable of good judgment. We can see that an individual or national focus on self-interest usually has turned out to be a flawed strategy that leads to more grief. God doesn’t need to punish us. We are quite capable of bringing misery onto ourselves.
My theology also includes the hope that there is time before it is too late for us to find our way. I guess I hope that enlightenment and redemption are always possible. I believe that scripture is useful as a source of wisdom though not infallible. I always liked the description of the Bible offered by the theologian Marcus Borg who wrote Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally. He taught that the Bible wasn’t always factual, but it contained “truth.” Joseph Campbell, the champion of mythology and superheroes, was even more straightforward when he taught that myths contain truths that deserve our attention. Campbell and others are trying to tell us that these old stories are true at a level that goes far beyond the limits of what actually happened in time and space. Fredrick Buechner, the popular Christain writer who recently died, added to that mystery when he wrote:
In popular usage, a myth has come to mean a story that is not true. Historically speaking that may well be so. Humanly speaking, a myth is a story that is always true.
Scripture and mythology do offer individuals guidance as they search for the way toward a world that might work for everyone. What I glean from the wisdom of all of the world’s religions is that most of them advise more attention to others than to the “self.” That is the test that I will apply to those who seek my vote. I am not sure that I could pass my own test. At best I might score a “D” or a low “C.” I expect that the candidates for whom I vote, like me with my best effort, might get a “C” or “D” when it comes to “attention to others.” I am not going to vote for those who get an “F” on that test and suggest by their words that their rightful place is always first in line.
My wife enjoys expressing her political opinions on Facebook. This week she shared a post with a simple chart that says a lot. It occurs to me that the chart offers some benefit in thinking about how to “score” the candidates since their own ads don’t help me much.
My advice is that as you use the chart to evaluate candidates you just focus on the items and not on the answers that are suggested for the two political parties. I trust that you are wise enough to know that party affiliation does not always determine what an individual will do. I am thinking particularly of John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Liz Cheney. They are three politicians who could pass my test. They may be good examples of Republicans who don’t fit the picture the chart suggests as it suggests a one size fits all approach, and I know there are many others. I am also not so naive as to think that most Democrats are modern-day manifestations of St. Francis. We must work with what we have. The prime considerations in my analysis are do I think this politician will live up to their oath to support the Constitution and does their concern extend equally to all, where all includes all on the planet. To protect the Constitution and care enough about the planet to be willing to lead us to make sacrifices to protect our shared home will require selfless courage which is hard to imagine in a person who uses lies to gain office.
I admit that the little chart could start some arguments, but I think that it is a fair summary of the policies and legislative agendas that should concern us. It doesn’t cover everything. There is no mention of the war in Ukraine, foreign policy, trade policy, the Middle East, student debt relief, investments in infrastructure, housing policy, and education other than pre-K, but it is a good start. Party positions and individual attitudes on race, discrimination against people who are LGBTQIA+, critical race theory, white supremacy, and a host of cultural issues aren’t in the little chart. The chart is misleading because it assumes that every person in one party or the other falls into all of the same slots, but despite these limitations, if you forget the parties and apply the questions to individuals it is useful and at a high level the presentation can be a guide toward truth in an era of political falsehoods and misrepresentations.
I feel like any candidate that passes the test of the chart will be an asset in the search for equity and is likely to be a champion of policies that will improve the social determinants of health. I also believe that if the election is won by a majority who fail the test, the struggles for equity and for improvement in the social determinants of health will suffer a setback. The world will not end, but the road to better health will detour and will narrow, as we are challenged by an even steeper grade toward success than we have experienced since January 2017
I do believe in hope. I don’t pray well, but between now and election day like that rabbi at the Wall, I will be doing my best by hoping and praying for peace, justice, and honest leaders who serve the people. It will be the sum of our collective wisdom and not divine intervention that will give us an outcome from the election that will empower leaders who can help us make a little progress toward peace, justice, and better health for everyone.
Brown and Mostly Down
The last few weeks have been a gradual deconstruction process that is an annual event. All of the boats are out of the water. All of the inflatables including the giant loon float that my grandsons enjoyed just two months ago are deflated and stored for the winter. The porch furniture is covered. The swim float has been hauled away for storage, and the dock has been disassembled and is in the sideyard near the beach. There are two cords of neatly stacked wood in the woodshed behind the garage. We are ready for winter. Winter can come during fall. Over the years we have had snow before Halloween on occasion, and frequently have a big snowstorm before Thanksgiving. Every year is different and surprises are always possible so it is good to be ready.
It is always amazing to me to see how fast fall evolves. One day you have beautiful colors, and just a few days later you have bare limbs and a pile of dry brown leaves on the ground. The side-by-side pictures of the maple tree in my front yard taken a week apart tell a sad tale.
On a scale of one to ten, I will rate this fall’s show of color about a seven. The “big views” were not always A+, but if you looked for beauty, it was there to see and enjoy as today’s header nicely demonstrates. I lifted the picture as a screenshot from a lovely video that was produced by Peter Bloch, my neighbor. The video is entitled THE RIVER OF LEAVES ~ Above, Upon & Below. The video was produced earlier this month nearer to peak color. Peter filmed his video on the Blackwater River in Andover, New Hampshire which is about ten miles east of where I live. Peter takes his kayak, his drone, and his iPhone camera rigged for underwater photography on his many adventures and comes back with breathtaking videos. In his introduction to this four-minute video he writes:
Paddling season will be over soon, this past Sunday might have been our last best opportunity remaining which we spent on the Blackwater River in Andover NH. With the recent heavy rains, the flow in the stream was more than we usually see there, but combining that with the plentiful falling leaves, a wonderful phenomenon was created: a meandering river of floating leaves. Seen from above (by drone), from just above the surface of the water (using my kayak-cam system) and below with an iPhone protected by a scuba housing, you get to see this “river of leaves” in so many different ways!
There are now more leaves on the ground than on the limbs of the trees. Most of the leaves are now brown whether they are still aloft or are now a new carpet on the ground. The peak has passed so it is good to have Peter’s pictures to savor until everything is white. We can’t make the moment of the greatest color last, but we can reflect on the beauty we saw and be assured that no matter what happens in elections, wars, and pandemics, fall will come again, pretty soon.
Be well,
Gene
