Every Monday morning I am part of a small group that meets to discuss a few chapters of a book that we have been reading together. The books that we read are theological in nature, but related to an ongoing exploration of social justice. As I mentioned a few notes ago, the book we are currently studying is The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage by Joan Chittister who is a Benedictine Sister. As you might know if you have heard her in one of her public appearances, listened to her give a TED talk, or surmised if you clicked on the link to her book, Sister Chittister is not a fan of the status quo and does not suffer fools. She takes a stand on women’s rights in society and in the church. She is a defender of the environment, and is an outspoken critic of government and business practices that create economic inequity. She interprets the gospels as a call for social justice and relief from the oppression of systems of domination. It is easy to surmise that she believes that many Christians are deaf to the call for social change as a lasting act of mercy. She makes the startlingly observation that doers of charitable acts will always be honored while those who advocate for solving the problems that create a need for charity will be ostracized and harassed. To put it in the plain English of an easily understood example, we love to praise those who give turkeys to the poor at Thanksgiving, and toys for tots at Christmas, but those seeking to establish a living wage that would enable people who live in poverty even after working more than forty hours a week at multiple minimum wage jobs to live with the dignity of having the ability to buy turkeys and toys for their own children, will frequently be met by ridicule and resistance.
Another book that I have recently mentioned that has excited me is Adam Gopnik’s A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism. It is essentially a manifesto for the religion of secular humanism as manifested in classical liberal thought. I find it interesting that all of the several reviews of the book that I have read have been written by conservative critics who respect Gopnik’s balanced treatment of the subject. The link above is to the New York Times review written by the very respectable conservative critic of President Trump, David Frum. Gopnik contends that liberalism is basically about moving the discussion toward love, mercy, fairness, concern for others, and a desire to improve everything from oneself to the sewer system. He spends a lot of time connecting the virtues of liberalism to Christian theology that calls for ministering to the miseries of the poor, the ill, and the displaced. He acknowledges that there is now a schism within Christian thought that Sister Chittister would also confirm that obscures those foundational liberal objectives with a conservative defense of marriage, an attack on all lifestyles that are not heterosexual, a militant rejection of Roe v. Wade, and the desire to force their opinions on others through a coopted political system and control of the judiciary. To push their views they are willing to dance with the potentially authoritarian wannabes of the far right.
One of the members of my little group asks the same question at the end of each of our Monday morning discussions, “So, what are we going to do?” Ironically, this fellow is constantly doing something. He fills his day attending to the needs of others. He is on the board of the local hospital. He is on the board of the local land trust. He established a program to supply free firewood to disadvantaged families for miles around our affluent little town. He and his wife are hands on stalwarts of our local food pantry. He counsels young people struggling to make career decisions. He finds housing and furniture for women in transition from abusive relationships, and is helping a transgendered young man who has been rejected by his family and is uncertain of his place in the world. He finds jobs and housing for people coming out of incarceration and substance abuse programs.
His most impressive ability is organizing other people to help with his projects. He frequently conscripts me and my wife into his humanitarian projects. He will take your money, but he is most interested in your time. He collects people and places them into activities that they would never have had the initiative to launch, or even join, on their own. I am overwhelmed by the list of his endeavors and what he has accomplished over the last decade since coming to our town. This man and his wife are a team that has taught many of us that working together to give someone a lift in a moment of crisis can become the nidus of social transformation in our community and provides those who offer the help a great sense of joy.
The Monday morning book group is his creation. I should say that it was his “launch” because what usually happens is that he starts an activity and then when it has momentum he convinces others to take it on as their responsibility or the activity become self sustaining. As an example of his ability to transfer good works to others, my wife is now managing the “wood ministry.” One of the members of our little group is a retired engineer who can build or repair anything. He built his own house out of wood that he harvested from his own land and milled into planks with his own saws. He also can put cars together out of pieces and parts from local junk yards. You guessed it, transportation is a big problem in rural New Hampshire. If you do not have a car it is hard to get to work, get to the grocery store, or get to the doctor. The engineer has put several people into serviceable and safe cars for free. If you need a car to get to a better job, or if the car you have been using no longer runs or fails inspection, he will help you even if it requires that that he find and install a new engine in the car that has failed you. When someone in our town has cancer and can’t make it to Dartmouth for their appointment with a specialist, or for their chemo or radiation, you can be sure that a list of volunteer drivers is quickly created, and there will probably be another list developed of those willing to deliver hot meals for the duration of the illness or treatment.
It has occurred to me recently that the “Lords Prayer” which is recited in most protestant churches every Sunday and is the “our father” prayer in Catholicism contains within it a call for social service that we frequently overlook. Anne Lamont, an inspirational and frequently humorous Christian writer with a colorful past has characterized good prayers as a combination of praises, thanks, and requests. Or as she says, Hoorah! Thanks! Help! The “our father” or Lord’s Prayer does contain those components. In case it is not a part of your tradition, or if it is but its been a while and you need the words to follow my point, here it is:
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.
The admonition that “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” is a prayer for social service and mercy at this time and in this place. That request for help in contending with the challenges of this world is aligned with the sort of focus on equity and mercy that Gopnik describes as part of liberal thought, and is highly aligned with activities that lead to “joy” as described in David Brooks’ recent best seller, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. It is unfortunate that many of us have said those lines so many times that their meaning has been lost in the repetitive chant.
Another friend and fishing buddy who is a member of the Monday group has a metastatic cancer. He does not have the energy he once had, and he has had multiple hospitalizations over the past year, but he shows great courage in both his will to live, and in his desire to use whatever time he has remaining, “To make a difference.” He has begun to respond to the question, “So, what are we going to do?” that always closes our little sessions. This spring he traveled many times to Concord to demonstrate for the abolition of the death penalty in our state, and was pleased when the state senate overturned by one vote the governor’s veto of the bill that abolished executions. Now, he is recruiting friends to join him in the effort to express the need for change in our immigration policies and the treatment of refugees and migrants at our borders by joining a three day march next month that is planned for our state. Closer to home he is organizing support for the expansion of affordable “workforce” housing in our affluent community. The people who work in the restaurants, the retail businesses, in the only grocery store, in support positions in our hospital and at the local college can’t afford to live here. Some commute long distances for jobs that do not pay enough to enable them to live in the town where they work.
The picture in the header is a shot of the sign in front of our only low income housing in New London. It has the ironic name, “Bittersweet.” If you click on the link you will discover that it is easier to get a plot at the cemetery on Old Main than it is to get an apartment at Bittersweet in this life. The proposal that my friend supports to create new affordable workforce housing generated a lot of affect. The town meeting hall was filled with citizens that wanted to speak at the last meeting of the Zoning Board. All of the “not in my back yard arguments” have emerged as the matter has been considered, and the discussion was extended to the next meeting which is scheduled for July 16. The original project has been reduced in size from about 80 units to 40 units, but resistance persists despite the fact that it is a solid project where all residents will be employed. It is not going to produce a project like something from Roxbury, the South Side of Chicago, or the South Bronx in the 1950s. The last line of resistance, after concerns about the environmental impact on the “watershed” of the lake I live on, seems to be the obvious argument that it will change the character of the community. My friend’s contention is that the character of the community is exactly what needs to change. He grew up in poverty in a large family without a father, and although he escaped poverty himself, and is now quite comfortable except for his cancer, he has empathy for the struggle of those who are trapped in poverty by housing costs that are not compatible with their earnings. He has developed a specific answer for the weekly question, “So what are we going to do.”
Adequate housing and its relationship to a living wage are huge issues that impact all of us, even if those of us who are fortunate enough to have adequate incomes and secure housing do not recognize our own vulnerability to the issue. Housing is also a big issue for retirees and people of my age group who live on low incomes primarily from pensions and social security that are not increasing at the same rate as their cost of housing. There is an article in the New York Times today that addresses the housing concerns for the elderly in the Bay area of California. There is a growing conversation about the importance of housing to health, and the contributions of housing shortages to the pain of poverty and the vulnerability it creates to health with subsequent hidden costs to us all through the cost of care. If you want to learn more about the impact of our failed housing policy, I would suggest Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, a book that startled me and that I have recommended before.
Sister Joan points out that there is merit in contemplation, but all contemplation and no action changes nothing. I am going to do my best to be a foot-soldier in the causes that my friends believe are calling for their service and immediate action. I am not at all sure that new housing will be built now in my community, but I am sure that it is an issue that needs to be considered in the long term planning for better health in my community and in the whole nation. I dare say it is an issue in need of consideration and action by both you and the healthcare organization where you work, or from which you get care. I am happy that my friend is committed to bringing more attention to the housing problems in our community that have been ignored for a long time, and I am confident that if not now, some day, there will be change. Gopnik asserts, and I would also suggest that the experience of the “Saints” confirms, that change does occur even when the ideas seem impossible, and are even foreign to “tradition.” The necessities for change are a willingness to persist, and a skill at bringing more and more people into the conversation.
If one spends any time thinking critically about the work ahead to achieve a state where “God’s will” is done on earth with anything like heavenly perfection, you quickly realize that a heaven on earth is a utopian dream. We all know that every quest for utopia, and there have been many, has been a failure. Unicorns and utopia exist only in dreams and in our imagination. The Triple Aim is a utopian concept. Improving the social determinants of health step by step in town by town, and city by city, is a long shot that is possible, though, like the original vision of Christianity as a movement against social injustice in a word dominated by Roman exploitation, the effort to try could contribute to the improvement of the lives of millions even if the final goal is never achieved. So, I ask you, have you considered how you relate to efforts to improve the social determinants of health? My observation is much like what Brooks reports. Those people who do seek to make a difference, and who do try to change the activity from passing out toys and turkeys to fundamentally addressing the need for reform, do find the effort to be rewarding, even a source of joy, and they are eventually rewarded by being able to measure a small advancement on the road toward perfect. They are driven by the belief that even if we can’t achieve a goal in our lifetime, we are still called to begin the effort. So, what are we/you going to do to address the inequities expressed in the social determinants of health?
