Good Debt and Bad Debt

The U.S. has a lot of debt. The sad reality, however, is that if we were a country truly interested in "liberty and justice" for all, we would have a lot more debt.

In this piece, Bill Quigley of the Center for Constitutional Rights explains how much we ought to, by rights, owe Haiti, as recompense for centuries of exploitation and extraction and oppression.

He cites Colin Powell's invocation of the Pottery Barn rule applying to foreign policy, i.e., "If you break it, you own it." (Except that what he really means is "you pay for it," not that you should really "own" it.)

If the U.S. paid appropriate reparations to every developmentally-delayed country whose problems we created, there would be no money left for anything else. We have broken a lot of things, or at least ripped them open, shaken out everything we could get and then tossed them aside like an empty Milk Duds box.

Personally, I would feel a lot better being in debt because we were paying off those sorts of things, rather than being in debt because we bought way too many useless, destructive missiles and paid way too much money to military contractors for things we shouldn't have gotten involved with in the first place.

Recanting

In the interests of truth, I find myself forced to recant. In the weeks since my post about bathrobes being an anachronism, I have begun wearing my bathrobe more. I have become convinced that there is a role for the bathrobe in the post-modern, multi-bathroom world, if more so in places where there is real winter.

I do think this has had something to do with rather unusually cold temperatures here in the Heart of Dixie. When I go into my little, back porch home office early on a Sunday morning to write my sermon, I use a space heater if it's cold. As it turns out, a bathrobe is the perfect thing to keep the space heater from frying the side of my right thigh while the rest of me is being warmed. I am also coming to appreciate the way a bathrobe, over my pajamas, thoroughly covers the middle region where there are otherwise occasional gaps in coverage.

So I sit, cozily, corrected.

I am, however, still scandalized by the idea of putting on a bathrobe after bathing without fully drying yourself first. That's just crazy.

One of the Many Dangers of Words

It's possible that we should have to have licenses to use words. Except, of course, that such regulation would just create more problems.

Why do I suggest this? Because words are slipper and they can lead us astray so easily. One must be very careful with them, because they're so pretty, they can get you started and before you know it, you've wandered into using them to say things you don't understand or even really believe.

I tried to write a poem yesterday. Now, I am not a particularly experienced or trained poet, or even really a poet at all, which is probably where the trouble began. I don't have a "poetic license." It had a really nice beginning, I thought.

"The beauty in the rainy day is in the cup of tea."

But I had no idea where it was supposed to go after that. It's possible, I suppose that it wasn't a poem at all, but merely a new aphorism. But I stubbornly refused to admit defeat and earlier today plowed shamelessly forward.

And it just got uglier and uglier. Before I knew it, I was writing as though I actually thought an excuse to go shoe shopping was a cause for celebration.

Why on earth would I want to use a poem to promote such an idea? That is not me. That is not honest. I don't want to join in with the affectation of pretending to feel guilty about spending money on unnecessary items that were probably made in sweatshops while actually giving a wink implying that we all know how much fun it is. I truly don't. Call me earnest, but I mostly have only one pair of shoes for each absolutely necessary category, and don't replace them until they're dead. (And yes, there are some exceptions to that rule, but that is not the point.)

The point is that, in search of words - any words - to fill out my poem that was struggling to exist, I ended up saying things I didn't really mean.

Words can seduce us with their mere prettiness and cause us to lose sight of their meaning and their impact. That is dangerous.

And yet, I believe I'd rather take a chance in a world where words are free, than live in one where we have to apply to use them. Despite the danger, the alternative is chilling. Let's just be careful, okay?

Stop Saying That!

I'm getting really tired of pundits and activists saying that "the message from Scott Brown's election is clear".

No, it's not clear. I wouldn't even call it a message, actually. It's an election result. It may reflect some shifts in the current political reality, but it is abundantly not clear what they actually are.

How do I know this? Because everyone who uses that phrase follows it with a different conclusion.

What is crystal clear is that everyone wants to spin the current reality to their best advantage and they do that by pretending the current reality is clearer than it is.

My advice? Just assume reality is never going to be very clear and don't trust anyone who tells you different.

Free Advice Based on Real Life

If you're ever in one of those awkward, potentially explosive situations that you see in the movies all the time, where one person answers the phone and it's their psycho ex and they hang up really fast but the current love interest wants to know who it was, here's what you can say to cover: "It was a recording that wanted to tell me about how to pay for funeral expenses."

Really, you could. Because that just happened to me. So it has to be believable because it happened in real life.

Not that I'm encouraging anyone to lie to current love interests or even hang up on psycho former love interests, but just in case.

Save Us, Jeebus!

It's been a bad week for progressives.

First, there was the republican take-over of the late Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts that is apparently going to lead to a total rolling over by the majority party and the failure to pass health care reform.

Then the frightening decision from the Supreme Court giving corporations even more "personhood" and rights than they already had (which is to say, in effect, more rights than people who aren't corporations).

Then Air America declared bankruptcy.

And now I'm reading that American aid to Haiti was massively mis-guided in that crucial first 72-hour period after the earthquake. By being obsessively focused on "security", we managed to screw up and delay the arrival of actual aid that would have helped.

When I think about where we were as a movement just a year ago -- so full of hope, so expectant -- it makes me sad. I am very disappointed in Obama, though not surprised. He had a huge mess to clean up, yes, but he's also made some very distressing decisions. But even more so, the backlash has been unbelievable.

Literalist Christians of the type who are prone to believing the devil is a person have this thing about how right after a person invites Jesus into their heart and gets born again is when the devil is going to attack them the most. I think that's a pretty good description of where the progressive movement is right now. Let's stay strong and focused on what we know is right and good.

Union Theological Schools Mr. Brooks

Sometimes David Brooks says smart things. Sometimes he should just be quiet, as in this recent tone-deaf piece about Haiti.

Fortunately, better-informed people than I are available to refute him. Tom F. Driver of Union Theological Seminary has a very solid response.

Someone Else's Thoughts on Harry Reid

Weren't we just talking about skin color bias here at Creme Anglaise? Well, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, one of the brilliant bloggers at The Nation offers a refreshing perspective on the recent media fuss about Harry Reid's comments about Obama, namely that the truly disturbing parts were the ones no one really brought up: that is, why being lighter-skinned and not speaking with a "dialect" would make it easier to get elected president. It is, in fact, true, but shouldn't that be the problem, not the fact that someone said so. (However inarticulately. How many people do you know who can talk about race articulately?)

Missing the Point

So evidently, John Yoo -- he of Bush administration torture memo fame -- was recently on The Daily Show with John Stewart. And evidently, John Stewart failed to nail him.

I know this not because I saw the interview (though I'll probably eventually watch it), but because I read this article about it in Slate magazine. I would probably be disappointed if I watched it, but I'm even more disappointed by how Christopher Beam tries to make Stewart's failure seem inevitable.

Beam's point is that it is impossible to nail Yoo because (he doesn't use these words, but others have) "he was just doing his job." His argument is that You can say that he didn't encourage torture; he merely gave a legal opinion about whether a president can authorize torture or not.

That is such a cop-out. John Yoo is not simply a lawyer. He is not even firstly a lawyer. He's a person, a human being.

The way to nail someone in this situation is not to get into the specifics of who did what and whether that implies responsibiliy or not. The way to do it is to back up, way up, and force them to look at the big picture from the perspective of a human being.

If I were interviewing him, here's what I would say: So, John Yoo, you were the lawyer who wrote these memos. How does that make you feel? You will go down in history as being part of this dark and evil period in American history. How does your stomach react to that? Sure, if you hadn't been there, they would have found someone else to do what they wanted done. But they didn't; they had you. How does it feel to be that person, the one who actually did it?

The point is that you don't nail him for the technicality; you nail him for either not realizing what was going on in the big picture, or not caring. Either he was duped, or he's a really bad person. Either way, to talk about feelings and legacies and big picture would bring that out.

Maybe I should call John Stewart.

Just When You Thought Things Were Getting Better...

I am a person of pallor, as one friend suggested we call ourselves. I am actually a person of pretty pallor. And I have had my forays into the world of tan-from-a-bottle. So I suppose I should not be surprised when the opposite happens.

But to tell the truth, I really thought skin-lightening creams were a thing of the past. I associate them with the 50s and 60s. Clearly I was wrong.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, skin-lightening creams are very much still around. And people are being hurt by them. They have illegal levels of steroids in them and they destroy people's skin, making it so thin it bruises when touched.

This is so disheartening. When will we ever get to a point that people can thrive and be happy with whatever shade of skin they have?

I'm also a little embarrassed by how clueless I was about how prevalent the use of this junk still is. It is my belief that great strides could be made in racial reconciliation if we got women of different races together to talk about beauty products and practices. One of the deepest moments of connection I've ever had was during an urban studies semester when young women, black and white, had an open, sincere conversation about hair. This stuff is a very personal part of who we are, and discussing it builds bridges that go far deeper than skin.

Update from Haiti

I encourage you to read this blog written by our Global Ministries missionaries in Haiti, Kim and Patrick Bentrott. Kim has written an account of their last 72 hours that brought the devastation to a comprehensible level for me.

What struck me as I started reading is how in the first moments of the earthquake, they thought it was something happening just to their house. I think this is very common. My first thoughts during the only California earthquake I experienced was that a large box had fallen off my suitemate's wardrobe in the next room.

I wonder if this is a modern impulse. Kim reports on people crying in the streets that the world was ending. That is, of course, an equally inaccurate assumption, but in the opposite direction. I wonder if it is the result of a more communal culture though, to assume what happens to you is happening to everyone, as opposed to thinking you're the only one.

We continue to pray. It's going to get worse before it gets better, as supplies already there run out before others can arrive and the lack of sanitation builds up to dangerous levels.

Procrastination Poem on a Day of Directionlessness

There are so many things I do not know.
So many directions I will not go.
When I ask what to do, the silence rings clear.
For a moment, I notice that life is right here.

"He Does Not Willingly Afflict or Grieve Anyone" -- Weekly Devotional Message

Lamentations 2:11-12, 19, 3:31-33 – My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they fainted like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom. … Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginnings of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of the children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. … For the Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.” (NRSV)


When a cataclysmic tragedy like the one unfolding in Haiti confronts us, it can make us feel physically ill, with churning stomachs, full of bile. The wretchedness of the situation – already so tragic on a daily basis and now compounded by utter devastation of what little there was before – simply defies easy comprehension. The footage on television repeats an endless cycle of mind-blowing suffering that we are tempted to turn away from. We knew, before all this, that Haiti was the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, but it’s taken an extreme disaster to truly command our attention.

In moments of historical disruption like this, we all become theologians. Where is God? The biblical witness shows us that the very human impulse to find a cause, to assign blame, has been with us for centuries. Some may blame God, while others may blame those who are suffering, implying that they did something worthy of such punishment. The Book of Lamentations is full of these very human assumptions, mixed in with its beautiful poetry evoking compassion for those who suffer.

But despite our inclinations, in contradiction even to portions of scripture, the witness of Jesus Christ teaches us that we will not find God in the midst of the blame game. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus demonstrated for us, once and for all, the truth of how God relates to suffering: God longs to relieve suffering, and God shares in the pain of all who suffer. Where is God? In the streets of Haiti, crying in the night and fainting from hunger. Where is God? In the souls of all those who will reach out to help, being transformed by the experience of opening their hearts to another’s pain. Let us join God there.


Collect for the Week: God of Compassion, who took on our pain that we might learn how to respond to others’ suffering, grant that our hearts might be made strong and faithful in the face of tragedy, that we might offer help and hope with your hands. Through Jesus Christ and in the communion of the Holy Spirit, we pray, Amen.

Irony of Ironies

Weird. A supposedly conservative white guy expresses extremely well the ambivalence I've been feeling about the movie "Avatar" because of its White-Guy-Saves-Things theme. He does a great job of laying out succinctly what is wrong with this picture.

Happiness in Costa Rica

I've never been to Costa Rica. Evidently Nicholas Kristof has though, recently, because he appears to be reporting from there. His most recent column reveals shocking news: investing in education instead of war makes peoples happier. I would say I told you so, but that would be unbecoming.

Two Kinds of Twofer

In the olden days, people in churches sometimes thought they were getting a "twofer" when they hired a married clergyman, because his wife would be an unpaid assistant. The stereotype is that she would accompany the choir, lead the women's group and teach Sunday school. Some clergy wives did that. Some did not.

These days, there is a new kind of twofer: the clergywoman.

Not to disparage the huge assistance my husband and many other clergy husbands give their clergy spouses, but the truth is that clergy women end up doing their jobs and numerous other things that no church would expect (or perhaps even allow) a male clergy person to do.

Case in point today, my Walking Buddy, an Episcopal priest, who made 4 King Cakes for their Epiphany celebration today. You can bet your sweet cheese crepes that her predecessor (a man) never did the baking. His wife might have, but I bet if it happened, it was a lay person.

It's the kind of thing I think about when I'm ironing the church's tablecloths. I wonder if being more public about this reality would make certain churches more likely to hire women. Would that be a good thing?


Let me add as a postscript, however, that this issue makes me feel even more sympathy for single clergy women, as I am deeply aware and grateful for all the ways in which my helpmeet makes my ministry possible. He cooks, he does computer stuff, and he's even taught Sunday school. Very few clergy women are as fortunate as I am.

"Very Bad News for the Continued Legitimacy of the Death Penalty"

I had never heard of the American Law Institute. Perhaps you are a lawyer and you have. Perhaps you are more schooled in the intricacies of death penalty law and you have.

But as far as I can tell, this is good news. Apparently, the American Law Institute was a group of lawyers and judges who had spent quite some time coming up with legal justifications and guidelines that aimed to make the death penalty palatable. For instance, they created suggestions for the sorts of crimes and criminals to which it should be applied, in the hopes of making it less racist and arbitrary.

And now they have given up. The group has officially pronounced that the American death penalty system is broken beyond fixing, that it will never be consistent enough to be constitutional and just.

Apparently, this group was the "only intellectually respectable support" the death penalty had. And now they're done. This will change things. Hallelujah.

Silly Road Signs

In another installment of things that amuse (or perhaps annoy) me on the road...

On the way home from the beach the other day, we kept passing those flashing word signs in construction zones. Depending on your angle and where the rest of traffic is, they can be a little dangerous. And these ones in particular said something especially annoying. (No, it was not "Please pardon our progress" though that is a little annoying.)

The sign said "USE EXTREME CAUTION".

That is really dumb advice. Extreme caution is how accidents happen. Extreme caution is what makes people unable to make left turns until someone behind them rear-ends them. Extreme caution is what makes people drive so slowly they cause accidents. Extreme caution messes with the living flow of traffic and screws things up generally.

I am not a fan of extreme caution. Not in driving and not in life at large. Extreme caution is what people are thinking should be imposed because of recent security lapses in the aviation industry. But the goal of extreme caution, that is risk-free life, is a mirage, an idolatrous mirage. And in the meantime, extreme caution causes more problems than it solves.

Enough with the bad driving advice on road signs, already!

A Slight Bow to the Tradition of Resolutions

So I'm not really into New Year's resolutions. They seem contrived and destined to create a sense of failure. You should resolve to do something because you're really ready and wanting to change something, not because of a date on a calendar.

But I have to admit that this "Complete Couch Potato's Guide to a Healthy 2010: Ten Easy Ways to Improve Health" caught my eye. Probably because I figured it would be funny. It's not really, but it did have some useful information.

Now mind you, I don't want anyone thinking I'm actually suggesting that Huffington Post is a reliable source of medical information, but they can't be that wrong, can they? For those of you who won't click the link, I will repeat her list here, but she gives lots of explanation that you really should go read.

1. Floss
2. Spend Time in the Sun
3. Don't Drink Soda
4. Hang Out with Healthy People
5. Promote Good Posture
6. Don't Worry, Be Happy
7. Eat Less Processed Food
8. Arrive Early
9. Get 8 Hours of Sleep
10. Listen to Your Body

I've got a few of these more or less taken care of, mostly because I sleep a lot and I don't drink soda (or pop, or soda pop, or Coke). But when a list starts with flossing, I know I'm in trouble. Flossing is not my strong suit.

There was a period of time a couple years ago when I got pretty into flossing, after my dental hygienist described it as "disrupting colonies of bacteria." That made it seem almost exciting. I'm definitely better at it than I was before that, thanks partially to her turn of phrase but mostly (environmentalists stop reading now!) to those little plastic flossers. They make it so much easier.

This article, though, seems to take her argument and run with it. Supposedly, not flossing leads to all sorts of terrible things. So maybe that will be my resolution. I could probably use a resolution about posture too, but one thing at a time, yo?

I've been doing better at exercising (Thanks, WB!) and had been considering getting back into yoga, for the sake of my back. Being happy and getting more sun is always a good thing. It's weird to me, though, in the wake of the studies that show people who hang out with healthy people are healthier, that any advice columnist really thinks someone is going to dump their fat family and friends in order to get healthier. I just don't think it works that way.

God Bless Hillary Clinton

According to a recent news article in the NY Times, one of the things Hillary Clinton has been doing all year as Secretary of State is (very carefully) coordinating the collection of funds to pay for a U.S. pavilion at the upcoming World's Fair in Shanghai.

They needed $61 million. So far, she's found about $54 million. Pretty good for a crappy economy year, I'd have to say.

The article explains that there is a federal law prohibiting tax payer money from covering the costs of a World's Fair pavilion, but it doesn't explain why. I would be interested to know what the reasons are. I can imagine that there may be some very good ones, as there are, no doubt, good reasons why Ms. Clinton has been so careful about her role in the raising of these funds from private companies.

But I will tell you this. The last World's Fair I attended was in Germany in 2000. There was no U.S. pavilion there. People told me that the American exhibition was the McDonald's in one corner of the park. It was sehr embarrassing. I would have no problem with my tax money helping to pay for a great U.S. exhibit. And I'm really glad Ms. Clinton is making it happen, even if it is just because it's in China this time. The rest of the world notices when we're not there.

Final Installment

Maira Kalman's final installment of "The Pursuit of Happiness" focuses mostly on George Washington. It is, as ever, lovely. The whole thing is coming out as a book in October 2010. Perhaps someone will buy it for me for Christmas. "Savor the moment" she says. Along with hopes about lovely lemon cakes. I do like that woman's sensibilities and her art.

Here's a Resolution For America

He doesn't come out and say it, but David Brooks suggests one: How about we start acting like non-delusional grown-ups? And even more so, allow our leaders to talk to us like that's who we are?

I like that guy, even though he is supposedly a conservative.

Guesses about 2010

This is, in many respects, going to be a big year. My congregation is turning 125. We are celebrating 30 years of women in leadership. I will be turning 35. Lots of things are slated to happen. So, some guesses about the year.

1. Things will be very different a year from now. That is, more different than they are from a year ago right now.

2. I will not have a much clearer sense of what happens next a year from now than I do now, despite my feeling that I should.

3. Some things that are not now very clear will be clearer.

4. People might stop asking me when I'm going to have children. (Doubtful.)

5. The country will grow more accustomed to having Barack Obama be the president and settle down. (Hopefully.)