Could You Be a Cop in 2016? Think About It.

“Society needs heroes, but most policemen, firemen, and soldiers don’t want to become heroes; they want to be men and women doing their jobs. They want to be supported and understood.”  
-- Karen Rodwill Solomon, “The Price They Pay”

A confession right up front.

I could never be a cop: a police officer.  Strap on a gun, get in a car and ride the streets, asked by my fellow citizens to be the dividing line, the defense, between social lawlessness and social order. Between public safety and public fear.  I just don’t have the guts to do that kind of work nor the temperament.  It absolutely takes a special kind of woman or man to work in law enforcement.

To wade into the worst of what humans can do to each other or themselves.  To show up in a dangerous situation not knowing what might happen next.  To figure out in a split second who is at risk and needs protection and who is a danger and needs to be stopped.  To be called in when all hell is often literally breaking loose and then have the profound responsibility to sort it all out. And now, in the age of cameras everywhere, to do so under the often wary eye of the citizenry whom cops are called to serve and protect.

So think about it.  Could you be a cop?

Live under the microscope of constant scrutiny and constant expectations to do the right thing, and not just some of the time but every single time?  I couldn’t handle that kind of daily pressure.  And these days we ask our cops to do much, much more than just uphold the law.  Who deals with the problems of homelessness more than any one else? Cops.  Domestic violence? Cops.  Natural disasters? Cops. The opioid crisis, thousands of addicts dying of overdoses on the streets of our towns and cities? Cops. Who ensures that protests against police are, for the most part, peaceful, the first amendment protected?  Cops. Who operates in a nation with more civilian owned firearms than almost any other country on earth? Cops. 

Cops are also just human, heroic and flawed, like the rest of us. They make mistakes. They sometimes respond wrongly, badly, violently, in the heat of the moment. They can be racist and biased just like the rest of humanity, like you and me. That’s the way it is with any calling or profession.  There are good cops and bad cops, just like there are good ministers and bad ministers, good politicians and bad politicians, good doctors and bad doctors. 

We as civilians are right to expect the highest of ideals and hopes in all the ways we as the public interact with law enforcement.  We are right to demand equal justice and treatment for all people, regardless of skin color or class, or any “profile” which marks us as a human being.  But we also need to remember this truth too: that the overwhelming numbers of police officers in our communities try their very best every day to protect and to serve us.  They put their lives on the line for us, every single day. 

The challenge is that the hundreds of thousands of these good, “normal”, even boring interactions don’t make the news.  Don’t sell newspapers or get the lead on the 11 o’clock news.  Don’t show up on a Facebook feed or Twitter. A baby safely delivered in the back of a squad car.  A violent situation defused.  A burglary foiled. A person on the street safely dropped off at a shelter.  A car accident handled with compassion and care.  A parking ticket delivered with courtesy.

In a very real way, when policing is done at its best, cops reflect the wider community in which they serve. They come from that community.  They get that community and the people therein. Then “they” are not “they”. “They” are us.  

So…could you be a cop? Me?  I’m thankful that there are still women and men who dare to answer “yes” to that question.     

MEMO: FROM GOD TO HUMANS...Go Outside and Play!!!

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me."  –Walt Whitman

“Go out and play and I don’t want to see you back here until supper!”

That’s what I remember as my Mom’s marching orders, in the sweet months from early spring to late fall, as a boy growing up in the suburbs of Boston.  Those may not have been her exact words, but I learned that lesson well.  So now any chance I get to go outside or to be outside, to escape the confines of an inside space and play: I’m all in for “out”.  Outside: where the grass is green and the air is warm and the light is God given and the boundaries seem so endless. 

Outside.

Out: from hermetically sealed air conditioned offices and bedrooms, where it can feel as if I am living in a giant refrigerator crisper drawer. Out: from behind a desk piled with papers and a computer overflowing with emails, my window giving me a glimpse of the place “out there” I really want to be.  Out of my car sitting in Mass Turnpike traffic, crawling along at 14 miles an hour, to my bike, breezing along at 14 miles per hour on a sun dappled back road. 

Out. 

If there is one command Mother Nature gives to us this time of year, it is one simple piece of natural advice.  GET OUT!  Out of a suit and into a bathing suit.  Out: from sitting in front of a TV ballgame and instead out to the ballpark for a real game, the crunch of peanut shells underfoot, the cry of “PLAY BALL” echoing around some ancient stadium. Out: from being nose to nose with a smart phone to being face to face with a sky full of stars on a balmy summer evening, to marvel at the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Milky Way, spilled across the heavens.

Out: even when it’s wicked hot, like it is now, as we descend into the furnace of our first New England heat wave of the year.  Even when the bugs bite and the ticks tickle and the moths flutter so annoyingly all around us.  Even when hot sands burn our feet or poison ivy gets in the way.  Even when sweat is the price to pay for a noontime walk.  I think all those outside downsides are well worth it.

It’s no mistake that when the Creator of the universe began shaping our world, God made a garden, outside, for humans to call home.  Not a house.  Not a shelter.  Not even a tent or a lean to. And certainly not an AC unit in sight. That’s why we call the outside places that feel like heaven on earth “Eden”. 

For us humans are made to be outside.  Made to go barefoot. Made to wander into the woods and listen for the songs of birds and the buzz of bugs.  Made to see the natural world, not as some power to be tamed or pushed away, but instead to know nature as a primordial gift from God, to be embraced with enthusiasm and thanksgiving. 

According to the unofficial calendar of summer, we’re coming up on the halfway point of this all too short time of year. The 4^th of July is in the rear view mirror and Labor Day is beginning to loom up ahead.  So here’s my spiritual advice for all of us in the handful of days we have left before school and work and a return to the September routine.

GO OUT AND PLAY!

Make an outside summer 2016 bucket list and then start checking off the items.  My list? To sit in the shade of the back porch in a cozy chair and lose myself in a book for one long afternoon. To buy a frozen treat from a local ice cream truck, as it warbles it’s off key song, and then eat that chilled concoction so fast that I get a brain freeze.  To hop on my bike and pedal my way to some town center or lost highway I’ve never seen before.  To tend my little garden of three tomato plants and then enjoy that red and ripe fruit come August. To stand outside under a warm summer rain shower, look for a rainbow in the sky and not worry about getting wet.  

I’m getting out to play. Today. Right now. Eden awaits.  May you find your personal Eden too.  See you on the outside!

What Does It Mean to Be An American In These Days of Rage and Fear?

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union...”     --preamble, the United States Constitution, 1789

What does it mean to be an American in 2016, one of the approximately 324 million men, women and children who call the United States of America home?

Is it all about geography, living within the borders of the third largest country in the world by population, the third biggest by land mass? America: a beautiful place that stretches from the rainy forests of the upper northwest to the balmy Florida Keys in the southeast; from the red hot deserts of Baja, California to the sparsely peopled towns of upper Maine.  Throw in Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico too, and we’re talking about a huge, sprawling union, unlike any other on the earth.

Is living in a certain place in the United States of America what makes us American?

Maybe to be American is about statistics, figuring out who the “average” American is, when we sift through and sort out our census numbers. Who is that “American”? She’s a 38 year old married woman, with no children, who works in a white collar salaried job, lives in a home she owns in or near a city. She went to college but didn’t finish her degree. She’s Christian, but didn’t go to church last Sunday, nor did she vote in the last Presidential election.

Is that the definition of an American?  May work for some, but certainly not for every one.

What does it mean to call one’s self “American”? To claim that title, with all its privileges and with all its responsibilities?

That’s a hard question, not easily answered in a 700 word essay.  But maybe like me you’ve been thinking about, praying about this question of America.  Worrying about the huge challenges we face as a people, in these hellacious days for our nation.  These hot and scary and sometimes bloody summer days and nights, when it can feel as if America is coming apart at the seams, descending into social chaos. Has the American dream become the American nightmare?  Do any of us still dare to listen for the ancient hope of “we the people” forming a “more perfect union”?

After San Bernardino. After Orlando. After Saint Paul. After Baton Rouge. After Dallas. 

Before a November election already marked by fiery rhetoric and ugly politics. What do we owe one another, we who call the United States our home?  What connects us?  What knits us as one civic body?  What binds us together in community? 

Yes, we know all too well that which continually separate us into warring camps. Class and race.  Sexual orientation and family structure, who we love and how we love.  Religion, the God we choose to worship, or no God. Civilians and police officers.  Gun owners and gun opponents.  Republicans and Democrats.  But if the only things which mark us as America and Americans are the walls of fear that keep us apart, what can bring us together? Get us talking with each other and not just at each other?  Give us the faith to reach out to each other in love and trust, not just with anger and accusations? 

What does it mean to be an American? This is what I believe. 

To be an American, heck to just be a human, I must have the courage to see in “the other” a neighbor, not a stranger. I must have the perspective to remember that the overwhelming number of people in my world are folks of goodwill, not bad intent. Folks who desire what I want.  A safe place to call home.  The freedom to care for me and my loved ones.  The opportunity to pursue happiness. 

Most important, I must have the spiritual commitment to imagine what life is like for that “other” fellow child of God with whom I live in this United States of America. What is it really like to be a police officer trying her best to keep the peace and be a guardian of the neighborhood? What is it like to be an African-American male and live under constant stress at the mistrustful attitudes of so many of the white folks in his life? What is it like to be the parents of a young transgender man who went out to a dance party and never came back home?  What is it like to be a Muslim woman who wears a traditional headdress and is stared at by the folks who approach her on a city street? What is it like to be a laid off blue collar worker, feeling left behind and forgotten, living in the Rust belt, wondering if anyone cares about you and your one life?

Because finally, they are all Americans. Like me. Like you. We are all in this together.  And somehow, by God, by faith, by working towards a more perfect union, we the people, we must ask…  

What does it mean to be an American?      

    

Life Is Short. We Can't Ever Get It All Done. Have Some Fun!

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that damn mountain.”        Jack Kerouac, poet

I’ve got the pre-vacation jitters.  Angst deep within that I feel every time I prepare to go away. Almost time to leave, but before I go…have I stopped the newspaper and mail? Cleaned the house? Is the luggage packed? Emails answered? Garden tended? Church covered? What have I forgotten?

Can I get it all done?

Most of the time, no…though I hate to admit that.  Inevitably I discover something I left behind or left undone.  I forget to water the plants and come home to depressed and wilted greenery. Neglect to pack sneakers and hobble around in flip flops for the week.  Space out about making one last phone call to a parishioner, and then I feel guilty about it for days.

I did not get it all done. I cannot get it all done. Yet still, I try my damnedest to do it all.  Because I should get it all done, whatever “it” is.  Right?

I fantasize about one fine day when I will finally answer or delete all 14,283 emails sitting in my AOL in-box.  I’ll replace the burnt out bulbs on the holiday decorations which sit forlornly in the corner of my garage.  And I’ll clean the oven.  And sort through all my old clothes.  And catch up on texts and Facebook.  And keep a daily journal.  And, and, AND!

But here’s the thing. I believe that when I finally get to heaven and am greeted by God at the pearly gates, God will not ask of me, “Did you get it all done? Did you fold the laundry and mow the lawn and work lots of extra hours?” Instead I imagine God will ask of me, “Did you use, well and wisely, the one life I gave to you?  Did you live so well, that in your death, you have no regrets?” 

I wonder how I’ll answer those questions. How about you?  Do you believe you can live a truly good life and get “it” all done too? 

That’s the conceit of modern life for far too many humans.  We believe that if only we work hard enough, plan well enough, sweat just enough, push through enough, schedule it all efficiently enough, we can and we will get it all done. Everything. BOO-YAH! That’s the golden calf we worship in 2106.  “Enough” is never quite enough.  Always one more thing to do or obligation to meet or deadline to beat.   

We see it in the lives of so many of our kids who barely have time to breathe in between a plethora of activities and commitments.  We see it in the lives of movers and shakers who awake before dawn, go forth to slay the dragon, then drag themselves home at night, exhausted, the family long gone to bed.  We hear it in the “go to” response of too many of us, to the simple question, “How are you?” I’M BUSY! FLAT OUT! SLAMMED!  Just once I’d like to hear someone respond (or me, even): “Well…things are kind of quiet.  I’ve got good balance in my life.”

I see the people who don’t get it all done. They sit on the back porch, sipping an ice tea and reading a book, while their lawn is one inch too high. What is their problem?! They play a board game with their kids after supper or go out for ice cream, while unfolded laundry lurks in a basket on the stairs. HEY! Get back to work! They take all their vacation time. What is that about? They turn off their cell phone at night and don’t work again until the next morning. What if you miss something really ‘important’? They laugh spontaneously and smile for no reason at all.  They seem happy and content, even though they clearly are not getting it all done.

Maybe I could learn something from these odd people.  Maybe “she who dies with the most toys” isn’t the best life philosophy. Maybe there is more to life than just feeling spent at day’s end from chasing some impossible standard of what it means to be a “success”, whatever that means.  Maybe I can remember that even God rested on the seventh day. Maybe I can finally accept this one truth.

I can’t get it all done.

So if you drive by my house this summer, please try and overlook the weeds in the yard. I was going to pull every last one of them out of the ground, but then decided to take a long bike ride instead.   Guess my “to do” list will just have to wait.

For now…I’m done. Thank you God.