To Fix Our Broken Civic Life? Listen to Each Other. Just Listen.

Echo Chamber (noun)…an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions [or people] that reflect and reinforce their own [worldview].  --gcfglobal.org

Let’s call him Charlie. 

He’s been my friend for almost fifteen years, and I’ve worked with him in both a personal and professional capacity. He is unlike just about anyone else in my entire life and experience. Not because he is a fan of the Saint Louis Cardinals baseball team, and I root for the Red Sox. Nor for the fact he rides an electric bike, a heresy for this devoted old-fashioned cyclist who still believes in pedal power. What sets him apart in my world is that he is…

A political conservative.

A believer in things I do not believe in. On just about every issue, Charlie, and I most often part ways. He takes a right and I take a left. He moves toward conservation, and I stride towards liberality. We disagree on gun control. Trump versus Biden. Small government or big government. Even in the ways we look at and think about American history, we’ve got conflicting views. 

Yet we are a rare breed in these divided times we live in and in this divided land we live in. We actually continue to talk to and to dialogue with each other, and not so much to change the others’ mind, no. For me it is to hear what the opposition has to say, to listen to a worldview different from my own, to stand in someone else’s shoes. To get the scoop on an opposite belief and not from some hot air talking head on CNN or Fox News. Neither from some over the top opinion piece in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes, as a self-admitted “lefty” I just need to hear “righty” ideas straight from the source.  No filters. No interpretation by a go-between.   

Just the straight stuff.

Has Charlie changed my mind on any issues? I think somewhat. I also think I might have pushed him to reconsider an opinion or two. But the real gift of our friendship and our ongoing discussion is that we dare to talk to one another and to listen to one another and to respect one another. Even love each other as fellow human beings and as children of God.

One of the things that scares me most about these polarized days is the contempt that so many folks show and speak with towards fellow citizens who vote differently than they do, who think about culture or politics differently than they do. Agreeing to disagree has given way to be downright disagreeable, even violent, towards those we diverge with. 

Yes, at times we should get angry or vexed about what we believe, about what matters the most to us when it comes to our shared lives in these United States. I can be as passionate in belief as any other committed soul. But if we do not and cannot find civil ways to talk to and listen to our neighbors, who look at life from a different perspective than our own, then we are doomed to disunity, incivility and chronically logjammed politics.

Doomed to a civic life where folks on the fringe, who yell the loudest and are often so self-righteous, never give in. For them there is absolutely no room, ever, for compromise, for finding common ground, or even to work for the common good.  These days they seem to be running the show on and not listening to anyone who disagrees with them.

And increasingly Americans no longer live in politically diverse areas where they might actually be exposed to different ideas and people. One study found that since 2004, the number of counties where one candidate experienced a super landslide (more than 80 percent of the vote) has increased from 6 percent to 22 percent of all U.S. counties. The lingo to describe such ideological movement is the big sort—we are sorting ourselves more and more into deep red and deep blue places. Echo chambers. Lands where everyone else believes just what you believe. Says just what you want to hear. Looks just like you. Worships like you. Lives like you.

I don’t want to live that way. I need to try and live a life that sees and listens to others who are different than me, and not just in politics.  White, I need to spend more time with and deepen my relationships with folks of color. Straight, I need to hear what my LGBTQ friends have to say. Liberal, I must open my ears and close my mouth at times, so I can see this world through another set of eyes.

God made this world so diverse. What a waste and shame it would be for me if the only birds I flock with have the exact same color feathers as me. That’s a pretty narrow way to live. Pretty boring too. I need to be with people like Charlie and he needs to be with people like me too.

Who is your “Charlie”? Ask them out for a cup of coffee. Then just listen.

 

 

            

   

How to Help Defeat Cancer? Pedal. Pray. Repeat.

“[The bicycle] is no longer a beast of steel… no, it is a friend… It is a faithful and powerful ally against one’s worst enemies. It is stronger than anxiety, stronger than sadness. It has all the power of hope.”    --Maurice Leblanc, late French novelist

What’s with all the bikes on the road this summer?! Where’d they suddenly come from?

Those are questions on many minds and hearts in this part of God’s creation, at this time of year. One day the roads are clear and quiet and then one Saturday in the spring, bikes are everywhere, especially on the weekends. It can feel as if cyclists have returned to the streets and byways, like those swallows who return each year to Capistrano.  Bikers galore, flying around in their skin-tight lycra shorts and psychedelic bike shirts, riding in packs of two or four or more. Bikers whose numbers are peaking right now, in mid-July. Bikers like yours’ truly.

First, a confession and a plea.

Most bikers, like me, are trying our best to be the kind of biker that drivers like you, respect and even like. Bikers who wave and say “Thanks!” when you let us through an intersection or wait for us to pass by. Bikers who ride as far over to the right as we can, so we don’t hog up the road. Bikers who follow the rules of the road. Yes, these summer weekends you will experience a minority of bikers who are rude, careless, aggressive, and impolite. But hey—that’s not most of us who absolutely LOVE, to cycle. So: PLEASE watch out for us. We do not want to risk limb or life for this sport that brings us so much joy.

We cycle for lots of reasons.

To get in shape, to shed those winter pounds that can no longer hide beneath a big sweater! We cycle to relieve stress, hop on the bike at the end of a long workday and pedal away our cares. We cycle to see this amazing God made world at the smooth speed of 11 or 12 or 13 miles per hour. Fast enough to make forward progress. Slow enough to catch the beautiful show that is found in the warmer months in New England; hawks soaring in a bright blue sky and the yellow and white lily pads that cover a pond and a setting sun all orange and fiery.

But here’s also why there are so darn many of us cyclists in these parts right about now. Many of us are in training for a one-of-a-kind charity ride, the Pan Mass Challenge (PMC).  Come the first week in August the ride’s goal is to raise more than $66 million dollars, which will all go to support the incredibly important and lifesaving care and research that happens at Boston’s Dana Farber Cancer Institute. That sixty-six-million-dollar figure is not a typo. Every single penny raised by riders like me, every cent, 100 percent, goes to that world class place.

You know of the Dana Farber and have been touched by its work.

It’s the place where your neighbor or a kid on your daughter’s little league team or your loved one went to or go to, for hope and to seek treatment to get better from the scourge that is cancer. It’s the place where the absolute best doctors and nurses and scientists are focused like a laser beam on one dream and one goal: to find a cure for cancer and to live in a cancer free world.

We PMC’ers ride for the same reason, and ride for the special ones we love and loved, touched by cancer. I ride for Sue and Nora and Dottie and Scott and Mark and Lynne and T. Michael and Evelyn and Kathy. I ride for folks with cancer I do not know and yet want to help. That’s why me and 6,000 other people will set off on our bikes and ride a long, long way. Cyclists will be spinning their pedals all the way from the hills of Sturbridge in central Massachusetts, to the tip of the Cape, to P-town.

Begun in 1980, the PMC is the granddaddy of athletic fundraising events. In all those years and rides, the PMC has raised more than $830 million.  And all just one pedal, one ride, one mile, one road at a time. Here’s the ask.

We PMC cyclists need your help and prayers. Go to PMC.ORG. Make a general donation. Find someone you know who is riding. If you need someone to sponsor, my PMC page is right here: profile.pmc.org/JH0352.  

So, all those bikers all over the place right now? Please keep an eye out for us. Give if you can. Pray for a safe and fun PMC, for everyone who has cancer, or who has lost a loved one to cancer. We can beat cancer. All one pedal at a time.

See you on the road.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org) and in his 13^th year of doing the PMC. He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

Church is Church. State Is State. No Mixing Please.

“[The founding fathers] knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought.... They intended that all should have the right to worship or not to worship [and] that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed."

--Robert G. Ingersoll, 19^th century free thinker

Here's the deal, Uncle Sam.

I don’t need high school football coach Joe Kennedy to kneel down on the fifty-yard line after a game and pray, all in the sight of a crowd of players and kids and parents and the general public. I don’t need his help promoting Christianity or my sect of Christianity or him publicly witnessing about the power of his particular faith in his role as a guide for young people.  I don’t want him assuming that he somehow needs to do this very public act of evangelizing on behalf of Christians everywhere, in order to bring more people into the fold, win souls for God, or even help me in pastoring to my church.

Thanks, but no thanks, Joe.

To bring you up to speed, if you hadn’t heard…three weeks ago the Supreme Court voted 6-3 on behalf of Kennedy, who had sued the Bremerton, Washington school department for wrongful termination. Kennedy’s contract as assistant football coach was not renewed when he refused to stop his post-game praying ritual in 2015. He sued and the case went all the way to the highest court in the land and on June 27^th, the justices ruled that Kennedy’s public prayer was protected first amendment speech and therefore should have been allowed to continue.

And I have to say as a Christian and a pastor, as one who loves God and loves church and loves the people I serve, and who wants so much to see folks find meaning and purpose in religion…I am sad at this ruling. You see I do not want the government in any way shape or form to promote, or to be seen as promoting my faith, or other faiths or any religions. I’m a believer in what is called the establishment clause of the United States Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.”

It’s important to remember that the founding fathers, including James Madison who authored the clause, had fled England, in part, because in that country there was no separation of church and state. None. There was one official religion, the Church of England and its clergy were essentially government employees, and the King (or Queen) was the head of that church. The folks who came to this country in 1620, the founders of the religious sect I belong to, fled in part to escape the oppression of such state sponsored religion. As Madison wrote of this necessary wall dividing church and state: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries”

I hear the argument when it comes to support for Kennedy and his visible prayer.  He’s just praying, right? He has that right to practice his faith. He’s just doing what a person of faith does: talking to his God. What’s the matter with that?

Well, for one he’s a public employee and a teacher of young people by word and by example. It’s not the business of any public employees to either promote or demote any religion. When you are praying so publicly as he was, you are essentially teaching a lesson.

So too, his players look up to him and maybe want to emulate him and may feel like they must pray too, in order to curry favor with this coach. Make sure you get to start the game, right? And what of the Jewish or Muslim or Atheist players: will they pay the price if they choose not to pray a Christian prayer and take a knee with coach? And if this were only about his personal prayer, and nothing else, why couldn’t Kennedy just go into his office, close the door, sit at his desk, bow his head, and then talk to God?

Or was an audience somehow needed?

I like that government is not supposed to be in the religion business. I do not need or want their help, or any of their employees’ help, when it comes to spreading the faith. I like that the government cannot tell me just what I am supposed to pray about or tell the members I serve about how they are supposed to practice their religion. I like that there is no “Church of America” and that the President is not its head. I like the fact that the United States has the second oldest “freedom of religion” constitutional clause, second only in age to the one found in Rhode Island’s state constitution. Freedom to practice religion as one sees fit. And yes, to pray, absolutely, but also freedom of religion from government interest, promotion, or regulation.

Yes, even in a prayer by a well-meaning and faith-filled football coach.

Got me to thinking about the years I spent in middle and high school on the football field. None of my coaches ever prayed, at least not in public, or in their capacities as leaders of young men.  I don’t remember ever praying either.  And I don’t think that absence of religion took away from my experience. I loved playing football. I also loved going to church youth group on Sunday nights. I never imagined combining my two loves or getting them mixed up. Faith was faith. Football was football.

Freedom of religion. Freedom from government promoted religion. Both are precious freedoms.  I just wish the Supreme Court hadn’t so clearly fumbled the ball on this play.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.