A Whole New Orientation

            This morning as I waited half-somnolent in line at the neighborhood coffee shop, I got one of those sudden and often unflattering glimpses of my own behavior. I realized I was rehearsing my order, running through what I was about to say to the barista, over and over as if I were memorizing lines for a play. And what’s more, I realized that I do this most days as I stand in this line and other lines like it, and that doing so leaves me utterly unavailable to any spontaneous or genuine exchange, not only with the barista, but with the people in line around me. It reduces the human being behind the counter, herself a unique expression of spirit, to a medium through which I connect with a shot of caffeine, and it reduces the people around me, likewise unique expressions of the sacred, to obstacles that stand between me and that caffeine.

            I was planning this morning to write a column that amplifies the message of a column Jim Wallis wrote last week about budgets as moral documents. As many of you know, Congress has been engaged in the past two months in work on a budget bill that threatens to slash Medicare, food stamps, and student loan programs. Wallis’s organization Sojourners has been leading the effort to prevent such cuts by urging members and friends to call, fax, and email legislators to remind them that budgets are moral documents and expressions of our priorities as a nation. This strategy worked in the Senate, and even our own Norm Coleman voted against the cuts. In the House, however, the neoconservative contingent managed to strong-arm enough moderate Republicans into voting for the cuts. The next step is that the two bodies must reconcile their two versions of the budget bill. Votes on the new version of the bill are likely to take place in mid-December. In an effort to hold legislators accountable for the ethical ramifications of their votes, people of faith are converging on the Capitol today, as I write this, for a prayer vigil. Registration materials on the Sojourners website make clear the fact that arrests are likely.

            I am thrilled to see Sojourners and partner organizations sending a clear message to Congress that people of faith care about more than abortion and gay marriage, that they take seriously the mandate to provide for what Jesus called “the least of these.” Eliminating programs that provide needed services is wrong not (only) because the Bible says so but because not taking care of people is a violation of the very idea that each one of us is sacred. Just as my self-absorption in the coffee shop is a violation of the same.

            We absolutely need to preserve existing safety net programs—until we develop something better, some structure which more adequately acknowledges the sanctity of each human being. In phrases such as “the poor,” “the weak,” and “the least of these,” I hear echoes of a power dynamic by which we—the better off and more together—help those who are less than we not because it feels natural but because we should. This perceived hierarchy is a violation of the reality that each human being is equally worthy. To the degree that our welfare programs perpetuate such a hierarchy, they reinforce the inequalities in opportunity that necessitate such programs. We need to take a hard, brave look at the ways existing programs are and are not working and, where they are not working, commit energy to developing visionary new ways of taking care of each other—rather than blindly defending the old ways.

Such creative policy work is necessary, but it is not sufficient. As a people, we also need a whole new orientation toward each other and to the earth. We need to address the underlying fears and past hurts that prevent us from fully recognizing one another and our interdependence. This kind of recognition would make Paul Wellstone’s assertion that “we all do better when we all do better” no less than a new kind of common sense. Kurt Vonnegut writes about the radical effects of such recognition in his Unitarian sermon “Palm Sunday”:

What happens if you credit everyone with dignity? What happens if you credit a bum with human dignity – a drunken bum with his pants full… and snot dangling from his nose? There is this drawback: If you choose to give to that sort of stranger true respect, then you will also want to understand him and help him. There is no way to avoid this. Be warned: if you allow yourself to see dignity in someone, you have doomed yourself to wanting to understand and help whoever it is. If you see dignity in anything, in fact—in animals, plants, waterfalls and deserts, the entire planet and its atmosphere—you will be helpless not to want to understand and help them.

            This new orientation would mean crediting with dignity, and wanting to understand and help, not only Vonnegut’s drunken bum but also the angry driver of the fancy new SUV and the depressed corporate accountant and the Rush Limbaugh devotee who hears his anger and dissatisfaction amplified in Limbaugh’s words. For me, this takes a mighty act of imagination, but what I see when I get there is that our governments are functioning again, no longer paralyzed by partisan divisions; that people are paying taxes not only willingly but joyfully because they see how their money is used to enact their caring for others; and that environmentally sustainable practices have become self-evident acts of love for this planet that sustains us. It takes a mighty act of imagination, but then again, it’s as easy as waking up in the coffee line, feeling and then letting go of the fear that makes me want to maintain my distance and illusion of separateness, and looking around me at the other human beings in line and at the awesome snowy morning dawning out the window.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives is focusing not only on creative policy development but also on deep cultural change around how we view each other, how we interact, and what kind of change we believe is possible. We are looking for others to join us. Please get in touch if you have ideas for moving this work forward.