On the Backswing

I golf. But I cup my left wrist on my backswing. I am also prone to the dreaded flying elbow. As a result, I often hit my drives offline. Why do they plant trees just where my ball in prone to go, anyway?

The backswing determines, in oh so many ways, where the ball will go. Even while the muscles and the brain cooperate to try to correct its path, the backswing, and the grip, the stance and the ability to keeps one's head down, determine the quality of the resulting swing.

This posting is not about golf, however. It is more about a Hegelian synthesis, and what it means to see the pendulum of cultural evolution swing so far in the reverse of its ultimate and inevitable course. I just thought it was more interesting to tie the concept to golf than to an arcane philosophical model.

Let me illustrate. In a Hegelian synthesis, inevitable progress is made when the pendulum of cultural evolution swings far into uncharted and unfamiliar territory. There is always a popular response that causes the pendulum to swing far in the opposite direction, often leading to repressive and regressive policies, actions and tendencies. Over time, the pendulum of cultural evolution comes to some kind of synthesis. While that synthesis represents neither end of the pendulum's swing, while it reaches neither extreme, the compromise situation that it reached moves the culture onward and forward.

We can say, to some degree of certainty, that the cultural evolution in which we find ourselves is expressed in the pendulum swing toward otherwise radical inclusion, acceptance of diversity and the unity of all persons. The pendulum has swung far from the comfortable and familiar confines of past traditions, values, understandings and assumptions. This swing has caused some, if not most, to respond in fear and anger, focusing on the stasis that is lost therein instead of looking to what progress lay ahead. That segment of the population has attempted, at least somewhat successfully, to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction, back toward sectarianism, segregation, white male hegemony, privilege and power. The pendulum had swung so far in the first fifty years of cultural evolution that it has caused a regressive and repressive response.

This is no surprise. It is unfortunate, however, mainly because it has been accompanied by a violent inhumanity, a narrow mindedness, a name-calling, exclusionary partisanship that tears at the fabric of who we are as a people and a culture. Terror attacks have become the norm. Violence against other human beings is commonplace. Abridged human rights are justified by the need for safety and security in a fearful and dangerous age. Life is being devalued in the pendulum backswing.

Here is the good news. Despite the desperate attempts to reformulate culture in repressive and regressive ways, cultural evolution is inevitable. It will no longer support divisiveness, segregation or undo privilege. Culture marches on toward its ultimate constitution. We can be confident that the utlimate constitution of culture reflects acceptance of diverse persons, positions, identities, life-styles, backgrounds, races, genders, etc. The list is all-inclusive and unfolding.

Here is the cautionary tale, though. Just as the backswing in golf determines where the drive sends the ball, so the pendulum swing against the tide of cultural evolution determines how healthy and whole we will be in the synthesis. How much damage will we have to suffer? How many lives will be lost? How much violence will be relied upon in the name of social order? How far will we devalue human life or trample on human rights?

It is enough! It is time to find the cultural synthesis. To do so will take work and compromise from those at either end of the extreme pendulum swings. The vast majority of those between the extremes must demand that the conversation lead to solutions instead of continued divisiveness, violence, name-calling and devaluation. The entire course of human culture depends upon it...upon us.    

Dig for Us!

Leadership in a volunteer agency, like the church, can be risky business. Let's be honest. People do not have to come to churches. They do not have to join, and they certainly do not have to be active or vital participants. Those who do so choose to do so.

In a best-case scenario, people would join Christian churches in order to respond to a spiritual call to action. They would be there to learn, to be inspired and to figure out how to use the gifts that God has given them in service to the whole human family. In that case we could move, as the new SONKA Ministry Council theological foundation states: Toward being actors in the process of shaping communities of justice and peace. This is to say that the aim of our local churches, and of the Association, is to nurture and support the spiritual calling of their men, women and children as incarnational forces that affect community development and provide community service. Pastors are called to guide the flock into greater faithfulness to this vision.

All too often, however, leadership in our churches falls more prominently into the category of meeting member needs and struggling against member expectations, opinions and traditions. In order to attract members, and to please those who have remained from past generations, the church often falls into the trap of serving itself. When churches fall into the pit of populist movements and member service, they move away from the spiritual calling of the men, women and children to whom spiritual care is assumed.

Moses guided God's people from the slave pits of Egypt, freeing them from their centuries-long bondage. He led them across the Negev Desert, to the south southeast, toward Sinai, from whence Moses had been sent. Along the way, the people encountered hunger. They called upon Moses to feed them. They encountered blistering sun. They called upon Moses to provide shelter. They encountered great thirst. They called upon Moses for water. "Feed us." "Give us shelter." "Give us water to drink."

Where was Moses supposed to get food, water and shelter? He had no supernatural powers to conjure from the arid air food, shelter or water. The only way that Moses could have made water in the middle of the desert was to dig for the people a very, very deep well. Would they have been satisfied had Moses dug from them? Yet, each time the former slaves threatened Moses' bodily safety, each time they challenged his calling, every time they doubted his leadership, Moses turned to the Lord for direction. And, each time, God provided. There was quail. There was manna. There was the rock at Horeb, from which water flowed freely before God's people.

Moses never lost sight of the destination, however. While the immediate needs of God's people were tangent to that trek, Moses persisted. While the people did not know, could not understand, refused to imagine the destination of their journey, Moses knew where he was going, where he was leading, and he was confident that the people would end up where God intended.

How are pastors to lead in churches that are filled with real persons, with real needs, real desires, real doubts and authentic understanding and misunderstandings? Perhaps Moses would serve as model. He did not dig for them. He did not plunge the depths of their spiritual calling. He simply led them toward the destination, relying on God to meet their needs along the way. Moses did not become fixated upon the tangents, but maintained focus, knowing where he was leading and trusting the possibility of fulfillment.

Today, like then, people want the pastor to dig for them, to solve their problems, to resolve their issues, to make sacrifice easier, to take the sting from vocation, to promise them some great reward in return for their faithfulness. Fortunately,however, the eyes of the leaders remain on the ball. We have only this: Toward being actors in the process of shaping communities of justice and peace.

Bridging the Divide

I ran into a member of Shiloh Church yesterday as I was getting gas in Englewood. This person was coming out of the store as I was going in. Admittedly, I was irritated that I had to go into the store. There was no paper in the gas pump from which I had pumped a full tank. Really?! Why don't one of the four people workers who were milling about the store at the time come out and change the paper in the pump instead of making me bear the inconvenience of having to go in to retrieve the print out?

Whatever the case, I was not a happy camper. As we passed I said hello, of course. Then I added that we had missed the family yesterday (this was on Monday following Shiloh's Black History Celebration service). The person exchanged my greeting and told me that they had planned to stay home. I asked why. I probably should not have asked why. But I did. The person explained that it was very difficult to get everyone around on the Sunday that the time changes (it was also the beginning of Daylight Savings Time). Besides, the person continued, it was that Black History service. We aren't Black and we don't like the long service (it usually runs about 90 minutes, as it had that Sunday).

It is true that the person that I engaged in this case was Caucasian. The whole family was white, as a matter of fact. Then I said something else that I probably would not have said if I had not had to run into the store in order to get the receipt that should have been produced by the pump at which I had pumped a full tank of gas. I said that one of the problems of racial divide in our community is that we won't go out of our way to share histories, to share experiences, to share stories. We still practice segregation of experience and that leads to bias and forms prejudice.

The person frowned and added that the person thought that, "If we have to suffer through that, at least you could do it in February, which is designated 'Black History Month.'"

Uh oh. I asked, "If we held the service in February, on a Sunday when Daylight Savings Time was not scheduled to begin, would your family then come?" The person said that the family would likely still not come. I told the person that it was sad that such was the case. Worse, it is exactly that kind of unwillingness that gives life to discrimination, prejudice and racial bias.

How are we supposed to span the divide if we refuse to work at doing so? How can we imagine the unity out of which we live if we never learn, never hear, never see anything other than what the media, or bigotry, tells us?

I find it sad in the extreme that persons are not willing to sacrifice a few additional minutes, a bit of their precious attention, even a scant bit of energy and enthusiasm to bridging the racial divide that plagues us. It lends credibility to what was stated at the book review that followed our community luncheon. A woman from the community attended and said that, "There is something wrong in white communities that refuse to work at ensuring that we are all one genetic family..." Some people were struck by the idea. Some were offended. I was troubled too, until I engaged yesterday a member of Shiloh Church at the Speedway in Englewood. The words rang in my mind.

Yes, ma'am, I agree. There is something wrong in communities that will not work at bridging the racial divide...or any other divide for that matter. The Church of Jesus Christ is called and equipped to represent his mission and ministry. He died for all people. He healed broken relationships. He went out of his way for people who were different from him and his. We can do so much more...so much better!

By the way, I print this with permission of the person that I engaged in conversation, as long as I do not mention the person's name. It doesn't matter who it is anyway, as the lesson applies to all and each of us.