Inspiration from a friend's Mom

A friend up in Wisconsin sent me this email that her mom sent to her family and friends about the election. In it, she calls for us all to think and rethink how we go about sharing our faith and how that faith may sound in the next four years. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Dear Ones,

Yes, the elections were a total bummer. Yes, I feel somewhat depressed and defeated. BUT (as always I have my Pollyanna "but"), it is now on Bush's plate - everything. I remind myself constantly of the fact that Kerry would have had such an awful time dealing with all Bush had done. Now Bush is totally responsible, and may the 2006 elections come tomorrow, because there is Iraq, there is the deficit, there is the country's split, there is healthcare, there is the
economy and social security, there is outsourcing, there is the environment, etc. etc. Bush is holding the bag now; let's let him hold it and be accountable. I truly in my good heart hopes he can deal with it. In my nasty heart I hope he has to stew in his own mismanaged soup.

But I do believe we must start taking back the moral high road. If that means taking back God and Love and Justice, let's start talking about it unashamably and forcefully. We must talk about Jesus' justice for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the widows, the disabled, the least among us, and show how that extends to the diverse, the minorities, the unemployed, the single moms, the inner city kids, those not like ourselves but always God's children, etc. Let's start talking, all of us, not just Jeanny (or our liberal ministers), how spirituality informs our lives, and go on to
encourage our embarrassed and reluctant friends to do the same. We need not be embarrassed. The Democractic party need not be embarrassed about talking about Love and Justice, Mercy and Freedom. Freedom, a la Bush, by itself means nothing. Just Anarchy. Freedom with Justice, Freedom with Mercy, Freedom with Love needs to be front and center in our conversations.

Democrats are reluctantly verbal about their spiritual committments. We need to become less reluctant and more verbal. Not so private and more forthcoming. Doing so seems to violate something in our private core, but we no longer have the luxury of tending to our privateness.
We need to frame our talk not in liberal Christian terms or New Age terms that appeal to the already convinced. We need to frame it terms of the cultural right, the Born-Agains, the fundamentalists. We need to show them we care about many of the same things they do, yet,
unlike many of their professed stands, we truly believe in the New Testament, ie the Love of God, the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the Joy of God. And we must start to say outloud and vociferously that we take Jesus at his word to go heal the sick, tend to the poor, raise the dead. We need to join our right wing compatriots in a new celebration of Life for everyone. Not just fetuses (because who knows when someone is ensouled), but those who survive birth with no suppport, babies with no families to care for them, youngsters with no insurance with desperate diseases, old people who cannot afford prescription drugs that would save their
lives, helping people with disastrous problems with science through research (like stem cell research. Ask them what are they going to do with those frozen embryos), death row inmates, the people of Iraq who are dying by the tens of thousands, the people of Darfur that we
totally neglect because they have nothing to offer us materially, the people in Haiti whom we have abandoned, the poor all over the country and world with no voice, the disenfranchised around the world, the girls and women sold into slavery, the plight of those living on minimum wage trying to raise a family. I could go on and on, but you know all the neglected peoples in the world and in this country. It's a horrendous situation and problem. To ignore it is totally
unChristian, inhumane, isolationist and selfish.

We must call attention to Greed. It is not Christian; it is not part of our spirituality; it's not part of our cultural beginnings, because we believe in sharing our gifts, be it time or money. We must
point out that Greed is a sin, or a dreadful mistake, and one that is consuming America. Greed is not Biblical. It is not spiritual. It's not in the Quantum Universe wherein something like greed devours emerging systems. It will absolutely be the downfall of this country. Charity, faith based iniatives, etc. will not overcome it. If Greed is our national doctrine, we will sink into the swamp of the Hell we deserve. We must speak this out loud and clear. And we must somehow equate this with the dreadful tax breaks for people like me.

And we must talk about the spiritual need, the God given command to include all peoples in our dialogue, all peoples in our community, even those most unlike ourselves. We must rejoice in the fact and declare it from the roof tops that we want all peoples to fall under the tent of our Constitution. We must state that we are not a white "Christian" America, but a fabulously diverse, multicultural, wonderfully constituted bunch of families of all kinds, that we honor
real love wherever we find it, including the love of David and Jonathan that was Biblically honored.

I urge you to rethink how you talk, how you present your positions, how you ask others to do the same to see if you cannot come up with more inclusive, more compelling dialogue that will reach across divisions, that will translate your vision to those who hold what seems a different vision.

I have always felt translation was the key to communication and now I think we need to translate, translate, more than ever. I think it the most important need in all those of us who wish to see a different America. We can no longer talk in the same old way, assume the same
old symbols or metaphors will work. We must come up with a new way of speaking, of framing the discourse in new terms, languages, dreams, and then learn to manage our new language publically and privately. Please learn to restate, think in different language, different words, so that we can reach across the horrible divide this country is experiencing. Step out of your normal language whether it be Christian, New Age, Coaching, Quantum this and that, or Secular Humanist, and find new ways to express yourself that will touch those who appear to be on some other side.

We can take the high road if we are creative and able to translate our values in to language that communicates, and therefore bring more of us together. God, or a supreme Power, Joy, Love, Caring, Mercy, Justice, Inclusiveness, Truth, Spirit, Freedom, Mind, Life, Principle, Soul, are all there to be imagined and put into language others can identify with. They are real words that identify real values. They are not abstract. They are the fabric of our being. They constitute
our humaness.

I now believe it is imperative for us to find a way to put these word, these symbols, these values into language that is translatable to all.

Go for it!
Love, Mom/Margo