Presidential Prerequisites

 

If I were running things, before a person could become president, he or she would need at least a minor in history. I believe the president—legislators too—should know and understand the past. However, I can't imagine this really becoming a law. I just wish voters would demand that their politicians be well-informed. The presidential primary debates could be part history test. How can we understand the present if we don't understand how we got here?

I written about the importance of studying history before, here and here.

The Problem?

From James Baldwin: “White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other. And when they have achieved this, which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never, the Negro problem will no longer exist or will no longer be needed.”

Understanding Anger

Recently two friends recommended the book The Heart of the Soul by Gary Zukav. I've just been jumping around the book, and the passages below remind me of interesting ideas I've read before. They ring true. And during this time when the daily news is filled with stories of anger, these reflections on anger seem relevant. (The bold print is by Zukav.)

Anger is an iceberg phenomenon. It is the apex of a larger structure, all of which is invisible except the very top....There is no such thing as anger without an immense emotional substructure. Anger is the peak protruding above the clouds. Beneath every experience of anger is a huge body of emotional experience.....

Anger lashes out at a target. That target is another person, group of people, or the Universe. Anger is righteous and self-important. Anger does not listen to, respect, or care about others....Anger wants what it wants, when it wants it...

Angry outbursts are painful experiences, but they are not emotional explorations. Each outburst of anger is a barrier to the exploration of emotions. It is a fortress from which an individual who has no power does his or her best to face a frightening world.

All hostility originates in fear. Fear is the birthplace of every impulse that is not loving. A loving individual is fearless. An angry, jealous, vengeful, depressed, or avaricious person is filled with fear....Love is fearless.

Between terror and anger lies another experience—pain. In other words, beneath anger lies pain, and beneath that pain lies fear. It is not possible to experience the fear without first experiencing the pain. The pain may appear to be caused by the loss of a job, the death of a child, or a diagnosis of a terminal illness. The pain of these things is intense, and the experience of it is very much like feeling a white-hot piece of metal. That is why it is easier to become angry than to touch the pain. This is what most people do, but the pain does not go away when you become angry. It gets buried. (129-133)

I have looked at some of my own emotions through these lenses of anger-pain-fear. It's amazing how nearly impenetrable unpleasant and painful emotions can be. But these ideas from Zukav help one travel through the fog.

Words Matter

In 2016, Krista Tippet gave a talk a to the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly. I

read it at the time and liked it. I reread it recently and liked it again. It is frustrating that these ideas can so easily become forgotten. This passage makes me want to use better words, but I'm not sure I know how.

Words Matter:...The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. And the world right now needs the most vivid, transformative universe of words that you and I can draw on and give voice to.

We chose too small a word in the decade of my birth, the 1960s, to grapple with the onset of genuine diversity in this country. And it does bear remembering that it was only in the 1960s that America truly began to integrate racial, religious, ethnic, and social differences into its national sense of self. We did so by pursuing the reasonable order that would be achieved by a civic mandate of tolerance.

Tolerance has value as a civic tool. But as I say, it's not big enough in human, ethical, or spiritual terms. Tolerance connotes allowing   

Tolerance, the word itself, connotes allowing, enduring, and indulging. And in the medical context, it is about the limits of thriving an unfavorable environment. Tolerance is not a lived virtue. It is kind of a cerebral assent and too cerebral for animate guts and behavior when the going gets rough. Tolerance has not taught or asked us to engage, much less to care about the stranger. Tolerance doesn't even invite us to understand, to be curious, to be open, to be moved or surprised by each other.

"Tolerance is not a lived virtue." Very good Krista. You can listen to or read her talk here. If you listen, the talk starts around 34 minutes.

Taking the Knee

I haven't figured out why this is so offensive to some.

My background teaches me it is a respectful and humble posture.

It seems commendable in so many places.

To Write or not to Write?

For many years, on and off, I have written this blog. I have been ignoring it for some time now. Last night I came back to look and discovered I had not written at all this year and only eight entries in the last half of 2017. Yet, when I read the entries, I saw that I was writing about things that concerned and moved me, things that still move me. And surely I was not the only one interested in these issues. Yet, for some reason, I have not felt moved to share in these last months. Have I not been moved? Has the strange climate in this country left me mute? I think, for awhile, I would like to try sharing again. I'll see how it goes.