personalism, nonviolence and seeking the left wing of what is possible...

One of the most complex challenges I experience doing ministry in this ever-shifting moment in history has to do with radical Christian love. Let me note from the outset that I am NOT talking about a sentimental spirituality that denies the reality of evil; nor am I advocating a naive notion of grace like Rodney King said after the LA riots of 1991: Why can't we all just get along? No, as a life-long student of MLK, I affirm his spirituality of personalism that was shaped by both the mystical Howard Thurman and the philosophical Jacques Ellul. This way of engaging the world posits a third way between the radical laissez-faire individualism of conservatives and the inclination of liberals to craft a one-size-fits-all collectivism. 

Christian Personalism emphasizes the significance, uniqueness, and inviolability of the individual, while also highlighting the person's inherently relational nature. "It's a philosophy that stands in contrast to the forces of massification and dehumanization Ellul saw in modern society, particularly within the context of technology. Authentic human relationships should be characterized by loving engagement and meaningful dialogue, rather than manipulation or control." At least these insights are at the core of this discipline:

+ Each person is unique and valuable, and should be treated with integrity rather than as part of a faceless mass. Ellul and King believed that realistic love challenges the movement towards conformity endemic to institutional bureaucracy, the intrusive dehumanization of unrestrained technology, and the cruel indifference fostered by rugged individualism. David Brooks recently shared a 21st-century take on this in a recent NY Times essay: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/opinion/happiness-community-wealth.html

+ Personalism finds ideological abstractions to be destructive. In all matters, especially conflict, relationships matter. "A genuine human connection, characterized by love and dialogue, as opposed to the impersonal relationships fostered by technology and mass society, is vital. Modern society tends to reduce individuals to cogs in a machine rather than recognizing and affirming the inherent dignity of each person." And both Ellul and King practiced a Christianity founded upon "the importance of loving one's neighbor and recognizing God's image in every individual."

For me, this means striving to NOT judge another based solely on the obvious. So many of those I disagree with politically, pragmatically, aesthetically, and spiritually are profoundly complex, loving beings. I barely know even the surface level of their stories. Over the years, I have come to realize that I have neither the wisdom nor the grace to make informed judgments about how they spend their time or resources. God knows I've been a mess inside and out of my own life at different times, and people made time and space for me to ripen and ask for forgiveness. I can't help but think of Kris Kristofferson's song about Dennis Hoppe: The Pilgrim.

See him wasted on the sidewalk, in his jacket and his jeans

Wearin' yesterday's misfortunes like a smile

Once he had a future full of money, love and dreams

Which he spent like they was goin' out of style

And he keeps right on a-changin' for the better or the worse

Searchin' for a shrine he's never found

Never knowin' if believin' is a blessin' or a curse

Or if the goin' up was worth the comin' down

He's a poet - He's a picker - He's a prophet - He's a pusher

He's a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he's stoned

He's a walkin' contradiction - partly truth and partly fiction

Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home

At this late stage in my ethical/moral development, I rarely find much value in linear credos. Of course, they are sincere attempts to articulate some profound convictions in this season of sanctified slippery slopes. As both the Left and the Right like to say: if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. So, if these laundry lists of convictions give birth to meaningful conversations, I'm all in. My preference, however, is a commitment to what my spiritual tradition used to proclaim: never place a period where God puts a comma. For me, this means

listening more than speaking, asking more questions than pronouncements, and meeting others where they are rather than where we think we should be. When I can do this, I am often blessed by where the relationship takes us.

Now, I have no illusions that this always works. Dr. King used to say that laws rarely change another's heart, but laws can keep some of us from harming others - especially those who are most vulnerable. King was as much a Niebuhrian as well as a personalist. After decades of living into my training as an organizer with Cesar Chavez and the farm workers union, as well as a variety of faith-based community organizations shaped by Saul Alinsky, I have come to understand that, strategically, a personalist committed to justice can have no permanent enemies. Too often, ideologues - or the privileged - sacrifice the good in pursuit of the perfect. I like the way Michael Harrington, founder of Democratic Socialists of America, used to put it: our quest is to discover the left wing of what is possible. This is a practical way of incarnating a spiritual discipline that abhors self-righteousness. The challenge in our conflicts then becomes a quest to discover and fortify our shared self-interest. Two examples come to mind:

+ First, Chavez was able to win collective bargaining rights for farm workers that simultaneously limited the power of landowners while giving agricultural laborers a voice in their own destiny. This did not happen through acts of noblesse oblige or a moral change of heart (although one grower's deep commitment to Torah led him to sign a contract with the union as an act of faith). Most of the time, however, it took well-trained picket lines, sophisticated organizing among a variety of potential allies, including spiritual, cultural, and news organizations, as well as an international boycott of table grapes, Gallo wine, and head lettuce. There were clear goals in this struggle, not abstract pep rallies. There were discernible payoffs for all involved, too, as everyone's self-interest was clarified. The key was recognizing the differences between selflessness and selfishness: one turns us into doormats, the other bullies. The third way, self-interest, acknowledges that we ALL have skin in the game and seeks to celebrate this. Crafting a personalist way of being is always a work in progress, but suggests a path through the wilderness. 

+ Second, the late Harry Belafonte told U2's Bono about a moment before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law. The marshals of the civil rights movement were together considering next steps. They were frustrated and started to slander then Atty. General Robert Kennedy: "He's nothing but a rich Southie from Boston filled with ugly race hatred." Dr. King interrupted this bitching with clarity and conviction. "We will NO longer meet and strategize if all we can do is complain about RFK. Your job is to find a moral way to move forward that is both congruent with our nonviolent principles and recognizes that even RFK is a beloved child of God." Belafonte went on to say that King told his allies: We know that Kennedy is a deeply religious man, so make his faith come alive. This led some of the architects of liberation to meet with RFK's bishop; who, in turn, met and prayed with Kennedy. Over time, these relationships not only changed the younger Kennedy into a righteous crusader for the civil rights movement he once opposed but also transformed the hearts and minds of those on the front llne of the civil rights movement.

This commitment is unlikely to bear fruit among the true believers of the current regime. If you've read M. Scott Peck's, People of the Lie, the Army psychologist charged with investigating the My Lai massacre (which the Army immediately refused to publish) explains how evil incrementally consumes our soul when we refuse to see our wounds and deal with them honestly. The more we lie and deny our faults, the more evil grows within. Roman Catholic priest, Greg Boyle, who founded Home Boy, Inc. - a community of transformation among the gangs of LA - is clear that none of us is born evil. When we endure violence to our body, mind, and soul, however, we start to pass our damage on to those around us. Our wounds can be redressed and healed through honesty, encouragement, courage, and love, but it takes a community of solidarity and accountability to make it happen. We all yearn to belong, to be loved, to be cherished. A lifetime of denial and lies not only subverts the possibility of renewal but also fertilizes the seeds of evil within. So, barring an act of God, too much water has gone under the bridge for the President to change. 

But that need not be true for many who voted for him - and this is where a strategic, disciplined, and consistent love can be a catalyst for change. Lead singer of REM, Michael Stipe, used to say: "Labels are for soup cans, not people." And in this is where I find my heart calling, even as fear, hatred, and destruction is ratcheted up. Gandhi taught us to BE the change we desire. I understand this to mean incarnating nonviolent love, not in a capricious, random way, but strategically and with discipline. The wisdom tradition of my faith tradition says that to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. In the face of all that is dying around us, could one aspect of resistance include radical and sacrificial love?

a border crossing experiment...

We are conducting a quick experiment that involves crossing the border into Canada by car. When the current regime came into power - and began their cruel and random attacks on people of color who MAY be undocumented - we were freaked out. We have some deep friendships in Canada. We love the groove and feel of both Montreal and Ottawa. I have long participated in the L'Arche Community. And both Di and I regularly slip away to the Eastern Townships while the rest of the US celebrates Thanksgiving and Black Friday. But the capricious way ICE has been working - and their illegal incarceration of innocent people - was unnerving. That is, of course, exactly what the architects of this hatred wanted - and I must confess to being cowed. Not internally, where we have a network of allies and friends, but externally. And my fear was heightened when beloved Canadian colleagues called off a visit to our home because they did not want to be subject to ICE violence. 

So, we regrouped and spent a late spring retreat in Northern Maine with a few trips to groovy Portland. And our wider family postponed a birthday trip to Montreal for our granddaughter, Anna, who loves this city, too. We will meet at our home, rejoice in her 8 years among us, and savor the safety and beauty of our garden. We mustered a bit of courage after some in our family had no problems with their trip to Nova Scotia. So, in anticipation of Anna's next birthday, we chose to find out for ourselves. And, I am delighted to report that entering Canada was smooth and friendly. During the first Trump administration, I was hassled by some surly Canadian border patrol types at an out-of-the-way crossing late at night. In a quid pro quo, they confiscated my cell phone and laptop, searched my rental car vigorously, and finally concluded that my trip to a Franciscan retreat house during Holy Week was neither a threat to national security nor anything more nefarious. (NOTE: to this day, however, I refuse to use that port of entry!) I suspect that the real test will be coming home, which is what we've chosen to explore.

I will keep you posted on whatever shakes out. I want to get back to visiting my L'Arche friends. I want to retreat from American avarice and rest over Thanksgiving in anticipation of a holy Advent. And I want to plan a glorious birthday for our precious granddaughter. More as it unfolds...

a time for weeping... and singing

There are times these days when I sit and weep. I am not desolate. Nor am I bereft of faith, hope, or love. Yet I still weep – mostly at what is being lost during this season of sorting out. Intellectually and spiritually, I own that this is part of the inevitable political, emotional, cultural, and spiritual winnowing that accompanies creation’s pruning in its quest for balance. It occurred within my own heart, family, spirituality, profession, and worldview over time, so on one level, that it is taking place in this era comes as no surprise. The world-weary Babylonian preacher, Qoheleth, said as much in the Jewish wisdom book of Ecclesiastes in 450 BCE: To everything there is a season and time for every purpose under heaven… for there is nothing new under the sun. As Asian wisdom-keepers assert, it has happened before and will happen again. But it is one thing to acknowledge the ever-swinging pendulum of time, culture, and history, and something altogether different to accept it. My tears are evidence of a grief in pursuit of reconciliation, contemplation over our current reckoning with the cruelty that is yet to come. Over the years, I have found myself returning to this insight from the late Frederick Buechner, bard of Vermont, who wrote:

"YOU NEVER KNOW what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next."

This round of tears was evoked upon hearing the news that, after 60 years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was closing shop. Except for the New York Times, which I have been reading since my first subscription in 8th grade, I have relied upon PBS and NPR to make sense of the world around me. Yes, NPR’s current “hip” greetings (hey Ari, oh hey Ayesha) are annoying – so, too, the hyper-causal attire of some reporters – but since the middle 60’s, these resources have consistently been a part of my daily and weekly prayer cycles. Not only have they shared more facts than spin, but they also offer meaningful and compassionate analysis.

Like the death of any long-trusted friend, I feel an aching emptiness. I know my grief includes the horrific and cruel genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the relentless lies of the current administration, the war in Ukraine, the escalating damage of climate change, and the assault on the democratic institutions that have long contributed to the incremental redress of grievances in our search for a more perfect union. My tears are also aligned with my recent visit to my 94-year-old former Sunday School teacher. Malcolm has been a constant source of wisdom, gravitas, and integrity – and while he is still sharp and strong – the handwriting is on the wall. To everything there is a season, to be sure, and this is my time for tears.

David Brooks, one-time social conservative and now middle-of-the-road analyst for both the Atlantic Monthly and the NY Times op ed page, put it well this past Friday on the PBS Newshour: Why, he wondered, are Americans not rising-up against the authoritarianism of this regime like the rest of the world? Public repudiation is essential for dismantling neo-fascists, Brooks added, yet so many of us remain stunned and silent. Why? What else is at work in our confusion? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the MAGA movement has been successful in attacking mostly those on the periphery of bourgeois society. Most of us have yet to feel the pain and terror of ICE raids. Most of us are still able to live as if the foundations of our civil society are not shifting under us. Most of us, as Pastor Neimöller confessed after collaborating with the rise of the Nazis in Germany only to wind up in a concentration camp himself, have yet to feel the crack of the whip on our flesh or the boot heel of bullies on our throat to say nothing of our inability to accept that concentration camps are being constructed with our tax dollars that might soon incarcerate some of us.

"First, they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

This current terror is not the end, but it has not matured fully either - and there will be more grief and suffering before the semblance of balance returns. Until then, I keep singing, and weeping. I preach the love of Jesus, seek ways to build new connections among all who are wounded and afraid, and trust that God is not finished with us yet!