Country singer Alan Jackson has a song called, “Where I Come From.” He sings, “Where I come from, tryin’ to make a livin’ and workin’ hard to get to heaven, where I come from.” Well, where I come from, you don’t get arrested.
On October 19, after being inspired by Occupy Wall Street, I occupied Holland City Hall. It didn’t last long. They locked the doors, the police came, asked me to leave, I refused and they arrested me. “What Was I Thinking?” (That’s the title of another country song, by Dierks Bentley.)
I was thinking about how I asked the Holland City Council in May 2010 that the words “Sexual orientation and gender identity” be added to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinances in housing, employment, education and services. I was thinking about how the city’s Human Relations Commission studied the issue for nearly a year and unanimously recommended that the council approve changing the ordinances. I was thinking about how the council voted 5-4 in June of this year against the recommendation. I was thinking about how I and others have spoken at every regular council meeting since June, urging the five “no” voters to reverse their opinion. I was thinking about how, at the last meeting, one council member told us to come up with a new tactic, because what we’d been doing wasn’t working. I was thinking, “Hey, I could occupy city hall, draw attention to gay rights, maybe others would eventually join me. Nobody would have a problem with that, right?”
I asked one of the officers at the police department what I was being charged with. He said there were several possibilities, including disturbing the peace. Disturbing the peace? I thought I was promoting peace. While I may have been violating the law, I think 5 members of the council are violating a more serious law, or at least a more serious principle, by allowing LGBT people to be treated unfairly, unjustly and unequally.
Over the past few months, many speakers told the council how they’ve been discriminated against for being gay in Holland or how they or a relative have moved away because they didn’t feel welcome in the city of tulips. If your heart didn’t go out to them, you needed to check your pulse. After hearing their stories, I’m glad I became a minister following a career in the media. Even if I got in trouble with the law.
If I’m not a follower of every law, it’s because I’m a follower of Dr. King, who said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If I’m not a follower of every law, it’s because I’m a follower of Gandhi, who said, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience.” If I’m not a follower of every law, it’s because I’m a follower of Jesus, who said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” All three were arrested for what could be called promoting peace and all three were eventually killed. What I did was nothing compared to what they did.
I’m to be arraigned in Holland District Court on November 8 at 9 a.m. After that I may again promote peace, even if some say I’m disturbing it. And if I get arrested again, I’ll welcome it, because I now realize that being arrested for promoting peace is a good thing – where I come from.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Thine, Mine and Ayn
Ronald Reagan had a guaranteed applause line in many of his speeches. He would say, “Government is not the solution; government is the problem,” and people would applaud, “Yea, Ronnie, way to go!” I imagine this little scenario that I play in my head now and then. There’s a flood that hits a place in, let’s say, the south. A guy is perched on the roof of his house, water all around, when up comes a rowboat, being rowed by a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker. The FEMA worker comes up to the guy on the roof of his house and says, “Hey, buddy, you’re in a bad way.” The guy says, “Yeah, come give me a hand.” The FEMA worker says, “Just a minute, I want to ask you a question first. Ronald Reagan used to say, ‘Government isn’t the solution; government is the problem.’ What’d you think of that?”
“Oh, that’s great! Ronnie was right! Right on, Ronnie, I love that! ‘Government isn’t the solution; government is the problem.’” Then the FEMA worker rows away, saying, “OK, good luck to you, buddy! Take it easy. See ya!” Now I don’t really want that to happen, but it just reminds me that, when it comes to government help, some of us are schizophrenic. Many people don’t want the government to be very large at all, but when they’re in need, they want the government to help. I think I’ve figured out the way people feel. If I’m in need and the government helps me, well, the government’s just the right size. But if you’re in need and the government helps you, the government’s too big!
I found out in researching this sermon that the government is the largest employer in the country. It employs 2.3 percent of the work force. That makes sense when you think about it – when you think of all the military people and postal workers and teachers and everybody – that the government would be the largest employer. Some people have a problem with that though. They have a problem with the government employing people.
At the recent Republican Presidential Candidates’ Debate, sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked a question of Ron Paul, a Libertarian, about a hypothetical 30-year-old guy. Now, as you probably know, when you’re thirty years old you think you’ve got the world by the tail. You’re going to live forever. You’re going to be healthy forever. You’re going to have your job forever. So Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about this 30 year old, who, because he felt so healthy, decided not to buy health insurance. But then the guy gets catastrophically ill. He has to go in the hospital for six months. Wolf Blitzer asked, “What should happen with that guy? Who should pay for it?”
Ron Paul said, “Well, that’s what freedom’s all about.” The crowd went wild, “Yea!” Then Wolf Blitzer asked the question heard ‘round the world, “Should the guy be allowed to die?” And a couple members of the audience, presumably Tea Party members, yelled out, “Yeah!” I don’t know about you, if you watched that, I watched it and kind of cringed. I imagine some people gasped. Some people probably said, “Who are these people?” Tea Party members, as I understand it, are mostly made up of Republicans and many of them are Libertarians.
Libertarianism has been around for hundreds of years. It used to be called “anarchy.” But then people said, “Well, it’s about liberty,” so they became Libertarians. Libertarians believe in a limited government and unlimited personal freedom. They don’t want the government telling them what to do. They want to be able to do whatever they want to do, and while Libertarianism as I understand it runs a spectrum of different beliefs, most of the Libertarians think that the government should only pay for the military to protect us and then we’re kind of all on our own. We can hire our own security guards, I guess, and take care of ourselves and pay for our own health care, do everything on our own.
There are many famous people who are Libertarians or have Libertarian leanings. Drew Carey, the host of The Price is Right, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings. Penn Jillette, the speaking half of the magical duo, Penn and Teller, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings. John Larroquette, the Night Court actor and an actor in many other things, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings.
Believe it or not, I am a Libertarian, at least when it comes to some issues. I’m a Libertarian when it comes to same sex marriage. I don’t think the government should tell two adults in love, even if they’re the same sex, that they can’t get married. That should be up to the two people involved.
I’m a Libertarian when it comes to drugs. I don’t think the government should be in the drug enforcement business. Haven’t we learned anything from Prohibition? Prohibition is a PBS documentary by Ken Burns. I saw him interviewed a few weeks ago by John Stewart on The Daily Show. He said that before Prohibition alcohol wasn’t that big of a deal to people. They drank some, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Once Prohibition hit, then people said, “I’m not going to let the government tell me I can’t drink! I think I’ll put a still in my back yard.” Then after Prohibition people kept on drinking. I don’t think the government should tell people they can’t grow a marijuana plant in their backyard. I certainly don’t think that some college kid should be shot by mistake by drug enforcement officers because he’s suspected of selling a little marijuana to college students as happened two years or so ago in West Michigan. Now I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of a big druggie. Or even a little druggie. I am almost embarrassed to admit I’ve never tried marijuana. I had the opportunity in high school and college, but I didn’t do it, I think, because I believed the propaganda films they showed us when we were kids that said it killed brain cells. I was smart enough to know that I didn’t have any brain cells to spare. Now if you think that my position is radical, then you must think that the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. was a radical, because he believed in drug decriminalization.
I’m also a Libertarian when it comes to capital punishment. I don’t think the government should have the right to kill someone, to execute criminals. I wish Timothy McVeigh had lived out his days in a prison cell, surrounded by pictures of all his victims in the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, so that every morning he would wake up and see pictures of his victims, including many children, because I’m in the redemption business, the transformation business. I would’ve hoped that one day Timothy McVeigh would wake up and go, “My goodness, what have I done?” But instead the government killed him. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think the government should be in the execution business.
I’m a Libertarian when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. I don’t think the government should tell a woman what she can do with her body. I think there’s nobody better to decide what’s best for her health than the woman herself in consultation with her doctor. Certainly she’s better able to decide that than some bureaucrat or politician in Lansing, or some bureaucrat or politician in Washington, or members of the U.S. Supreme Court. If the government can tell a woman that she can’t have an abortion, then the government can tell a woman that she has to have an abortion, as they reportedly do in China. So I’m a Libertarian when it comes to that as well.
Ayn Rand is considered the godmother of Libertarians. Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant. Presumably, she was a legal immigrant. She came to this country in the early 1900s and went to Hollywood where she was a Hollywood screenwriter. She was a writer of novels and a philosopher. She wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, in which she detailed her philosophy. She said that people should be able to decide for themselves what they do and not depend on a nanny state, not depend on the government to help them out. People should be rugged individualists. Libertarians like Ron Paul liked her so much that he named his son Rand, Rand Paul, who is now a U.S. Senator. Ayn Rand’s philosophy is said to be rational egoism as opposed to ethical altruism: Everybody taking care of themselves and not worrying about anybody else, which I think I’d call rational selfishness as opposed to ethical selflessness.
Now I think many Libertarians would consider themselves Christians, although Ayn Rand was an atheist. It seems to me that many Tea Party members are Libertarians or have Libertarian leanings. For the life of me, I can’t reconcile Libertarianism and Christianity. It seems to me they are diametrically opposed to one another. Now I suppose somebody could be a Libertarian and be a traditional Christian and say, “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” but that’s it. But I don’t know how you could be a Libertarian and a follower of Jesus, somebody who believes that you should house the homeless and clothe the naked and feed the hungry and help your neighbor. If you’re a Libertarian, your neighbors should take care of themselves. Perhaps the Christian ideas about ethical altruism are best described by James, the brother of Jesus. James said, If someone comes up to you naked and hungry, you can’t say to them, “Well, peace be with you. Have a good day. Be on your way.” You can’t do that. If somebody comes up to you naked and hungry, you can’t use the wonderful line that Garrison Keillor uses at the end of the Writer’s Almanac, “Be well, do good work and keep in touch.” You can’t do that. If somebody comes up to you naked and hungry you can’t give them a religious tract and say, “This will clothe your soul and this will feed your spirit.” You actually have to help them if you can. You have to clothe them if they’re naked and feed them if they’re hungry, according to James, who said, “Faith without works is dead.”
Elizabeth Warren speaks to this somewhat. She’s a law professor at Harvard; she’s a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. She said in a campaign gathering a month or two ago that nobody got rich on their own. Nobody. If you built a factory and make a lot of money, good for you. But you send your goods to market on roads that all of us paid for. You hired workers that all of us paid to educate. You are protected by police and fire departments that the rest of us paid for. Elizabeth Warren says that nobody does this on their own. If you made a lot of money, fine, keep a big hunk of it. But also, as part of the social contract that we all should live by, you need to pay part of that forward for the kids coming up in the next generation. In other words, we all need to pay our fair share of taxes. The factory owners, they need to pay their fair share. Libertarians have a hard time hearing that, or at least they have a hard time accepting it.
Also at that Tea Party/CNN sponsored debate, a young man stood up and asked a question. I think it was kind of a smart-alecky question. He was maybe 30 years old. He said, “How much of the money that I make should the government allow me to keep?” Cute. But that was the wrong question. He should have asked, “How much of the money that I make should I gladly pay in taxes to live in – what I have to believe he believes is – the greatest country on the face of the earth? How much should he make and gladly pay in taxes for the privilege of living in a free-market capitalist democratic country that allowed him to make that money? How much should he gladly pay in taxes from what he makes to live in freedom and liberty? Those are the questions he should have asked.
I get a little sick and tired of people who complain about paying taxes. Not that I don’t do that around April 15 myself. I really shouldn’t, though. But whether you pay 10 or 15 or 25 or 36 or 39 percent in taxes, that’s just money. There are thousands of people – our military men and women – who have laid down their lives for this country, who paid the supreme sacrifice, who paid the ultimate tax. They paid 100 percent and they don’t get a refund after April 15. They died for this country. How dare millionaires and billionaires, complain about having to pay 3 percent more in taxes? They should be ashamed of themselves. If a millionaire has to pay 3 percent more in taxes, that’s $30,000 compared to a soldier on the battlefield who laid down their life for this country and who paid the ultimate tax.
It seems to me that today’s Libertarians were born a couple hundred years too late. If they would have been born a couple hundred years ago they could have blazed their own trail. They could have created their own path. Instead, Libertarians today have to travel highways that we pay for. If they could have been born a couple hundred years ago, they could have killed their own food, and maybe many of them still do. But they could have killed their own meat and known that it was fresh. Instead, I imagine many Libertarians go to the grocery store and they buy meat inspected by the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture, the U.S. government. If they would have been born a couple hundred years ago, they could have been their own weather forecasters. They could have looked out on the horizon and said to themselves, “Red at night, sailor’s delight” or “Red in morning, sailors take warning.” Instead, they’ve got the National Weather Bureau telling them what the weather is. They’ve got the government putting up sirens in towns warning of an oncoming tornado. They’ve got government workers evacuating places in Florida because a hurricane is coming. Libertarians were just born a couple hundred years too late.
Whenever I think of Libertarians, I think of one of my favorite songs ever, by Bill Withers, Lean on Me. Bill Withers sings, “Lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on.” Now there may be some Libertarians who believe in helping their neighbor, doing for others, maybe they don’t want the government to help their neighbor, but they do. But, as I understand Libertarianism – and I understand Libertarianism about as well as I understand Christianity – as I understand Libertarianism it’s not about helping your neighbor. It’s about taking care of yourself and your neighbor taking care of him or herself and then the world will run perfectly. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. One of the Republican candidates for president, Herman Cain, who is a Libertarian or at least has Libertarian leanings, says, “If you’re not rich, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.” That’s Libertarianism in a nutshell, I think. And I think that what we need to be about is selflessness, not selfishness.
Oh, one more thing, I almost forgot. Ayn Rand, who wrote all those books about Libertarianism and taking care of yourself and not relying on the government, she died in 1982. As far as I could tell, after she retired, she collected Social Security and she was on Medicare.
“Oh, that’s great! Ronnie was right! Right on, Ronnie, I love that! ‘Government isn’t the solution; government is the problem.’” Then the FEMA worker rows away, saying, “OK, good luck to you, buddy! Take it easy. See ya!” Now I don’t really want that to happen, but it just reminds me that, when it comes to government help, some of us are schizophrenic. Many people don’t want the government to be very large at all, but when they’re in need, they want the government to help. I think I’ve figured out the way people feel. If I’m in need and the government helps me, well, the government’s just the right size. But if you’re in need and the government helps you, the government’s too big!
I found out in researching this sermon that the government is the largest employer in the country. It employs 2.3 percent of the work force. That makes sense when you think about it – when you think of all the military people and postal workers and teachers and everybody – that the government would be the largest employer. Some people have a problem with that though. They have a problem with the government employing people.
At the recent Republican Presidential Candidates’ Debate, sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked a question of Ron Paul, a Libertarian, about a hypothetical 30-year-old guy. Now, as you probably know, when you’re thirty years old you think you’ve got the world by the tail. You’re going to live forever. You’re going to be healthy forever. You’re going to have your job forever. So Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about this 30 year old, who, because he felt so healthy, decided not to buy health insurance. But then the guy gets catastrophically ill. He has to go in the hospital for six months. Wolf Blitzer asked, “What should happen with that guy? Who should pay for it?”
Ron Paul said, “Well, that’s what freedom’s all about.” The crowd went wild, “Yea!” Then Wolf Blitzer asked the question heard ‘round the world, “Should the guy be allowed to die?” And a couple members of the audience, presumably Tea Party members, yelled out, “Yeah!” I don’t know about you, if you watched that, I watched it and kind of cringed. I imagine some people gasped. Some people probably said, “Who are these people?” Tea Party members, as I understand it, are mostly made up of Republicans and many of them are Libertarians.
Libertarianism has been around for hundreds of years. It used to be called “anarchy.” But then people said, “Well, it’s about liberty,” so they became Libertarians. Libertarians believe in a limited government and unlimited personal freedom. They don’t want the government telling them what to do. They want to be able to do whatever they want to do, and while Libertarianism as I understand it runs a spectrum of different beliefs, most of the Libertarians think that the government should only pay for the military to protect us and then we’re kind of all on our own. We can hire our own security guards, I guess, and take care of ourselves and pay for our own health care, do everything on our own.
There are many famous people who are Libertarians or have Libertarian leanings. Drew Carey, the host of The Price is Right, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings. Penn Jillette, the speaking half of the magical duo, Penn and Teller, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings. John Larroquette, the Night Court actor and an actor in many other things, is said to be a Libertarian or have Libertarian leanings.
Believe it or not, I am a Libertarian, at least when it comes to some issues. I’m a Libertarian when it comes to same sex marriage. I don’t think the government should tell two adults in love, even if they’re the same sex, that they can’t get married. That should be up to the two people involved.
I’m a Libertarian when it comes to drugs. I don’t think the government should be in the drug enforcement business. Haven’t we learned anything from Prohibition? Prohibition is a PBS documentary by Ken Burns. I saw him interviewed a few weeks ago by John Stewart on The Daily Show. He said that before Prohibition alcohol wasn’t that big of a deal to people. They drank some, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Once Prohibition hit, then people said, “I’m not going to let the government tell me I can’t drink! I think I’ll put a still in my back yard.” Then after Prohibition people kept on drinking. I don’t think the government should tell people they can’t grow a marijuana plant in their backyard. I certainly don’t think that some college kid should be shot by mistake by drug enforcement officers because he’s suspected of selling a little marijuana to college students as happened two years or so ago in West Michigan. Now I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of a big druggie. Or even a little druggie. I am almost embarrassed to admit I’ve never tried marijuana. I had the opportunity in high school and college, but I didn’t do it, I think, because I believed the propaganda films they showed us when we were kids that said it killed brain cells. I was smart enough to know that I didn’t have any brain cells to spare. Now if you think that my position is radical, then you must think that the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. was a radical, because he believed in drug decriminalization.
I’m also a Libertarian when it comes to capital punishment. I don’t think the government should have the right to kill someone, to execute criminals. I wish Timothy McVeigh had lived out his days in a prison cell, surrounded by pictures of all his victims in the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, so that every morning he would wake up and see pictures of his victims, including many children, because I’m in the redemption business, the transformation business. I would’ve hoped that one day Timothy McVeigh would wake up and go, “My goodness, what have I done?” But instead the government killed him. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think the government should be in the execution business.
I’m a Libertarian when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. I don’t think the government should tell a woman what she can do with her body. I think there’s nobody better to decide what’s best for her health than the woman herself in consultation with her doctor. Certainly she’s better able to decide that than some bureaucrat or politician in Lansing, or some bureaucrat or politician in Washington, or members of the U.S. Supreme Court. If the government can tell a woman that she can’t have an abortion, then the government can tell a woman that she has to have an abortion, as they reportedly do in China. So I’m a Libertarian when it comes to that as well.
Ayn Rand is considered the godmother of Libertarians. Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant. Presumably, she was a legal immigrant. She came to this country in the early 1900s and went to Hollywood where she was a Hollywood screenwriter. She was a writer of novels and a philosopher. She wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, in which she detailed her philosophy. She said that people should be able to decide for themselves what they do and not depend on a nanny state, not depend on the government to help them out. People should be rugged individualists. Libertarians like Ron Paul liked her so much that he named his son Rand, Rand Paul, who is now a U.S. Senator. Ayn Rand’s philosophy is said to be rational egoism as opposed to ethical altruism: Everybody taking care of themselves and not worrying about anybody else, which I think I’d call rational selfishness as opposed to ethical selflessness.
Now I think many Libertarians would consider themselves Christians, although Ayn Rand was an atheist. It seems to me that many Tea Party members are Libertarians or have Libertarian leanings. For the life of me, I can’t reconcile Libertarianism and Christianity. It seems to me they are diametrically opposed to one another. Now I suppose somebody could be a Libertarian and be a traditional Christian and say, “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” but that’s it. But I don’t know how you could be a Libertarian and a follower of Jesus, somebody who believes that you should house the homeless and clothe the naked and feed the hungry and help your neighbor. If you’re a Libertarian, your neighbors should take care of themselves. Perhaps the Christian ideas about ethical altruism are best described by James, the brother of Jesus. James said, If someone comes up to you naked and hungry, you can’t say to them, “Well, peace be with you. Have a good day. Be on your way.” You can’t do that. If somebody comes up to you naked and hungry, you can’t use the wonderful line that Garrison Keillor uses at the end of the Writer’s Almanac, “Be well, do good work and keep in touch.” You can’t do that. If somebody comes up to you naked and hungry you can’t give them a religious tract and say, “This will clothe your soul and this will feed your spirit.” You actually have to help them if you can. You have to clothe them if they’re naked and feed them if they’re hungry, according to James, who said, “Faith without works is dead.”
Elizabeth Warren speaks to this somewhat. She’s a law professor at Harvard; she’s a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. She said in a campaign gathering a month or two ago that nobody got rich on their own. Nobody. If you built a factory and make a lot of money, good for you. But you send your goods to market on roads that all of us paid for. You hired workers that all of us paid to educate. You are protected by police and fire departments that the rest of us paid for. Elizabeth Warren says that nobody does this on their own. If you made a lot of money, fine, keep a big hunk of it. But also, as part of the social contract that we all should live by, you need to pay part of that forward for the kids coming up in the next generation. In other words, we all need to pay our fair share of taxes. The factory owners, they need to pay their fair share. Libertarians have a hard time hearing that, or at least they have a hard time accepting it.
Also at that Tea Party/CNN sponsored debate, a young man stood up and asked a question. I think it was kind of a smart-alecky question. He was maybe 30 years old. He said, “How much of the money that I make should the government allow me to keep?” Cute. But that was the wrong question. He should have asked, “How much of the money that I make should I gladly pay in taxes to live in – what I have to believe he believes is – the greatest country on the face of the earth? How much should he make and gladly pay in taxes for the privilege of living in a free-market capitalist democratic country that allowed him to make that money? How much should he gladly pay in taxes from what he makes to live in freedom and liberty? Those are the questions he should have asked.
I get a little sick and tired of people who complain about paying taxes. Not that I don’t do that around April 15 myself. I really shouldn’t, though. But whether you pay 10 or 15 or 25 or 36 or 39 percent in taxes, that’s just money. There are thousands of people – our military men and women – who have laid down their lives for this country, who paid the supreme sacrifice, who paid the ultimate tax. They paid 100 percent and they don’t get a refund after April 15. They died for this country. How dare millionaires and billionaires, complain about having to pay 3 percent more in taxes? They should be ashamed of themselves. If a millionaire has to pay 3 percent more in taxes, that’s $30,000 compared to a soldier on the battlefield who laid down their life for this country and who paid the ultimate tax.
It seems to me that today’s Libertarians were born a couple hundred years too late. If they would have been born a couple hundred years ago they could have blazed their own trail. They could have created their own path. Instead, Libertarians today have to travel highways that we pay for. If they could have been born a couple hundred years ago, they could have killed their own food, and maybe many of them still do. But they could have killed their own meat and known that it was fresh. Instead, I imagine many Libertarians go to the grocery store and they buy meat inspected by the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture, the U.S. government. If they would have been born a couple hundred years ago, they could have been their own weather forecasters. They could have looked out on the horizon and said to themselves, “Red at night, sailor’s delight” or “Red in morning, sailors take warning.” Instead, they’ve got the National Weather Bureau telling them what the weather is. They’ve got the government putting up sirens in towns warning of an oncoming tornado. They’ve got government workers evacuating places in Florida because a hurricane is coming. Libertarians were just born a couple hundred years too late.
Whenever I think of Libertarians, I think of one of my favorite songs ever, by Bill Withers, Lean on Me. Bill Withers sings, “Lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on.” Now there may be some Libertarians who believe in helping their neighbor, doing for others, maybe they don’t want the government to help their neighbor, but they do. But, as I understand Libertarianism – and I understand Libertarianism about as well as I understand Christianity – as I understand Libertarianism it’s not about helping your neighbor. It’s about taking care of yourself and your neighbor taking care of him or herself and then the world will run perfectly. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. One of the Republican candidates for president, Herman Cain, who is a Libertarian or at least has Libertarian leanings, says, “If you’re not rich, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.” That’s Libertarianism in a nutshell, I think. And I think that what we need to be about is selflessness, not selfishness.
Oh, one more thing, I almost forgot. Ayn Rand, who wrote all those books about Libertarianism and taking care of yourself and not relying on the government, she died in 1982. As far as I could tell, after she retired, she collected Social Security and she was on Medicare.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Baby You're A Firework
My favorite television commercial these days is about a car company. A dad is leaning into the passenger side window of a car. He’s talking to his apparently little girl. She looks to be about three years old. He has a set of car keys in his hand. He’s telling her things like, drive carefully, buckle up, stuff like that. She says, “Daddy, OK!” Then he hands her the car keys and of course she turns out to be a teenager, apparently driving alone for the first time.
I am that dad. My daughter is a sophomore in college and yet I see her as a little girl. I’m trying not to. I’m working on it. But I think of her like I thought of her when she was two or three years old and I thought, OK, she’s the President and I’m the Secret Service; it’s my job to protect her. I know I shouldn’t do that now, but I still sometimes do. I’m working on it.
I heard somebody say once that a two year old is willful and that what we need to do is break the will, break the spirit of a two year old. That’s sick! You don’t need to break the will, break the spirit, of a two year old, we need to lift up the spirit of a two year old. We need to nurture the spirit of a two year old. We need to enhance the spirit of a two year old, and a four year old, and a six year old, and a sixteen year old. We need to nurture our children in body, mind and spirit, not break their spirit, not tear them down, not belittle them. We need to give them everything that we can.
In a previous life I was a radio talk show host. I interviewed a state lawmaker one time. We were talking about education funding and how he was going to support cutting funds for public schools. He said, “Bill, you can’t solve the problem by throwing money at it.” I said, “Well, that’s how they solve the problem in rich school districts, they throw money at it and it solves the problem.” It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not just to spend sometimes twice as much per pupil in a rich school district as is spent in a poor school district. But if we’re going to do that, then we shouldn’t wonder why students in poor school districts don’t do as well as students in rich school districts. It should be pretty obvious.
The only state that I know of that is fair about all of this is the state of Vermont. A few years ago, I believe it was the state supreme court in Vermont, that looked at educational funding and saw a disparity between rich school districts and poor school districts, between kids who live in rich districts and kids who live in poor districts, and said, as if it were the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, separate and unequal is unconstitutional. Now I believe in Vermont the same amount of money is spent on every child for public education, as it should be. I wonder when Michigan will come to that same conclusion, that it’s unconstitutional to apparently care more about students in rich districts than students in poor districts. We need to raise up all children, to nurture all children in body, mind and spirit.
I never have understood the Christian doctrine of original sin. I know it, you probably know it, the whole idea that in the beginning of creation, in the mythological story of Adam and Eve being told by God not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they did it anyway and when they did that they disobeyed God, they sinned and it led to the fall of humankind. Sin was ushered into the world when they did that. I understand all that, I mean I know it, I just don’t believe it. For one thing, the definition of the word “sin,” really means missing the mark, making a mistake, making an error. It’s not some sinister thing. It’s just making a mistake. I don’t get it. I don’t think Jesus got it.
A couple thousand years ago, according to the Christian New Testament, people would bring their children to this apparently holy man, to this prophet, to this Jesus. They would just want Jesus to tousle their hair, say a little prayer over them, but the disciples said, “No, no, you can’t do that. This is Jesus. He’s got more important things to do than mess with kids. He’s got to walk on water, and turn water into wine. He’s got to tell people to love their enemies and love their neighbor. He doesn’t have time for your children.” Then Jesus caught wind of this and said, “You guys just don’t get it. Let the little children come to me and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Then the children were brought forward and he laid his hands on them.
I agree with Jesus. If heaven exists, at least on this side of the rainbow if not somewhere over the rainbow, then the kingdom of heaven, heaven on earth, belongs to little children. They are such a joy. They aren’t some bundle of sin. I just don’t understand this whole concept. You know it’s one thing to think of adults as inherently sinful; I don’t believe that either, I believe we are inherently good. But to hold a little bitty baby in your arms and to look at that little baby and see, not a bundle of joy, but a tangle of sin, I just don’t get it. A child is not some vessel of the devil. A child is a joy to behold.
I can’t even think that when little Adolf was in his parents’ arms, or somebody’s arms, that they looked at him and saw anything but a bundle of joy. Now he may have grown up to be Hitler, but as a child I think he was a bundle of joy, not a vessel of the devil. I think Jesus knew that, too. Certainly philosopher and author Jean Jacques Rousseau knew that. He said in one of his novels - don’t begrudge children the chance to be children. Let them be little children. Let them have the hardest job they’ll ever have: playing all day, having fun from morning until night. That’s what we expect from them.
Little children are not miniature adults. I think some people have the exact opposite of the problem I have with my daughter, seeing my adult daughter as a little child, some people see little children as miniature adults. They’re not. You can’t tell a two year old something and then expect them to salute as if they’re a recruit and do it. They’re not fully mature, they’re not fully grown, they haven’t grown up. They haven’t physically and spiritually and emotionally grown up. I think part of the problem of child abuse and neglect is because some people see little children as miniature adults or vessels of sin and they have to have sin beat out of them or shaken out of them. It’s a shame that we don’t treat little children like little children.
I saw a comedian named Emo Philips years ago in a comedy club. If you know him, you know that he’s very strange, but wonderfully funny. He said that when he was a kid, his parents always told him, “Don’t go near the cellar door!” That’s all he ever heard as a child. “Don’t go near the cellar door!” Almost every day: “Don’t go near the cellar door!” But one day the door was open and he did go near it. He went through it and he said he saw some amazing things on the other side, things he’d never seen before – green grass, blue sky, trees!
Some people, some parents, some churches see little children, not as a blessing but as a bother. I don’t think this congregation does, but some churches, some parents, some adults do see children as a nuisance, not as people to be nurtured. Children are a blessing. Children are full of joy, full of playfulness, they show us wisdom and fairness sometimes. The things that come out of the mouths of children are amazing. We need to see them as a blessing, not a bother.
I used to baptize children. I don’t do that anymore; I bless children, but I used to baptize them. But I would try to turn baptism on its head. I would say that the church doesn’t confer or convey anything on the children when they are baptized that they don’t already have. We don’t make children sacred or holy or divine by baptizing them. They already are. I said that baptism is when the church realizes that children of creation are really children of God. Sacred. Holy. Divine. Then I changed the words you’re supposed to say at a baptism. I’d say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, who is a Mother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Son, who is a Brother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Spirit, who is a connection to us all.” That’s probably why I am no longer a Christian minister. I don’t baptize children anymore, I bless them. But really, when you think about it, we don’t bless children, they bless us. They bless us with their playfulness and their joy and their sense of fun and sense of humor and their sense of fairness and their wisdom. They bless us; we don’t bless them.
One of my favorite songs these days is a tune by Katy Perry. It’s called “Firework.” Katy Perry sings, “Baby, you’re a firework. Come on, let your colors burst. Make ‘em go ah, ah, ah.” The video that goes with it shows fireworks coming out of the middle of Katy Perry and the children and the young people who are in the video. It’s wonderful. It kind of reminds me of the old Christian song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” That’s what Katy Perry is saying to children and young people. Let your light shine. You are a divine spark. Don’t be ashamed of who you are or embarrassed of who you are. Be thankful for who you are. We should all be thankful for who they are. They are a firework. They are a light to the world. We don’t want them to hide that light under a bushel basket. We want them to glow and grow.
I’ve seen a couple of movies about the life of the Dalai Lama. Maybe you have, too. One of them stars Brad Pitt. And I’ve read several of the Dalai Lama’s books about happiness and the four noble truths and other ideas and ideals. So I know that the Dalai Lama, before he was recognized as the Dalai Lama, when he was about two years old, Buddhist monks were traveling back and forth across Tibet, looking for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, looking for the reincarnation of the Buddha. They came upon this little boy and he was inquisitive and intelligent and they thought This might be him! They put him through a battery of tests, including spreading out several sacred and secular objects and having him pick out the sacred ones and he did. They came to believe that this was the new Dalai Lama, this was the reincarnation of the Buddha. So with his parents’ permission they whisked him away to a mansion or a castle and they gave him everything a child would need. They gave him the best education, both sacred and secular. They gave him food, all the food he would need. They gave him toys and games to play with. They nurtured him in body, mind and spirit and he grew up to be the Dalai Lama because they saw him as sacred, holy, divine.
What if we, what if society, saw all children as the reincarnation of the Buddha or the Christ child? What if society saw all children as sacred, holy, divine? There would be no more child abuse. If we saw all children as sacred, holy, divine there would be no cuts in education funding. Children would get the best education. There would be no more poor children. There would not be a quarter of the children in America (not some third world country), living in poverty. There would be no more poor children. Every child would be nurtured. Every child would be seen as sacred, holy, divine. And then every child would feel like they were living in the kingdom of heaven. Every child would feel like they were living in heaven on earth. As every child should.
I am that dad. My daughter is a sophomore in college and yet I see her as a little girl. I’m trying not to. I’m working on it. But I think of her like I thought of her when she was two or three years old and I thought, OK, she’s the President and I’m the Secret Service; it’s my job to protect her. I know I shouldn’t do that now, but I still sometimes do. I’m working on it.
I heard somebody say once that a two year old is willful and that what we need to do is break the will, break the spirit of a two year old. That’s sick! You don’t need to break the will, break the spirit, of a two year old, we need to lift up the spirit of a two year old. We need to nurture the spirit of a two year old. We need to enhance the spirit of a two year old, and a four year old, and a six year old, and a sixteen year old. We need to nurture our children in body, mind and spirit, not break their spirit, not tear them down, not belittle them. We need to give them everything that we can.
In a previous life I was a radio talk show host. I interviewed a state lawmaker one time. We were talking about education funding and how he was going to support cutting funds for public schools. He said, “Bill, you can’t solve the problem by throwing money at it.” I said, “Well, that’s how they solve the problem in rich school districts, they throw money at it and it solves the problem.” It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not just to spend sometimes twice as much per pupil in a rich school district as is spent in a poor school district. But if we’re going to do that, then we shouldn’t wonder why students in poor school districts don’t do as well as students in rich school districts. It should be pretty obvious.
The only state that I know of that is fair about all of this is the state of Vermont. A few years ago, I believe it was the state supreme court in Vermont, that looked at educational funding and saw a disparity between rich school districts and poor school districts, between kids who live in rich districts and kids who live in poor districts, and said, as if it were the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, separate and unequal is unconstitutional. Now I believe in Vermont the same amount of money is spent on every child for public education, as it should be. I wonder when Michigan will come to that same conclusion, that it’s unconstitutional to apparently care more about students in rich districts than students in poor districts. We need to raise up all children, to nurture all children in body, mind and spirit.
I never have understood the Christian doctrine of original sin. I know it, you probably know it, the whole idea that in the beginning of creation, in the mythological story of Adam and Eve being told by God not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they did it anyway and when they did that they disobeyed God, they sinned and it led to the fall of humankind. Sin was ushered into the world when they did that. I understand all that, I mean I know it, I just don’t believe it. For one thing, the definition of the word “sin,” really means missing the mark, making a mistake, making an error. It’s not some sinister thing. It’s just making a mistake. I don’t get it. I don’t think Jesus got it.
A couple thousand years ago, according to the Christian New Testament, people would bring their children to this apparently holy man, to this prophet, to this Jesus. They would just want Jesus to tousle their hair, say a little prayer over them, but the disciples said, “No, no, you can’t do that. This is Jesus. He’s got more important things to do than mess with kids. He’s got to walk on water, and turn water into wine. He’s got to tell people to love their enemies and love their neighbor. He doesn’t have time for your children.” Then Jesus caught wind of this and said, “You guys just don’t get it. Let the little children come to me and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Then the children were brought forward and he laid his hands on them.
I agree with Jesus. If heaven exists, at least on this side of the rainbow if not somewhere over the rainbow, then the kingdom of heaven, heaven on earth, belongs to little children. They are such a joy. They aren’t some bundle of sin. I just don’t understand this whole concept. You know it’s one thing to think of adults as inherently sinful; I don’t believe that either, I believe we are inherently good. But to hold a little bitty baby in your arms and to look at that little baby and see, not a bundle of joy, but a tangle of sin, I just don’t get it. A child is not some vessel of the devil. A child is a joy to behold.
I can’t even think that when little Adolf was in his parents’ arms, or somebody’s arms, that they looked at him and saw anything but a bundle of joy. Now he may have grown up to be Hitler, but as a child I think he was a bundle of joy, not a vessel of the devil. I think Jesus knew that, too. Certainly philosopher and author Jean Jacques Rousseau knew that. He said in one of his novels - don’t begrudge children the chance to be children. Let them be little children. Let them have the hardest job they’ll ever have: playing all day, having fun from morning until night. That’s what we expect from them.
Little children are not miniature adults. I think some people have the exact opposite of the problem I have with my daughter, seeing my adult daughter as a little child, some people see little children as miniature adults. They’re not. You can’t tell a two year old something and then expect them to salute as if they’re a recruit and do it. They’re not fully mature, they’re not fully grown, they haven’t grown up. They haven’t physically and spiritually and emotionally grown up. I think part of the problem of child abuse and neglect is because some people see little children as miniature adults or vessels of sin and they have to have sin beat out of them or shaken out of them. It’s a shame that we don’t treat little children like little children.
I saw a comedian named Emo Philips years ago in a comedy club. If you know him, you know that he’s very strange, but wonderfully funny. He said that when he was a kid, his parents always told him, “Don’t go near the cellar door!” That’s all he ever heard as a child. “Don’t go near the cellar door!” Almost every day: “Don’t go near the cellar door!” But one day the door was open and he did go near it. He went through it and he said he saw some amazing things on the other side, things he’d never seen before – green grass, blue sky, trees!
Some people, some parents, some churches see little children, not as a blessing but as a bother. I don’t think this congregation does, but some churches, some parents, some adults do see children as a nuisance, not as people to be nurtured. Children are a blessing. Children are full of joy, full of playfulness, they show us wisdom and fairness sometimes. The things that come out of the mouths of children are amazing. We need to see them as a blessing, not a bother.
I used to baptize children. I don’t do that anymore; I bless children, but I used to baptize them. But I would try to turn baptism on its head. I would say that the church doesn’t confer or convey anything on the children when they are baptized that they don’t already have. We don’t make children sacred or holy or divine by baptizing them. They already are. I said that baptism is when the church realizes that children of creation are really children of God. Sacred. Holy. Divine. Then I changed the words you’re supposed to say at a baptism. I’d say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, who is a Mother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Son, who is a Brother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Spirit, who is a connection to us all.” That’s probably why I am no longer a Christian minister. I don’t baptize children anymore, I bless them. But really, when you think about it, we don’t bless children, they bless us. They bless us with their playfulness and their joy and their sense of fun and sense of humor and their sense of fairness and their wisdom. They bless us; we don’t bless them.
One of my favorite songs these days is a tune by Katy Perry. It’s called “Firework.” Katy Perry sings, “Baby, you’re a firework. Come on, let your colors burst. Make ‘em go ah, ah, ah.” The video that goes with it shows fireworks coming out of the middle of Katy Perry and the children and the young people who are in the video. It’s wonderful. It kind of reminds me of the old Christian song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” That’s what Katy Perry is saying to children and young people. Let your light shine. You are a divine spark. Don’t be ashamed of who you are or embarrassed of who you are. Be thankful for who you are. We should all be thankful for who they are. They are a firework. They are a light to the world. We don’t want them to hide that light under a bushel basket. We want them to glow and grow.
I’ve seen a couple of movies about the life of the Dalai Lama. Maybe you have, too. One of them stars Brad Pitt. And I’ve read several of the Dalai Lama’s books about happiness and the four noble truths and other ideas and ideals. So I know that the Dalai Lama, before he was recognized as the Dalai Lama, when he was about two years old, Buddhist monks were traveling back and forth across Tibet, looking for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, looking for the reincarnation of the Buddha. They came upon this little boy and he was inquisitive and intelligent and they thought This might be him! They put him through a battery of tests, including spreading out several sacred and secular objects and having him pick out the sacred ones and he did. They came to believe that this was the new Dalai Lama, this was the reincarnation of the Buddha. So with his parents’ permission they whisked him away to a mansion or a castle and they gave him everything a child would need. They gave him the best education, both sacred and secular. They gave him food, all the food he would need. They gave him toys and games to play with. They nurtured him in body, mind and spirit and he grew up to be the Dalai Lama because they saw him as sacred, holy, divine.
What if we, what if society, saw all children as the reincarnation of the Buddha or the Christ child? What if society saw all children as sacred, holy, divine? There would be no more child abuse. If we saw all children as sacred, holy, divine there would be no cuts in education funding. Children would get the best education. There would be no more poor children. There would not be a quarter of the children in America (not some third world country), living in poverty. There would be no more poor children. Every child would be nurtured. Every child would be seen as sacred, holy, divine. And then every child would feel like they were living in the kingdom of heaven. Every child would feel like they were living in heaven on earth. As every child should.
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