Top Down Power is the default position for us humans and this has been our story throughout our history. America has mostly been an exception to the rule, except that lately we have been watching authoritarian power infect our government, decreasing the authority that We The People have been accustomed to in this democratic republic.

When people give themselves over to Top Down Power, we are giving ourselves over to a kind of eternal childhood. We want someone else to protect us, to take care of us, to make the hard decisions and exempt us from the consequences. Living in this Neverland is much easier than growing up and taking responsibility for our own lives.

In every society, it’s the grown ups who step up and recognize the authority inherent within themselves and their communities. This kind of authority is not “authoritarian” – attempting to rule over others. Rather it is an egalitarian authority that understands everyone in a community has something to offer. And everyone has something to learn.

When President Barack Obama spoke at Nelson Mandela’s 100th birth day celebration, he reminded us of the power of this Bottom Up authority. Continue reading Real Power From the Bottom Up →

A photo of this cap made the rounds in cyberspace not long after the 2016 presidential election.

“Make America Kind Again” was the plea.

The campaign to be “great again” evidently resonated with enough voters in enough states that the Electoral College was tipped against the popular vote. So now we have what we have here in America – I would say: neither greatness nor goodness.

A Pandora’s Box of ugliness has been opened in our society. Of course people have always been unkind to one another but just a few years ago, regular Americans seemed to have better manners. There was a common civility that helped us navigate our personal opinions so that – at least in public – we mostly treated acquaintances and strangers with a basic politeness.

That began to fall apart with accusations of “political correctness” so that saying things in such a way as not to offend others was perceived as a censure on MY ability to say whatever I wanted. MY rights were more important than any one else’s feelings. Circumspection and kindness in our conversation were ridiculed as a weakness.

During the eight years that America had its first mixed race president, unkindness accelerated. Criticisms of any president’s politics and policies are nothing new, but somehow too many Americans grew more comfortable believing and repeating rampant ugly untruths about this particular first family. America’s shadow side of racism came boldly into the light.

Now, with our current president’s life long habit of disrespect and derision, even more Americans have lost a habit of common public civility. Continue reading Make America Kind Again →

Treat others the way you would want to be treated.

We call it the Golden Rule and its wisdom shows up in most every world religion.

So why has the human race never really figured out how to live by this rule of life? Maybe because throughout history most people just flat don’t agree with it.

Other rules of life are much more popular:

Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.

Do unto others before they do it unto you.

Might makes right.

The end justifies the means.

The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies. (Genghis Khan)

These are the rules that have ruled human existence since our earliest beginnings. This is the reason human history is so screwed up.

But even in the dismal darkness of our past, some humans found the wisdom and the courage to live life with an alternative vision: a way of seeing and being in the world that is up-side-down and inside-out from the conventional wisdom. A golden thread of kindness, forgiveness and grace.

Nelson Mandela was one of those people. Continue reading Do Unto Others… →

“Journey” is a powerful motif in many of our human stories. In the tales we tell we often see ourselves as people in process; people on the way. Sometimes we know where we want to go but often we only have the vaguest notion of where we will end up.

Because life is a journey with zigs and zags, with mountain tops and valleys, with stormy days or peaceful nights, our best stories reflect on the meaning of where we have been, where we are going and where we find ourselves on the way.

Joseph Campbell studied Hero Myths from many cultures and taught us how this arch type functions – not only in our stories but within our lives individually and together as societies. The Hero’s Journey brings transformation. Traveling into the unknown, experiencing and surviving the dangers, finding wider wisdom that puts our lives into perspective – this long walk of the Hero’s Journey brings her “home” again; but the person who returns has become stronger, wiser and more resilient than the person who first began the journey.

“The Long Walk Home” is a movie set in Montgomery Alabama during the bus boycott of the 60’s. The title refers to the long miles Black housemaids had to walk to and from work when they refused to ride the city buses. But the second meaning alludes to the journey two women make together – one Black and one White – as they helped carve new paths for America during the Civil Rights Movement. Continue reading The Long Walk →

Sometimes I think about my grandparents and all the dizzying progress they saw in their lifetimes. Automobiles to airplanes to space ships then experiencing an American walking on the moon. Indoor plumbing, refrigeration, television to powerful computers small enough to fit into their pockets. An explosive awareness and expansion of civil rights and human rights. Longer life spans and the eradication of some diseases. Inter-connection that reaches all the way across the globe.

But with all this progress, in many other ways our world has gone backwards. The 20th Century was the bloodiest in human history as we created more effective ways to kill and torture one another. Lies and disinformation “travel halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on.” We have generated immense world wealth but the rich keep on getting richer and the poor only get poorer. Continue reading The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same →

Cries of anguish from our southern border have broken the heart of America. Children have been ripped from the arms of their parents and housed in separate facilities, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. Some are locked in cage-like structures, left to comfort one another in their shared misery.

I wish I could say this evil practice is un-American, but I can’t.

This administration’s recent policy of zero tolerance has brought back horrific national memories of Black babies ripped from the arms of their mothers and sold in slave markets. Or nightmare remembrances of Native American children stolen from their parents in order to be acculturated as White.

This manufacturing of orphans has once again become governmental policy, and even though an Executive Order finally ended the policy, the practical reality is that these orphans may never find their way back to their parents. Their cries continue. Continue reading Manufactured Orphans →

“Keeping on” surely needs to happen in these long odd days. But the important question to me is: “How?!” How do we hold on to hope, hold on to faith, hold on to loving one another when every day brings a new outrage?

My blogging work brings me into contact with a wide range of cyberspace acquaintances and I see much anger everywhere I turn. Anger, impatience, blame, antagonism, resentment, rage. How can we sleep at night when such emotions constantly roil within us? How can we maintain our most precious relationships when we disagree deeply? How can we find positive energy to address the challenges of our nation when negative emotions paralyze us? How can we keep on keeping on?

Here are just a few possibilities: Continue reading Keep On Keeping On. But How?! →

It’s been months since I’ve written an Intersection blog and I’m feeling a bit guilty about that. There are several good reasons but there are even more bad excuses. At least something inside is finally strong enough to nudge me to write. I guess something inside me is needing to get out, to find expression. Maybe that’s what writing does for us: it frees thoughts and feelings that are locked within us and allows them to take on a life of their own.

I have to admit the things locked up within me have been mostly negative. As I watch the antics of this president and his minions, the ineptitude of this Congress, the unfaithfulness of the American Evangelical Church, I realize I have been made speechless. As I listen to the cries of the children and their parents at our southern border, I realize there are no words for such unspeakable wickedness and callousness.

But I am also coming to realize I have no excuse for remaining silent. It took me years to find my voice, to find my way into a pulpit. So now, having a voice, having the power to speak and the privilege of a platform creates a certain responsibility. Therefore I will remember those who have no voice, whose power to speak has been thwarted. I will honor those whose pain remains locked within them and whose cries for justice suffer a grievous stillbirth. Continue reading Speechless →

Martin Luther King Jr. changed America. His stirring sermons stirred the pot for revival that spilled out of churches and eventually swayed a nation. Voting rights. Workers rights. Civil rights. Equal rights. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was both a Baptist minister and a political game changer.

Clementa Pinckney stood tall for liberty and justice for all before his brutal murder at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in South Carolina. State Senator/Reverend Pinckney was both a passionate pastor and a passionate politician.

William Barber continues the legacy of King. His leadership within the NAACP, his Moral Mondays efforts and now the renewed Poor Peoples Campaign are inspiring thousands upon thousands of people to become committed to a moral revolution in America. Reverend Barber is both a zealous pastor and a  political activist.

In an era when we frequently discuss and debate what it means for America to function within the parameters of the First Amendment, many religious people continue to strike a healthy balance as they live out their faith in the public arena. In a time when our divided society argues about the separation of Church and State, many religious Americans – motivated by their faith – continue to make significant contributions to the shape and meaning of our national politics.

But some pastors are out of balance. Continue reading Political Pastors →