Been There, Done That: Glenn Beck and Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the last few days, Alternet, the internet news for liberals/radicals has been talking about Glenn Beck’s Rally in Washington, D.C. and how it’s a mockery of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech because it takes place on the same site and the same day, some 40+ years later. One report said there were 2500 (twenty-five hundred) people there.  Other articles say hundreds of thousands.  I don’t much care because a) I don’t know a whole lot about Mr. Beck, b) he seems to be saying that the country ought to return to values and God’s will, and, (mostly) because, in comparison, Mr. Beck doesn’t stand a chance. As an orator, as a leader, as a Christian, as a prophet, as an example of how one man can change history for many around the world, Glenn Beck is a poor imitation of King, even if he were trying to “out-King” King (which I gather he’s not.)  There simply is no comparison, so why worry about it?

This is not to say that Beck is a bad person or a poor speaker.  I don’t agree with his opinions as far as I can tell, (though I think that God wouldn’t be a bad thing for this country) but I’m sure he can write and speak fairly well or he wouldn’t have the job he has. But, for liberals to be worried about Glenn Beck usurping or mocking MLK is kind of like being straight and feeling threatened because gays want to marry or Van Halen feeling threatened by every now-departed hair band of the 1980s.  What’s there to be threatened by?

I think Beck is quoted as saying something like “nobody owns an issue, nobody owns a day”.  Sorry, but barring a more incredible speech by a more  incredible person on the same day, MLK’s speech owns the day, in much the same way that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address owns that day and place or the writers of the Declaration of Independence own Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

King was a one-in-a-generation person, giving a once-in-a-lifetime speech. King is, as I’ve said before, one of the most admired men in history — one of the best humanity has to offer.  And on that day, he brought his “A” Game.  Every pastor I know would be thrilled to have King’s “C” Game just once in their preaching career. But on that day, with television watching him, King was “on fire” and he wasn’t trying to imitate anyone.  In any subject there’s the person who — love them or hate them, agree/disagree, it doesn’t matter — is the standard by which everyone else has to measure themselves. In the category of “orators”, King is one of those people who defines the category.

The other difference between Beck and King is a generational difference — people of King’s generation wanted to be great leaders, not famous people.  The difference between Beck and King is the same as the difference between Chloe Kardashian and Katherine Hepburn : Both of them are famous, one of them can act.  There is a depth and substance to King that Beck simply doesn’t have, at least not yet. If Beck wants to grow into leadership, God bless him. If he wants to run a church, lead America to become one and put hope into each other, let him do it. I’m all for that.

But for right now, Mr. Beck, you’re no Martin Luther King. And all the hoopla and press and fear and anxiety doesn’t make you him. It wasn’t the press coverage that made King’s speech great. It was the words and King himself. I remember Martin Luther King and I remember the sense as he talked that “this man is a great man”. I’ve seen Beck on TV a few times at the local diner. I haven’t been impressed yet. If, in fact, Beck is feeling called by God, there is nothing saying that God can’t make him a great man. As of yet, I haven’t seen it.

That’s still another difference between King and Beck. If you asked King if he was a great man, I think he’d say he’d done great things, but that he himself wasn’t any more great than God let him be or than God made him.  King certainly had his personal failings, but he knew them to be that. I think Beck believes his own publicity, and that is his right. It just doesn’t make it true.

To his credit, I guess, he’s not the only one who’s “not King”. Billions of people are not MLK.  Two of King’s closest associates, Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young are incredibly bright shapers of democracy — spiritual men who have “that thing” about them when they speak.  But they are not King either. Still, a person has to get through the ranks of the Jacksons and the Youngs to even approximate Martin Luther King, with God Spirit behind him.  Beck’s not there yet — not even close.

So, to all my liberal friends, I know that I do this at my own peril, but I don’t see Glenn Beck as able to make a dent in the legacy of King’s “Dream” speech simply by showing up at the same place, same date, and using English.  Lots of people have been there, done that. None of them was King either.

When 3rd graders have to learn about Beck’s speech in school, then I’ll worry about it. Until then, let’s all have a nice day.

Peace,

John

Re: Community – Online or Otherwise…

A  week or so before vacation, I published some fairly strident comments about the Bible’s authority and got all kinds of responses. In addition, the article has had numerous hits since then.  My friend Bob seriously disagrees with what I wrote. My friend Cathi seems to agree with me. My friend Dave had other options that were a mix of it all. My friend Carroll wrote and gave her understandings of the topic.  Amazingly, though I expected it to get ugly, it didn’t.  Somehow, with enough voices, we got the full spectrum of ideas and that is good.

Recently, my friend Dawn posted to her Facebook page, “why do I read an article, then read the comments, when I know they’ll make me upset?” or something like it. Tonight, I read two articles online that exemplified what Dawn was saying. One was about Dr. Laura who’s “had her free speech rights trampled by people who don’t want to debate. They just want to shut other voices down”  – or some quote approaching that.  The next was an article about Barnes and Noble’s apparent decline.  Someone wrote in a comment that the reason it was having problems (BN says it’s not, BTW, according to the article) is because B & N is “just like everything else the left does — spends a lot and mismanages” … something, something, something, blah, blah, blah.

What the hell is going on?  I missed the whole Dr. Laura thing while I was gone, so I don’t understand it.  I can’t comment because I don’t really get it. I can say that I would never use “The N word” in public speech no matter who I was — male, female, black, white, Chinese, Mexican, rich, poor.  I don’t understand why she used it, nor do I understand why she’s now in so much trouble that she’s leaving her show after years of spewing hate.  Now she leaves? It’s kind of like Imus. After years of being a “shock  jock” one day he gets in trouble for using “nappy-headed girls” in a tirade? He was paid to make people mad.  One day he got — what? — too good at his job?

But more than that is the comments about the left and Barnes and Noble… The article didn’t say anything about the left, the right, or the center and yet here was this guy (I assume it was a guy. I could be wrong.) going to town about the left and extending a bad argument to an even sillier position. He didn’t use the words “pinko”, “commie”, or “sympathizer”, but it might just as well have been from the days of McCarthyism. Have we gone that far back in our thought? It’s like the guy who sees a bottle of milk and thinks it’s about White Power vs. the NAACP if the milk is chocolate or white. I understand that on the internet a person uses CAPS to show they’re YELLING!!! A person doesn’t have to do that if they hate all liberals or all conservatives or all of  any group. There are people that comment on articles just to hear themselves yell. There are people on the radio that just like to hear themselves talk.

Community is a great thing — but it’s not real community, real communion with each other if it doesn’t involve listening. “Com” — meaning “with” requires both sides of the conversation. I love free speech — I love it a lot. But I also like being heard. Because I love free speech, I have to hear other people’s point of view.  That’s a fair trade.  And, even though I might violently disagree with their viewpoint, it’s theirs and I will listen to it. But I have to say that it makes it a lot easier to do that if people talk to me or with me rather than at me.

Every once in a while, I get the itch to start a new Christian community (aka a form of church) and every once in awhile I get the feeling that it’s possible to do it on-line.  Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and all those other social networks do, indeed, make it more possible for people to connect from any part of the U.S., so friends in California, the mid-west (Hi, Greg!) and the East could do something together online. With skype it’s even possible to see each other. It wouldn’t exactly be the same as church all together (passing the bread and cup gets a little difficult online), but as a place for prayer, reflection, caring, etc., it’s possible if people can get their head around it.

That aside, however, I’d like to propose some rules for on-line communication and in-person, real conversation that make it safe to “speak” (or post) and be heard, make real conversation possible.

1)  Use “I statements” — talk about what you actually believe, what you actually think, what you actually feel. Maybe talk about your experience and why you think that way. In this way, nobody can argue about your reality. If something happened to make you think  x, then ok, fair enough. People might be able to argue with what you made of the experience, but not the experience itself.

2) Don’t use talking points, or somebody else’s ideas, unless you say, “I heard” (whoever) say so-and-such…” or “I read so-and-such”  If you want to throw around Rush Limbaugh quotes or Michael Moore quotes, or Bishop Sprong or Pat Robertson quotes, be my guest. If you want to talk about a Zippy the Pinhead comic or a Peanuts comic, fair enough.  Wherever you get your wisdom is ok with me, but it should be the start of a conversation about you.  Just saying, “Obama’s a Muslim” doesn’t do anything but disregard or implies that we should disregard the man.  Enough of disregarding people, already.  If you want to say, “I heard Pat Robertson say, “Obama’s a Muslim” and I think he shouldn’t be president if that’s true”, then OK.  We can find common ground maybe. (Actually, we can’t on that one.  A) He’s not; and B) It’s ok with me if we have a Muslim president, or a Jew, or a Buddhist, Taoist, Quaker, Catholic, etc.  A good president is a good president. A bad one is a bad one.  Just don’t ask me to have a Muslim as the head of my (Christian) denomination.  His religion would really interfere with his ability to do his job then.  Still, at least I’d understand you, which is a better thing than not.

3) I’m really sick of clever.  Don’t go for clever. If it happens, cool.  I love wordplay, but style isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Just because you can use alliteration or some funky spin on a word, or a double-entendre which basically says, “Hey, look over there!” while you’re trying to sneak in a point over here, doesn’t mean you should.  Witty repartee’  is all well and good if you’re a half-hour episode of Seinfeld, but that was a show about “nothing”. This is a conversation about something.    As an aside, sarcasm actually should have it’s own font (not an original idea, but a good one. I just can’t remember where I saw it).  I propose “<sarcasm>” before and after something you’ve said. For example: <sarcasm> oh, yeah, he’s a great minister <sarcasm>.  In real life, if you’re being sarcastic and the other person looks mortified by what you said, explain that you were being sarcastic. Makes life a lot easier.

4) You can feel, think, speak, or post anything you want. There are times when I want to YELL, and times when cussing is the only reasonable reaction to something. You don’t have to actually spell out the word, but you can if you want. I knew a woman once who described a rape in an institution by another patient by saying, “oh, yeah, it was her first experience with pseudo-lesbianism”. (I’m sorry to once again mention lesbianism and negativity in the same place. It’s just the rudest example I could think of.) Rape — heterosexual or homosexual — is BULLSHIT!, Bullshit, or Bull—-, if you prefer.  It’s not “pseudo-lesbianism”.  And, frankly, if you’re talking nicely about it, you’re missing the point (at best) and you’re disregarding the person’s agony at worst. Poverty, racism, rape, incest and so many other things are not pretty. You don’t have to pretend they are.

At the same time, it’s OK (really OK!) to be joyous, innocent, hopeful, faithful, strong, respectful, decent, caring, if that’s how you feel. Too much misery, too much anger and such isn’t a way to be either. Humor is a good thing, too!  The whole range of human emotions is appropriate at some time or another.  It should be here, as well.

It’s also OK to not say anything.  It’s OK to wait until you have the right words, or the patience, or some idea about a subject. There are millions of things I don’t talk about, either because I don’t care or don’t have a clue about them.  Lots of people on-line (and in real life) don’t let that stop them. I suppose on occasion, I don’t either, but it doesn’t help much. In the interest of community, let’s try to avoid it.

5) Needless to say, don’t make it personal.  Name calling, threats, personal attacks — no good. Civility is shot in our society, but it doesn’t need to be. In addition to that, I suck at rejection. It may be a weakness, but personal attacks just kill me. There are those who think “if you’re not one of the big dogs. stay on the porch”. Maybe that’s true. But I don’t want to “stay on the porch”. Is it really that much to ask not to be beaten up? I don’t personally attack others (at least I don’t think I do) and if I can keep it civil, I assume others can.  Respectful speech isn’t really all that much to ask. Plus, it would be nice to get the practice. Maybe it’ll catch on.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I hope that whether it’s religion, politics, sex, money, the Bible, pastoring (is that enough taboos to make you interested?) or how beautiful the sunset is and how cool little kids are, or how amazing Jesus was, I hope we can talk.

Peace,

John

Stray Thoughts From The Midwest

Haven’t written for awhile and — after many several days on the road — finally have a chance to rest and  ”download” some thoughts — or is that “upload” some thoughts to the internet?  In any case, here they are, like they matter…

Intelligent people and intellectuals can be nice. Yes, it’s possible — and now maybe should be expected. I Just came from the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead, museum, pageant, gravestone,2nd house and re-created little house (blame my wife — she likes this stuff) and this is what I got out of it:

Laura Ingalls Wilder was a smart girl — very smart for her little communities around the midwest — at a time when I didn’t think girls/women were encouraged to read at all, and certainly not to write.  She turned out a well-read daughter who became an author and editor who traveled the world and came back to help her mother tell stories of her past. Both the older and the younger Wilders would probably have been considered “really smart” (aka intellectuals) for their time. The older one suffered more, by far, during her lifetime, but the youngest was a journalist in Vietnam in 1965, so she’d probably seen enough misery and yet both of them seemed to be just plain folks who saw niceness as the way to be.  I hear that, in the world of academia, politics gets brutal, as though it’s a foregone conclusion that intellectuals are pained and  misunderstood people who simply can’t be decent to each other. It’s like the idea that artists should be mean, simply because they are artists or musicians or whatever.  Having seen organists who are pompous fail and organists who are nice succeed on a couple of occasions, I can say that intelligent or creative people don’t have to be mean. They can make other choices. People like Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Ruth remind us of this.

Also on the topic: Oh, to be young again and see things through the eyes of an eight-year-old (almost nine!).  My daughter understands Christianity and it comes out in her description of lessons from the Little House books: Nellie Oleson (the stuck-up girl from the books) is well-to-do and believes she’s upper class.  My daughter informed the family in the car that “Nellie wasn’t upper class. In fact, she wasn’t classy at all. In fact, by the way she’s acting, I think she’s lower class. Laura (the heroine of the stories) is much nicer — and much classier than her”. I don’t want to be “upper class” or “lower class”. I think I want to be .. middle class — not above any one, but not below them, either”. I think Jesus didn’t want to be upper class or lower class either, by those standards.

While thinking of “class”, one museum in St. Louis had a quote from Eugene Debs (who, I think, was a bone fide communist and union organizer) which said something like “As long as there’s a lower class, I’m in it.  As long as there are people who work hard and never get ahead, I’m one of them…” etc.  That’s kind of what I think about life as a Christian and working with addicts and treating them like human beings. I think Jesus calls us to care for the very people that society tells us aren’t worth much — the young, the old, the physically ill, the mentally ill, the poor, the addicted, the not-very-bright or not-very-pretty and so on.  In other words, pretty much everyone.

Also, on the subject of class (socio-economic class, not “classiness”), class and money are the last taboos in this society. I would love to see my denomination (the United Church of Christ) have a real discussion of money, cultural norms, and what it takes to get by in this world.  Having grown up poor, I love my denomination but I don’t see many folks like me in the pulpit or in leadership positions.  Just thought I’d mention it, since we don’t seem to know what to do in the cities of America.  Sending folks who have always had a family house, car, and education to minister to those who may don’t expect to ever have one of them, let alone three, might be a real problem.

All right, back to America’s “heartland” — don’t let anybody kid you, they have just as many perverts out here as they do back East, and in California.  Judging by the “Adult Bookstore”, “Adult Video Store” and “Adult Bookstore and Spa — must be over 18 to enter” signs and buildings all over the highways out here, it must be really strange here. When you look out over  miles and miles and miles of farmland and don’t see even a house, who the heck is keeping these businesses alive?  I always feel bad coming into Hartford and seeing all the signs for strip clubs and “adult” stores, but I figure out of any large city, there’s going to be a certain percentage of folks with sex lives I don’t want to think about.  But out here, it seems like a 1:1 ratio.  Maybe it’s just lonely truckers. I don’t know.  But wow, if you wave a stick out here, you’re just as likely to hit and adult bookstore/video store/spa as you are a human being.

I don’t read enough. I have a novel that I’ll probably finish tomorrow that I’ve been reading for months now.  It’s not a great novel, but it’s pretty good. I mostly read articles these days, or stuff for work, or a devotional something before I pass out at night — after TV and the internet.

Oh, well, that’s all for now.  Reporting live from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma…

Peace,

John