1-1-2017
I’ve been listening to all the pundits and political commentators discuss the end of the year and the beginning of the new one. So many changes, surprises, setbacks in the midst of such progress.
And I believe we have 19 days until we end an era that I have been so very proud to see from my generation. The end of the Obama administration that reigned in such grace & restored dignity to our country. So many wonderful things; from a President only a year older than myself.
We both had our 50th birthday while he was in office.
And now here we go, off into a complete unknown. We’ve divided but not only that – I mean we did that when “W” was in the White House, but we’ve become violently divided. Those black and white videos of Black protests in the south have returned in living color. And the once unusual shooting in Columbine has become routine. Hijacked commercial airlines happened in the late 70s but they didn’t fly into buildings. We were scared then. We are now terror-ed, terrified, by a fear deep down in our psyche.
The Obama campaign shouted: “Yes We Can” and brandished posters that merely had the word “HOPE”.
History repeats itself, they say.
So my hope for our “backlash” for liberals is not only equality (we still don’t have ERA but that still gets overlooked) & progress, communities of hope and laughter and education, safe schools and neighborhoods and a waning of fear, each year, trusting each other a little bit more … stretching ourselves a bit further, to meet someone who looks different from you, and talks differently and worships differently and listens to different music and speaks in different languages…
But that backlash could possibly do something entirely unexpected. It could be a renewal of Christianity in America.
I don’t mean fundamentalist atonement theology where some of the Commandments, the convenient ones, are shouted out like war cries while the beatitudes are left in the shadows. No, I mean Christianity. I MEAN the beatitudes, the Church, liturgy, community, communion. While the Baby Boomers walked away from the American traditional churches, the millennials are poking around in the simmering ash heap of what is left of Jesus in America and what he represents. They are polishing off some of the hymnals, altars, and candlesticks, with new eyes. They are drawn to liturgy.
People need ritual. People need tradition. And while we are becoming much more inclusive, some traditions gets a little watered down, or replaced with what draws a short-lived crowd. But these rituals and traditions are pillars that tell us who we are.
As a child I remember my siblings telling my parents that they would live with their lover before they would marry them. Jaws dropped. And people started relationships without traditional marriage rituals.
And the gay community wanted that ritual, that pillar too. Not just the “living together” that moved into, “we’re not just roommates”, to “I’m gay…” but all the way, full circle, to marriage. And we made that law. And it was good.
I have no clue of what the future holds. No one does. 2016 was a year of shock.
But if anthropology, Old Testament history of the people of God running from, then running to – God, theology and sociology tell us anything right now, we will come around again in a new way. The kids i meet in the hospitals will see a new world, a new society.
I’ve got to believe, and even finally admit, and get off my pissed-off-ed-ness and say, “I believe it will be good”. Not what I’d expect, not what I can imagine. But it will be good. Someday. Again.
Revvin' it Up 