Forgive Us Our Debts

The drama over the national debt ceiling in recent days has, somewhat strangely, had me thinking about the Lord’s Prayer of all things. And not the “deliver us from evil” part, though that certainly has its relevance here.

No, I’ve been thinking about the line asking for forgiveness, which comes right after the request for “daily bread.” Only in churches we don’t usually pray the line found in most recent translations – “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” We usually say something like, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” or use “sins” and “sin against us”.

However you translate it, there is a clear resonance of what is owed by you or to you. And “trespasses” and “sins” don’t quite, in my view, convey that sense of obligation that Jesus has in mind. I think they spiritualize the prayer too much.

What would happen if we started praying in that way: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.“

For one, I think we’d be more aware of how deeply our economic life is connected to our spiritual life. I mean, Jesus talks more about money than he does about God! Could it be that how we think and use money and conduct our affairs says more about where we are spiritually than our professed theological beliefs?

It’s something to ponder. What if America’s debtors simply forgave our national debt? What if America simply forgave the debt it is owed by many developing nations?

That, I think, might be called Jubilee.

The Shape of History, Part 1

Over the last several weeks I’ve been slowly making my way through Ian Morris’ Why the West Rules–For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future. Morris is a classicist and archaeologist at Stanford, and his book is hugely ambitious. The last generation or two of historians has largely abandoned this type of wide-ranging, broad argument about whether history has any discernible shape. The preference has been for smaller-scale, micro-histories and from that vantage to extrapolate on broader trends. Big books like Morris’ have often been greeted with suspicion, which is often part of the larger intellectual trend of incredulity toward grand narratives.

Morris, of course, is aware of this climate of historical opinion and nevertheless has made an important and, to my mind, courageous intervention into it. And he brings an interesting background as an ancient historian to both the general question of history’s shape and the more specific question of why the West – especially since around 1750 – has dominated the world stage, and how that could be changing.

At the heart of the book is Morris’ understanding and tracking of how “social development” – or more generally, “historical change” – actually happens. He has even attempted to quantify this on a development scale in order to provide some sense of development looks like. This allows him to do what historians do best: to describe how social change actually happens. And this, I think, is overdue from our historians.

I’ll have more to say about whether his argument succeeds in future posts. But what I like so far is that he has a nice balance of attention to the details of the past in light of conversations in the present. We study the past not merely for its own sake or curiosity, but because it helps us know and understand our own circumstances better.

Lara Logan, Osama bin Laden, & the Reality of Evil

Last night I watched the 60 Minutes segment in which Lara Logan, CBS’s chief foreign correspondant, courageously recounted the brutal sexual assault she suffered in Egypt on February 11, the night Hozni Mubarak was finally ousted.  Two moments of the interview stood out to me. One was quite personal: Ms. Logan’s struggle, in the midst of the attack, to remember her children, to try to stay alive for them, and the despair she experienced over what she perceived during the attack to be her failure to fight hard enough so she might see them again. The other, perhaps more troubling, was when she recounted someone in the crowd identifying her as a Jew — which she is not — and the fury and madness that unleashed in the mob.

Then, this morning, I awoke to the news that Osama bin Laden is dead.

I found these two news stories to be a fascinating juxtaposition. On the one hand, President Obama announced to the nation that, with bin Laden dead, “justice has been done.” An eye for an eye, a life for a life, no doubt. On the other hand, Lara Logan’s attackers will likely never be revealed or known. What is justice for her? And what is justice for the families of the 9/11 victims, many of whom have been expressing mixed emotions at the news today?

It’s a sobering reminder that evil doesn’t cease even when “the bad guy” meets what may be his deserved fate. The fact that a crowd may be so easily incited to violence against women, or to antisemitic rage, shows we still have a long way to go in our world. And it begs the question: what are the conditions that drive people into murderous action? Into murderous justice?

Or to put it slightly differently, is the old eye-for-eye framework of justice the best we can do?

Can Superman Save Us? – Part 2

I finally saw Waiting for Superman over the weekend. It was emotionally powerful, disturbing, and challenging – all characteristics of a good documentary, regardless of whether you support its point of view. I can see why it has generated so much conversation.

What stood out most to me were the stories of the kids – their goals, their hopes for achievement, their families. So many factors overlapped: economy, demographics, race/ethnicity, politics. Yet they all crystalized in these kids, in their very personal question of whether or not an education could  be the promise our society claims it is.

I was also struck that the really tragic figures in the documentary are the adults. Teachers frustrated by bureaucratic and mindless systems. Parents feeling overwhelmed and powerless and like they have failed their children. Administrators wanting to change the system yet feeling their hands tied by lack of political support or social will.

The film paints a rather bleak portrait of what happens in public school systems, even ones with money. I suspect it will resonate with many families’ experience of their school system.

But it does point the way forward. We do know what works. Some of the charter schools depicted are using methods that other educators have been calling for for years: smaller classroom size, individual attention and mentoring, extended school-day hours, and such. (All of which, I might add, have long been successfully utilized by independent schools, if you can afford one.)

The problem, as I see it, is essentially political and spiritual. We say we value education. But that’s not where the money goes. It’s not where the incentives go. Yes, we have some really wonderful teachers and administrators, and some really terrible ones. Overall, though, do we really value education? Is it a fundamental right for all?

What, after all, will ultimately save our schools?

This Time I Dance

I spent the past week on retreat out in the Berkshires at the Kripalu Center. My wife Christi and I have vacationed in those dream-like hills every summer we’ve been together, so I’ve driven past Kripalu a number of times. But this was the first time I’ve actually been. And in the middle of peak foliage!

The program I was attending was called “Unleashing Your Calling” and was led by Tama Kieves, author of This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love. Tama is one of those rare souls who combine a wicked sense of humor and sharp mind with an approachable, comforting presence. Our group – about 35 truly amazing human beings – could not have asked for a better facilitator.

It is difficult to explain what happened over the week. I have been a part of several powerful, spiritual experiences - in traditional church settings, on retreats or out in nature, at music or artistic performances. And yet the combination of what was happening for the group as a whole and for me individually took this experience into another dimension. Kripalu’s location, on a hill in the Stockbridge Bowl, has been the site for many spiritually-minded groups:  a place for Native American rituals, a former Jesuit worship and retreat center, and now the largest yoga training facility in the world. I wonder if one can’t help but catch the spirit here if one is open to such things.

I came out of the week with a profound sense of gratitude, for the people I met, for the insights I gained into self and my work in the world, and for the sometimes meandering path that has brought me thus far on my journey.

If at times I’ve plodded along this path, no more! This time, I’ve got my dancing shoes on.

Can Superman Save Us?

Much of the country is talking about education right now -  specifically the state of our public schools – thanks to the recently released documentary Waiting for Superman. I have yet to see it but plan to soon. As a public school graduate, I’m curious to see where the documentary takes us. In the meantime, my friend Adam Strom, director of content development at Facing History and Ourselves, has written a reflection piece on how the documentary’s message intersects with the work Facing History has been doing with teachers and schools over the last two decades. Here’s a taste:

“Do you remember the names of the best teachers you ever had? How did they get to be good? What do you think kept them going year after year? What would it take to have more teachers like this? The answers to these questions are at the heart of our current debate about how to improve our schools.

Davis Guggenheim’s documentary, Waiting for Superman, which opened nationally this week, puts a stark face on the consequences of not having a sufficient supply of highly effective teachers. Through sharing the constrained choices of five families, the film has catalyzed enormous interest and concern across the country. The stakes of not providing high quality education are high—indeed they are at the heart of the survival of our democracy. Yet, with the exclusive focus on reformers working outside of conventional public schools, viewers might leave the theater without hope for the 95,000 plus schools that are currently serving our nation’s children….”

Read the full article here.

Why the Difference Between These Matters (A Good Friday Meditation)

Do you know the difference between the following terms: communism, fascism, and social justice?

Apparently talk-show personality Glenn Beck does not. Recently Beck advised his listeners to flee their churches if the words “social justice” or “economic justice” were central to the church’s teaching. Such terms are really code language, Beck contended, a “progressive” way of talking that in reality substitutes for “communism” and “fascism.”

When I heard this, I had to scratch my head, as his comments betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what these words signify, both historically and ideologically. There’s no secret code involved, no conspiracy. In fact, this confusion is easily cleared up.

Communism is a modern economic and political ideology based on the abolition of private property and the centralized control of the means of production. It derives from, and critiques, the excesses of capitalist production, seeking a classless (and property-less) society as the inevitable historical goal of society. Thus it is socialist in its economic agenda, but what differentiates the two is that communism believes that a classless society will only be achieved through the organization and revolution of the proletariat. Though historical expressions of communism (especially Leninist and Maoist) wound up being totalitarian, in theory this is not necessarily the case.

Fascism, on the other hand, is necessarily totalitarian. Unlike communism, which tends to the left of the modern political spectrum, fascism is reactionary and always has billed itself as anti-communist (which is part of why Stalin and Hitler – both totalitarians – were on opposite sides of WWII).  Fascism advocates single-party economic and political control and is unapologetic in its hierarchies and terror-inducing apparatus of social control.

Those who have lived under communist and fascist regimes have found the two quite similar in their outcomes – the supression of freedom and individuality, for example. But the two have different origins and philosophies. They are not the same.

Social justice, as an idea and political expression, has nothing in common with either of these two ideologies. It is centuries older, originating especially in the Hebrew prophets and other ancient social critics who decried the exploitations of the poor and vulnerable by those in power. It arises as needed, and is not tied to any particular form of political power, drawing its power from moral or spiritual resources. Those who advocate for it may achieve or advocate for some kind of political ends, but these will vary depending upon context and culture.

Can you see the difference between these three?

Here’s one visible clarification: put Jesus of Nazareth next to Stalin and Hitler. Now tell me these are the same.