Left-Right-Center

Los Angeles, California

I was raised with the teaching to avoid talking about religion and politics in polite society. This way there be dragons. In my youth, people attended church or temple, or not. Holidays were celebrated either religiously or secularly. My elementary school displayed a Christmas tree and a menorah. Macaroni and cheese and fish sticks were served in the cafeteria on Fridays. When elections rolled around, people were to vote their conscience. People were not so forthcoming about what they did in the ballot booth. Clearly this has changed and the landscape is rife with conflict. Have I broken with any friends or family over our current state of politics? Not really. But it has required, at times, patient avoidance.

It is not easy to talk or write about politics nor religion while skirting the possibility of offending someone, which is not my intent. So, acknowledging the slippery slope, I will try to use care. I might also add, it's not easy to write or speak about anything anymore, unless you keep happy company with your clones.

I see both political parties threatened by the extremes in their party. While I am relieved to hear that there are Republicans who do not like the party of Trump, and who would like to see the GOP returned to its pre-religious-right platform, it is clear that a lot of them got into bed with Trump (ok... Ick, why did I write that?). When did the GOP become the party of counterfactualism? Constitutionally-given rights like the right to peaceful assembly gets characterized as unpatriotic on sports fields, even though respectfully demonstrated. While the majority of the BLM movement is perfectly peaceful, they get tagged as rioters and looters. Who made it okay to characterize the whole by the few?

On the left, you see the entire Democratic party being painted with the colors of the progressive wing of the party. For myself, and I am guessing others, the democratic party is the party of the workers and civil rights. In the same way that many Republicans might want Trump out of their party, many Democrats would like to see the Green Party coalition back in the Green Party. I am alarmed by one-issue voters. For example, people who talk about environmental issues as if it is the only issue that matters. How do they not get that when you don't know how you are going to feed your family, you don't give a flying fuck about the climate? In the movie The Graduate, when the partygoer issued the famous line to Benjamin: Plastics; had Dustin Hoffman replied: But, sir, that's bad for our environment, the movie would have ended there.

And now, for the religion side of this coin, because in for a penny, in for a pound. First, from only my own viewpoint and experience, I feel it is important to have a relationship with God. And from that same place, I believe it is wrong to be judgmental about whatever faith leads a person to God, or about the lack of faith in a good, secular person who manages without belief. Faith is personal, as is the lack thereof, and every single being on this planet has a right to their own belief. Where I see religion getting into trouble is when they tout that they are the only true faith. Worshiping, or following the teachings of a beneficent being or higher power, makes you a person of faith. We find God first in faith, not in exclusiveness.

We know that religious extremisism is scary. We know that in some fundamentalist and orthodox sects, women are secondary to men. We know this, because men wrote it. My friend and blog namesake often said that she didn't follow that which was decided by the men who came after Jesus. She was a wise woman; the only true Christian I have known, in that she treated all people with kindness, charity, and without judgement, for her, this was according to the teachings of Christ. I think some "Christians" have forgotten that Jesus was someone who spent time with the poor and those cast out, including women, and treated them respectfully. It was later, when the misogynistic (and homophobic) men wrote things up, that women got short shrift in the dogma. If you need a playbook for your faith, you can always find one. But my belief is that faith is fundamentally a connection to God; not a blind following of someone else's program. My faith is with God. Religion is just a road; a conduit for that important relationship. The Bible is a good book. It's The Good Book. But it should be taken in context.

I have respect for any faith which treats all people respectfully and kindly. For what kind of a Christian hates Buddhists? What kind of a Christian hates Moslems? Christ taught goodness towards each other. And from what I know about other faiths, many teach the same. It's just when you get out to the fringes that the trouble starts. There's no hate in the middle, nor only one right way to be with God. If you belong to a denomination or sect that tells you there is, then you are pretty much in a cult. True faith accepts ecumenicalism. In fact, it reaches towards ecumenicalism. It's the my way or the highway that gets things sticky. The highway should be the high road. That is what we should be taking in how we treat each other as humans regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, political party, or religion. Until we get to that point, there is no we. Only you and them. And then faith, like American politics, follows the example of sports radicals. You're either supporting my team or you are my enemy. And look where that's gotten us. We can be better. God help us.

A friend once remarked that she thought the Millennials jumping so fervently into causes was as a result of not being raised in a practicing faith. I heard David Brooks say something similar, back in the day when he was a guest on Charlie Rose:

The kids want to be part of a moral crusade; they want to have morally meaningful lives, but they are growing up in a meritocracy that treats them only as instruments, as human capital, to get a job. And they've not been given any moral categories or moral instructions. So if you create intense anxieties about the world, loss of faith in liberalism, and no moral education, what you end up with are sort of 'spasms' and a sort of an absolutist moral panic.

I realize that many of the environagelists, people who are the most fervent, indeed the most fundamentalist about the environmental and animal rights movements, have not been raised within the structure of practicing faith. And many of these come at their beliefs in these movements as radically as any Bible-thumping Christian or extremist Moslem. If you are not in their movement, and I mean in it to the hilt, you are a heathen. Truly, life without religion can be meaningful. But life without meaning is lifeless. And while it is all around us, we see that searching for meaning particularly fervent in millenials.

I am a believer in many things, including the teachings of Christ. So I don't want be told that I am not Christian because I am not a certain kind of Christian. And, I don't want to be told that I am not doing anything for the environment because I use plastic straws, or for animal rights because I don't use vegan cosmetics. I believe that the environment is an important issue, just not the desperately singular issue that some are presenting it as. And those who vehemently push that it is should know that they are creating an equal and opposite reaction in me and probably many others. Hence my continued use of plastic straws. Further, these environangelists should recognize that those of us who did not bring any resource-depleting progeny into the world are way out ahead of them. I wonder why these environangelists didn't feel the environment was important enough to practice zero population growth. While saving the planet did not factor into my decision to live a childfree life, it does mean that I have a greatly smaller carbon footprint than even the most conscientious whole foods family. We have all made choices in life, and should not be prosylatized by anyone's evangelicalism whether it be religious or political.

I am fine-tuning this post on November 3rd without a clear idea of how the election will be decided. The tribalism has become astoundingly entrenched. So, what can I do about my dislike of that? I can try harder to treat those in my circle with kindness and acceptance: My family of friends; my neighbors; my community. When all is said and done, that is who we have. I can hold them in my heart, while bearing in mind that we are all entitled to feel and to believe differently from each other. I am on my own square on life's chessboard. You are welcome to share my square or occupy the square next to me. But you are not entitled to drag me onto your square. Right now, as much as possible, I will strive to stay open and centered. And today, on election day, I will continue to pray: Protect me from all anxiety as I wait for joyful hope. And, readers, be my guest to take that in any way that works for you. Thank you for reading my blog. Ever play the game Left-Right-Center? Very fun, though plastic is involved.