Community Christian Church of Springfield: “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?” Feb. 3, 2019 Dr. Roger Ray, pastor

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Please forgive my poor Latin pronunciation but “Desiderata” is Latin for “desired things,” or maybe it substantively means, “desirable thoughts.” Max Ehrmann wrote it in the 1920’s and never copyrighted it. After his death, his wife did copyright it in a collection of her late husband’s poetry. Unfortunately, the rector at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Baltimore published it in a collection of his favorite spiritual quotes and he published on the cover of his collection the supposed date

of the founding of St Paul’s church, which was 1692. So, when I was young, people like my older sister had a copy of it on a psychedelic poster in her room which bore the absurd 1692 date.

It’s real history of familiarity came when an army psychiatrist had copies of it given to soldiers during WWII to help them to stay centered and to fight off depression and despair. I had not thought about it for years until one of our listeners, my friend, Susan Mendola, in Lufkin, TX posted it on Face Book and I took a moment to read it again.

There, on Face Book, the home of Russian propaganda bots, insane conspiracy theory advocates, racists, neo-Nazis, and extremist political memes from the left and the right, stood this sage advice:

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

And it just hit me, it was possible to discuss important topics on line while speaking your truth quietly and clearly; and also listening to others, because
even the dull and the ignorant; also have a point of view that may be entirely valid!

Ehrmann was not a 17^thcentury sage and, frankly, he wasn’t even a well-known poet. This, his most famous work, was only used by him in an early 20^thcentury Christmas card, generations before there were computers, an internet or social media. But it speaks a relevant word to our generation beyond what Ehrmann might have imagined.

Ours is a nation that fought a bloody Civil War and so I have to remind myself that we are not more divided than ever . . . there have been worse times, but things are bad. Many of the most important decisions in our nation’s history have been made only when the left and right, Republicans and Democrats managed to work together:

In 1964, in the midst of controversial and sometimes violent racial strife in the midst of the civil rights movement, LBJ managed to get a bi-partisan vote to pass the Civil Rights Act.

Republicans and Democrats, when it has really mattered, have been able to set aside their differences long enough to work together to accomplish great tasks. In 2019 we almost had to cancel the State of the Union Address as Republicans and Democrats squared off over a debate about building a wall along our southern border. Mind you, I won’t watch it, I just think that it ought to happen . . . it is in the Constitution!

I have commented before on the nature of social media on-line, allowing us to fall into heated partisan debates in which we eviscerate one another in a matter of seconds simply because we can. And though the parody of the Bohemian Rhapsody we are going to enjoy in a moment says that no one ever changed their opinion because of a Face Book mudslinging session, the truth is that most progressives did not have the luxury of growing up with progressive, open minded parents who took you to a liberal church.

Most of us have had to grow out of our native conservatism and religious literalism and tracing those steps through our own transformation is not always easy.

Maturity may be part of it, education as well, but maybe also becoming disillusioned about some things, cynical, maybe even embarrassed, or even humiliated. Heated debates may have been a part of our transformation.

With the release of the White House tapes, I learned that the President of the United States was even more foul-mouthed than me and my adolescent malcontent friends. In the Pentagon Papers, I learned that my government would lie to me about a war in which they were willing to trade my life for corporate profits.

In college I learned that, in fact, my dad did not know everything. In seminary I learned that the church had been maintaining a charade of lies for centuries, and in years of church board meetings, I learned that pompous and self-righteous elders could lie like a cheap rug just to make themselves feel important. It is not difficult to come to see the world as a grand contest of “them and us” a battle between the righteous and well informed with the ignorant and ignoble.

St. Paul apparently first used the phrase, “suffer fools gladly,” and even he did not use it as a compliment. Most of us find the emphasis on the “suffer,” like having to listen to our relatives talk about what they learned on Fox News, but G. K. Chesterton encouraged his peers to focus on the “gladly” part of the quote.

I will readily confess that I have been sucked into a bloody battle of words on line in discussion boards and in social media. Every time I think that I have outgrown those childish exchanges, someone will find a new hot-button that even I wasn’t aware of, and we find out just how long my fuse really isn’t.

In real life, I have almost no contact with people who do not essentially agree with me in matters of politics, religion, ethics, morality, and economics.

Even on line, I have insulated myself from almost all disagreement. I don’t like to fight. I don’t like unpleasant exchanges, but I also don’t want to be entirely disengaged from my surroundings. We live in a district that has elected Billy Long, not once, not twice, not even three times, but five times! Seven out of ten voters around us, voted for Donald Trump, one of the highest rates in the nation.

Still, somewhere between surrender and slander there is sanity and that is what I am advocating for today. As Ehrmann wrote nearly a century ago:

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.

Because there is no reason why we cannot manage to, as he said:
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

I am tired of racists. I am tired of the rich exploiting the poor. I am tired of a government run by corporations for their own profit instead of a democracy that seeks the common good but even though the stakes are high, there is little to be accomplished through hateful vitriol. I should know. I have tried.

I will share this with you, I write sermons and articles with a bobble head of Lewis Black by my keyboard. I have never claimed to suffer fools gladly. But I know very well that Lewis’ angry rants don’t help.

I do not agree with Ehrmann’s sort of Unity inspired assertion that the universe is unfolding as it should, and I suspect that the soldiers in WWII who were supposed to find solace in his words would not have felt so either.

But I do agree that both my peeps, my progressive, democratic socialist peers who have lots of sheep skin under glass and enormously informed opinions, as well as the Fox News consumer in the auto mechanics waiting room sitting across from me with a smug and condescending look on his face, are all children of the universe, made of the same 12 particles of matter as the trees, rocks, rivers, stars, and air, and that they have a right to be here, just like me.

I will not abandon my values. I will not surrender simply to be accommodating or to find peace in my personal life. Still, I choose not to be a jerk. And when I realize that I am being a jerk, I choose to correct course, and come back to being prophetic in a sane and civil manner. I still believe that the whole world has a right to my opinion, I just want to present it in a package that seems credible and persuasive, not mean and vindictive.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”