Category Archives: America

The Hoax – an Exceptional Performance

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“He became President of the United States in that moment, period,” said Van Jones, one of the President’s harshest critics, on CNN’s Anderson Cooper following the President’s Address. Jones was referring to President Trump’s recognition of Carryn Owens, the young widow whose husband Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens was killed in the raid in Yemen, the first American soldier casualty in his Administration.

“That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics,” Jones added.

It was that. But did anyone else recoil at the scene and the President’s remarks? Watch her eyes and face closely. “Than you. Thank you! But then, after it went on too long, “Can we please stop now?”

She was a prop. And she was abused in her grief. Her grief was FRESH. Her husband was killed 30 days before in a raid, authorized while the President was sitting at dinner in his Margo-Lago Dining Room – a long way from the White House “Situation Room” where Presidents, Secretaries of Defense and State, and other Presidential advisors gathered for other high-risk attack like the one that killed Osama ben Ladin.

Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens’s father, Carryn Owens’s father-in-law, had called for an investigation into the raid and had refused to meet the President upon return of his son’s body at Andrews Air Force Base. Click HERE for the NPR report.

Last night’s excessively prolonged applause from the floor of Congress was “a record,” declared the President, after he used the “heroic” Navy Seal and his widow’s grief, against William “Ryan” Owen’s father objection, to establish himself as the nation’s Pastor-President, declaring that the aggrieved widow’s husband was looking down on her, and that he is “very happy. His legacy is etched in eternity.”

Are we happy now?

“That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics,”said Van Jones. It was extraordinary. Truly an exceptional performance.

It’s a hoax, folks. It was a hoax.

-Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 1, 2017.

 

Somebody has my ashes!

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Gordon C. Stewart's avatarViews from the Edge

It’s Ash Wednesday. I put on my ministerial robe 15 minutes before the traditional Service that marks the beginning of Lent with the imposition of ashes and go the drawer of the credenza.

Ash Wednesday“They’re missing! Where are the ashes?!” 

Every year I store the ashes in the credenza in my office. I’ve forgotten that we’d moved the credenza from my office last fall. I rush downstairs to look for it. No credenza anywhere. Then…I remember. We sold it at the Annual Fall Festival!

“Somebody has our ashes!”

What to do with no ashes? Burn some newspapers? Smoke a cigar and use the ashes? No time.

I grab a pitcher and pour water into the baptism font.

We begin the Service with the story of the missing ashes. Smiles break out everywhere. Maybe even with signs of relief. “Instead of the imposition of ashes this year, we will go to the…

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Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes!’

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If the choice in the 2016 Presidential election had been between Donald Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders, I believe now, as I did then, that Sanders would have won.

What the two had in common was that they were “outsiders” to the political status quo. Both spoke about strengthening the working class, creating jobs, bolstering the economy with infrastructure investment, getting Washington, D.C. out of the Wall Street bedroom, refusing to take big donor money. Both spoke with passion. Both sometimes spoke like unvarnished straight-talking guys comfortable in the “no B.S.” Truck Stop locker rooms. They said what they meant and they meant what they said.

Bernie was the first democratic socialist since Eugene Debs to capture the attention of the American electorate. Many believe his socialist views, the opposite of the billionaire capitalist, would have condemned him to defeat in the 2016 election.  I argued that, to the contrary, Bernie would have exposed Trump as a fraud, a phony whose business record proves him to be the opposite of the working class – a spoiled brat member of the Billionaire Class, a 1 % beneficiary of crony capitalism. Bernie was the straight-talking common man and woman’s candidate who spoke truth to power and presented himself as the candidate who would take back the power on behalf of a fairer society.

The straight-talking democratic socialist Bernie was and is my guy.

But listening to him on “State of the Union” yesterday, I found myself wanting to whisper into his headset: “Just let your ‘Yes’ be a simple ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ a simple ‘No’; anything more than this has its origin in evil” (Matthew 5:37, CJB).

Like the political insiders he had opposed, Bernie wasn’t answering the question.

“State of the Union” Moderator Jake Tapper’s question was simple and direct.

“Are you going to give your list (of campaign donors) to the Democratic National Committee so that you can help them become more grassroots?”

I hoped for a straight ‘yes or ‘no’, followed by an explanation, but got neither. Bernie was answering like a politician with an answer that, in effect, said ‘no’ without saying ‘no’, playing the cat-and-mouse game straight-talking truck drivers and folks at the union hall and the neighborhood bar-and-grille voted against in the 2016 election.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,” said Lord Acton (1834-1902) more than a century ago. Bernie is a good man. But he was exercising his power against corruption by controlling the large list of small donors who had contributed to the campaign of the candidate whose ‘yes’ was ‘yes’ and whose ‘no’ was ‘no’.  And while the DNC and the Sanders campaign engage in a political trade war over the list, the Billionaire Class that controls the DNC, the RNC and Congress, and the billionaire behind the desk in the Oval Office obfuscate reality, refusing the hear that “anything more than (‘Yes’ or ‘No’) has its origin in evil,” and contributing further to the erosion of trust and hope for something better.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 17, 2017.

 

 

 

When the Pond drives up and the Echo stops

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scorched-earth

Classical Greek mythology held a deep wisdom familiar to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. They were well-schooled in the Greek and Roman classics.

In the Greek myth of Narcissus, two things keep Narcissus alive: the unruffled water of the pond that reflects back his self-image, and the voice of Echo, the beautiful wood nymph whose voice the gods have silenced, except to echo Narcissus’s speech.

Narcissus dies of thirst. He refuses to drink because to do so would mean disturbing  the pond’s reflection on which his sense of self depends. The pond and Echo are enduring metaphors of a deeper wisdom.

What happens to a president when the pond (the electorate) is disturbed or dries up and the voice from across the pond (the press) no longer echoes his words? Or, to the contrary, what happens to the pond and Echo when they placidly yield to the needs and voice of Narcissus?

Yesterday the President and his Press Secretary acted to shrink the pond and silence Echo by including Breitbart News and other alt-right media and by excluding the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and CNN from the informal “gaggle” White House Press Conference. They took another step toward shrinking and smoothing out Narcissus’s pond, and muting Echo’s own voice.

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.” – Thomas Jefferson.

 

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 25, 2017.

 

Our Father who art in heaven…

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It began with “Let us pray,” and a one person recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. The First Lady was flawless. The crowd went wild.

It wasn’t a worship service. It was something else – a post-election presidential campaign rally not far from the home of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Goofy.

When was the last time you saw a political campaign rally begin with “Let us pray”? And, if you’re a church-goer, when was the last time the Lord’s Prayer was “recited” by a single voice rather than prayed in unison by the entire congregation?

It was a political stunt. Chills ran up and down my spine as I watched the prayer of Jesus being used to rally fellow Christians for purposes other than political purposes antithetical to the purpose of prayer.

Ecce homo - "Here is the man" Albrecht Durer

“Ecce Homo” (Behold the Man) -Albrecht Durer

Yet, as I watched the First Lady in front of the crowd, it was hard not to feel sympathy for her as well as apoplexy over the abuse of Jesus’s prayer. “Give us this day our daily bread,” she prayed – a line that presumes a humble dependence upon divine providence. “Give us today the bread we need just for today” is another way to say it. It assumes a kind of poverty. An ultimate dependence.

The New Testament Gospel stories of the wilderness temptation of Jesus begin with the need for bread and the control of it. After forty days of fasting, Jesus is hungry. “If you are the Son of God,” says the Devil in the story, “turn these stones into bread.” Jesus responds that human beings do not live by bread alone but by every word (bread) that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The Devil takes him to a high mountain where the hungry Jesus can see all the kingdoms (empires and nations) of the earth. “These can all be yours!” says the Tempter. Jesus replies that the kingdoms of the world do not belong to mortals. “Get behind me, Satan!” Then the Devil leaves him.

Watching the First Lady praying the Lord’s Prayer with the crowd cheering left me, for a moment, wondering what the wilderness must be like for Melania Trump. Despite the smile, it’s hard to imagine a hell farther removed from “Our Father in heaven” than performing the Lord’s prayer all by yourself in an Orlando airport hangar on the way back to living among the gilded stones of a New York penthouse.

“…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.”

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 19, 2017

 

The Bannon Presidency

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Every day that the White House chaos grows worse, President Trump escalates his attack on the fake news of the fake media.

As the President’s approval ratings tumble, It doesn’t take much to imagine Steve Bannon, the alt-right “news man” of Breitbart News as the key figure in the new Administration, pushing the President to get back in front of the cameras to shift the blame the media and reassure his shrinking base in an ill-conceived, hastily called Press Conference.

This morning the NYT published David Brooks’s piece zeroing in on Steve Bannon as the strategist of chaos pulling the strings behind the bully pulpit.

In an administration in which “promoted beyond his capacity” takes on new meaning, Bannon looms. With each passing day, Trump talks more like Bannon without the background reading.

Click  What a Failed Trump Administration Looks Like  to read Brooks’s editorial.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 17, 2017.

Mike Flynn, Mike Pence, and the Boss

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Two Mikes of the Trump Administration – Mike Flynn and Mike Pence – and the question of who lied, who told the truth, and who was spinning the story, have been making headline news. Mike Pence held the mike. Mike Flynn stayed back while the Boss and Kelly Anne Conway covered for them both with conflicting accounts.

This morning an email from a wise political observer was waiting following news of Mike Flynn’s resignation:

I get that Flynn had to go, I get that he had to go fast, and I get that the Vice President – to create a desired impression – first defended the general, then characterized his conversation with the top Trump aid as “a lie”.

Of course, it is NOT a bad thing that Flynn – an off-the-wall, unmanageable firecracker – is out of there.

But think about it. These are the first days of the “You’re Fired!” Reality TV Star administration, with a little bit of chaos peeking out at us each day.

What are the chances that knowledge of this call to the Russian ambassador – not to mention the possible directing of this call – went no higher than the Vice President??

Today it’s the news. It will be tomorrow as well. Until some precipitous presidential impulse shifts the news. Imagine military action against North Korea while Congress is investigating which Mike knew what and when, and whether Mike Flynn’s pre-inaugural consultation with the Russian Ambassador was authorized by the Boss.

The future of the Boss depends on two Mikes and whether one, the other, or both will take the mike in a Congressional investigation. Or, perhaps, the Boss will decide to resign before impeachment proceedings, declaring he never really wanted to be president, that the system is rigged, that’s it too broken for him to “fix” and the lying press which has made the two Mikes a big issue are losers. “You’re all fired!”

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 14, 2017.

 

 

Should we pray for the President?

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“Should we pray for Trump?” asks The Washington Post Saturday Opinions piece by Colbert I. King.

While it’s well worth the read, we draw your attention to “After Presidential power shifts, Episcopalians ask: How should we pray?“ which looks deeply within a single Christian denomination for a look at the meaning of prayer for the President in this time of deep national division.

Over the last eight years of ministry in a Presbyterian (USA) local church, we often used the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer‘s Prayers of the People. It became our practice to pray for the president, governor, and mayor by their first names, not because we voted for them, liked them, agreed with them, or approved of them, but because the public trust was in their hands; they, like us, were human – weak and frail, and in need of guidance; and, even though we may have despised one o them, we were called to pray for our enemies.

Increasingly I sense beneath our new President’s bravado a deep insecurity and fear, a deeply troubled, as well as troubling man. I see a lonely little boy desperate for approval playing with some very big toys. I’m doing my best to pray for him even as I pray for the world. I cannot pray for the world without praying for him. In the end he’s just Donald, and I’m just Gordon, and only God is God. God, help us all.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 11, 2017.

 

 

God will not be found in our mirror

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I crave solitude.

I’m tired of public conflict. Tired of politics. Tired of the parades of vanity. Turned off by the newspaper headlines. Turned off by the stories that pop up when I turn on the internet. Tired of visual and verbal assaults that dissipate the capacity for solitude and ridicule losers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson must have felt something like this when he wrote

“The people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is proud, so is society vulgar.” – Society and Solitude (1870).

We pick our poison: the pride of solitude or the vulgarity of society. Today the vulgarity of society is driving me deeper into the pride of solitude.

Views from the Edge is a title that seeks to balance society and solitude. The views are from the edge of society. It is a proud title that assumes a place apart from the vulgarity of mass movements of society’s collective madness.

But so often lately the voice that seeks to speak from the edge echoes the whirlwind into which I had sought to speak. My voice is proud in its solitude and as vulgar as the society to which I wish to speak. It’s a rare accomplishment to do both at the same time!

Pondering Emerson’s aphorism led me to think more about pride. Pride is vanity. Vanity is pride. The equivalence of pride and vanity led me to one of the Ten Words Moses brought down from Mr. Sinai: “You shall not take the Name of the LORD (YHWH – the Name that cannot be spoken aloud because it is too holy, too sacred, too hidden from human knowing, for human naming) your God in vain.” ‘Vain’ as in proud?

The commandment about vanity is commonly misunderstood as a commandment against vulgar speech, i.e, You shall not curse. That would be easy. Just use the word “God” carefully and you will have fulfilled the commandment.

But the Ten words of Moses are not that cheap, this one perhaps least of all because it speaks to how, and whether or not, we honor the Reality that is beyond every reason for human pride, individually or collectively, in our solitude or in society itself.
Solitude is proud and society is vulgar, not the other way around, according to Emerson, and we need to get away. “The people are to be taken in very small doses.”

Elie Wiesel’s story of a Hasidic Rabbe’s conversation with his grandson Yahiel expresses the dilemma of solitude and society (Four Hasidic Master sand Their Struggle Against Melancholy, University of Notre Dame Press, 1978).

Yahiel comes to his grandfather in tears. He’s been playing Hide-and-Seek with his friend. “He cheats!” says Yahiel. “I hid so well that he couldn’t find me. So he gave up; he stopped looking. And that’s unfair!”

“Rebbe Barukh began to caress Yahiel’s face, and tears well up in his eyes. ‘God too, Yahiel,’ he whispered softly,. . . God too is unhappy. He is hiding and man is not looking for Him. Do you understand, Yahiel? God is hiding and man is not even searching for Him.’”

Yahiel had been playing the game our society loves to play. His friend had left him alone in solitude. His friend was a cheater because he abandoned the search.
Meantime, we in 2017 play our own games of Hide-and-Seek. We seek to balance solitude and society, self and nation, individual liberty and national security, personal responsibility and care of the neighbor. So often the voices are proud and the society is vulgar.

Vulgarity and pride are Siamese twins. They go together. Pride point to Vulgarity as sinful; Vulgarity shifts the blame to Pride. Each is the mirror image of the other. They spend their time looking in the same mirror. All the while they abandon the search for the God whose Name is used and abused by mortal Pride and mortal Vulgarity alike.

God will not be found in our mirror.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 5, 2017.

Finding America

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In a time like this it helps to take a deep breath. Just stop for a moment. Breathe deeply.

But stopping to breathe isn’t easy.

This morning I jump out of bed to get the latest news reports of the dispute over the President’s travel ban executive order: Judge Robart Rules’s Federal District Court ruling in Seattle staying the travel ban; President Trump’s tweet calling Judge Rules a “so called” judge; the Ninth District Court of Appeals’ delay in responding to the Justice Department’s request to immediately restore the travel ban.

Where and how will it stop? How do you take a deep breath when the things you value and the things you fear are colliding as fast as atoms in a super-collider?

Stepping outside this little moment of time for some perspective helps me to stop and breathe. The story of Herod and the Wise Men (Gospel of Matthew 3:1-23) comes quickly to the mind of a retired preacher.

After a long journey to Bethlehem from their foreign country, the Wise Men (the Magi) “returned to their own country by another way”–which is to say, they refused to return to Herod who had sought to deputize them. They did not accede to Herod’s disingenuous, anxious request that they return to inform him of the whereabouts of the newborn child who would threaten his rule. “They returned . . .  by another way.”

The Wise Men were returning to a different country, thought to be Persia (our Iran). They had been wise to come; they were wise to return . . .  by another way than Herod’s. Although the rest of the story is gruesome – the slaughter of innocents before the death of Herod – the good news is that the world did not belong to Herod then, and it doesn’t now.

The story of the Wise Men helps me stop, take a deep breath, and find hope for the America I feel I’ve almost lost. If we “return to [our] own country by another way,” we may yet find American democracy again.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 5, 2017.