Waking up: The shift from one point of view to the another

My Facebook set of friends is one of the more diverse bunch of people I've run across online. That's because suddenly my past and present have collided in conversation in ways that would never happen if we limited our relationships to in-person contact. So what's happened is that my high school friends, who knew me mostly as a short, a-political, theater student without much of a religious agenda, are interacting with my college friends who knew me as this zealot who shared the Four Spiritual Laws with anyone stuck in a bank line with me. My missionary and Vineyard friends are interacting with my liberal theological graduate school buddies. My homeschool momma friends are talking to my business networking friends here in Cincy. And of course, my Obama campaign colleagues are talking to my rightwing radio pals from bygone years.

And like me, many of my friends have gone through significant shifts (either a deepening of loyalty to their original commitments, or a radical reassessment which led to a new, changed point of view).

I respect all of you (even when we disagree). I wouldn't keep you around on my FB if I didn't! In fact, I have kicked a few off my list when they've crossed that invisible line called "Coerce Julie back to what is good for her and tell her she is going to hell if she doesn't listen."

So here's the thing. For years (over 20), I adopted a point of view both politically and theologically that was rooted in a set of assumptions (these assumptions were handed to me with care and conviction, and they were based on the core doctrines of evangelicalism at the time). I remember once saying to Don Carson (some of you will remember him), the head of our Campus Crusade chapter at UCLA, "Why are you telling me that predestination as a theological tenet has to be believed in order to be a Christian? I haven't even had time to think about it yet." I had the same reaction to inerrancy (Is this really necessary to be a Christian? Can I think about it a bit?), to the doctrines of heaven and hell. I still remember saying at my first Bible Study at Kappa Kappa Gamma that I didn't like the idea of hell, after all, that would mean all my Jewish friends from high school and step relatives were going there... and I couldn't quite *get* that. I mean, it was one thing to believe in heaven and hell when you grew up in La Canada or Pasadena, where everyone you knew was Protestant. But what happened when you had to include people you loved, A LOT, in that number?

I found myself suddenly in conflict: to belong meant to adopt (uncritically, really) the values and doctrines that enabled me to remain a part of the community (this new, great group of people who were so much fun to be with), or I could reject those tenets and not be in the group, not have the love, worship, prayer, moral values, and community Christianity offered. So adopt I did (and worked to learn the apologetics for these tenets) and from then on, made it my chief aim in life to save those I loved and those I hadn't yet met from hell.

But time has a way of tugging at the tangled threads. The intellectual conflicts, the theological discrepancies, the arguments online with people I genuinely grew to love about splitting hair differences... how did these show the compassion of Jesus or the relevance of spirituality in a globalized world of diverse expressions of reality? It hurt to think Christians couldn't even agree on very basic ideas and would be cruel and critical of each other arguing over what amount to technicalities, many times.

The rightwing vision of politics has also walked in lockstep with the evangelical vision. Since we grew up knowing we couldn't criticize theology (who could ask if Jesus really rose from the dead with a physical body or if the Bible has mistakes, and stay in an evangelical church?), we are also equally beholden to rightwing politics as naturally right, clear. If someone speaks with conviction, we tend to adopt that point of view as long as it leads us back to reinforcing those original tenets we were told to adopt (our membership in the community is at stake if we challenge those tenets - ask me how I know this).

To inhabit someone else's point of view, to give it weight, to care about its interior logic is not one of the values of evangelicalism. We are taught to convert people to our point of view and to understand theirs only enough to change their minds. We spend countless hours reinforcing our own beliefs in community contexts, privately, listening to sermons and tapes, reading books, listening to music. We adopt these views as our own, but from within the safe protected context of like-minded people (and we elevate those with more education as leaders as a way to tell us that we are thinking critically, to help us navigate the pesky incongruity or penetrating question of someone from the outside). We suppress our own questions. We avoid The Jesus Seminar or Richard Dawkins, because they are dangerous.

This is not to say that there aren't brilliant men and women on the right or in the conservative evangelical movement who have dug deep and have spent time drawing conclusions that they feel are both intellectually sound and honest. There are. I've read them, met some of them. What I reject today is that so many people have adopted their thinking second-hand. (To be fair: on both left and right, though I am less versed in how this happens on the left - what I have seen is much more arguing over nuances on the left - a chief value of theirs is dissent!)

If you haven't sat inside the point of view (letting it be "right" for awhile, looking for its logic, how it hangs together, how it creates a worldview that coheres and supports a vision of life and happiness for the one who holds it), you can't actually know if yours is true (or at least, "true enough" for your life). It's one reason I attend a black church. I was sick of secondhand reports about what black leaders are doing and saying or not doing and saying. I was sick of the myopia of white church that thinks reconciliation means having a sister church that is black, or getting more blacks to attend your white church. I wondered what the black community had to say about it. I wondered how they experienced America, and the church, and "truth" from their experiences.

I spent two years reading pro-choice literature, getting inside the mindset that saw being "pro-choice" as the higher morality (yes, they do feel that way!), as the obvious right belief system that is more compassionate and ethical than the alternative. I did this after we had been actively involved in Operation Rescue. I also wish pro-choice people would spend time understanding the radical commitment of those engaged in civil disobedience to stop abortion, too.

What's happened to me, then, is that I got tired of secondhand news, theology, sociological commentary. I stopped buying into the scripts I'd been handed and became unwilling to defend something just because it had always been "true" in the community I loved. If I had one piece of advice for those who can't quite grasp what it is that's happened to me, I'd say pick the thing you are most afraid of (the thing you most don't want to be true) and go read about it. Meet someone who holds that viewpoint and let that person influence you. Invite their ideas into your living room, care to understand the world from inside someone else's mind. If you do that for a little while, yes, you will change. But your compassion will also grow, and your insights will be yours, and your spirituality will deepen.

I'm also conscious of the fact that there is so much I can't possibly know well enough to make adequate judgments (how could I ever say if global warming is real or not? I'm not a scientist, have no training or tools to evaluate the arguments, can't come close to making a real case that isn't some watered down version of someone else's). So I hold my current "positions" with some guardedness, knowing that I'm a few arguments away from another shift. But I'm no longer afraid of getting it right or wrong. I love the process, and I feel privileged/relieved/blessed to have been able to leave behind the need to vilify "the other" in order to protect my point of view. (That doesn't mean I won't criticize the other, but I hope I do it knowing that I could again shift my point of view if the facts that I understand warrant it.)

Peace.

Bonhoeffer: Religionless Christianity

This is an audio of my talk from the Truth Voice (Subversion) Conference in Dayton last weekend. We have a video of it, but right now only 12 minutes are posted. I'll put up the embed once they have re-uploaded it. I think audio is less distracting anyway (I use my hands so much! lol).

Bonhoeffer: Religionless Christianity

The meat of the material really gets going after minute 13. I give an introduction that includes personal story and some biographical detail of Bonhoeffer's life. I'd welcome any engagement with these ideas. Am slowly putting together a little dossier of materials, insights, writings and stories to include eventually in some sort of book. Yes, the elusive book goal! :)

Anyway, enjoy!

Here I am!

Julie Bogart: Bonhoeffer's Letters from Prison from Virgil Vaduva on Vimeo.

Peacemaking, not peacekeeping

Our church had a visiting pastor yesterday from Charlotte North Carolina. His message, that he gave so tirelessly all over Cincinnati last week, ended with a spectacular collapse to the floor in the middle of preaching during the eleven o'clock service, Adam Clark tells me! Apparently the preacher blacked out, crumpled to the stage, and the church stood in stunned silence for a few moments, then erupted into a pandemonium of shouted prayers, cell phones dialing 911 and someone vomiting in the pews. Eventually, our guest speaker did rise again (about 8 minutes later) and preached another few minutes shouting that the devil could knock you down, but he could not keep you down! Cheers and hollering followed. After a minute or two, he was finished and ushered out to paramedics.

Naturally, I missed that service.

Still, I got to hear the whole message at 8:00! And it was a good one.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the Peacemakers" and our visiting pastor said, "Jesus did not bless the peacekeepers." Just because a scene is "peaceful" (no evidence of struggle) does not mean it is a picture of true peace. As visiting pastor said, "A man with his foot on my neck may look like peace." The absence of struggle is not peace.

He went on. The presence of law and order is not peace. Just because there are rules and we're told to obey them doesn't mean that justice has prevailed. Law and order is not equal to peace. It's equal to protecting the status quo. The status quo is not peace.

To be a peacekeeper means to choose not to upset the status quo. It means to turn your head when injustice is present. It means to tolerate abuse. It means to not rock the boat, to match the expectations of the ones in power without challenge, it means giving up your expectations of fair treatment in the name of pacifying the aggressors. Our visiting pastor (VP, I'll call him) reminded us of MLK Jr.'s "Beloved Community" and their fight to end the so-called "peace" of segregation (a peace-keeping strategy to stop the strife between races... yet not a peace that could last). He reminded us that while MLK Jr. called on a nation to be that beloved community, his legacy must be carried out from that macro level all the way to our most micro experiences.

Let me explain because this is where it got very powerful for me. As a member of the Obama campaign, I experienced firsthand how important it was to work neighborhood by neighborhood and person by person. The campaign depended on regular people taking time to realize their dream of a different future for our country. VP cited Obama as an example of someone who understands that to make peace, all parties must be engaged in the struggle and that it is a struggle. Peacemaking is not a peaceful experience. It's an electrifying, shake up the system practice. Peacemaking starts by disturbing the peace!

Today, peacemakers have to be about that kind of commitment. The beloved community starts with us, personally, in our hearts and relationships: not just our nation, state, or even cities. Not just out communities, neighborhoods and streets. But in our very homes, families and selves. He pushed his finger at us as he drove home his point. Peacemaking begins with a radical reorientation of how we understand justice - that we ourselves have a right to respect, truth and love in all our relationships and without it, that relationship's status quo has got to go.

We flex out muscles in the private sphere, among our families and friends. Injustice is not only what is done to us by the government or law enforcement. It's what we tolerate in the name of "peace" for our daily lives, which then becomes a habit of capitulation. Any peace forged on the basis of "keeping the peace" is not a peace that lasts. Justice, even when there is a high price of chaos to get there, brings about an enduring peace. You will know peace by how it lasts.

He described the way peacemaking leads to upheaval and struggle. Compromise is not a part of justice. Justice is respect, equality, truth and love. It is mutuality - a base from which all parties are able to have dignity before one another, without hiding who or what they are, or changing who or what they are to accommodate another's vision for them. It's not about who has power over who, but how to ensure that all have their rightful share of power in a shared context.

Radical overthrow of the status quo is necessary when oppression is most severe. Disturbing the peace is the route to enduring peace.

I've broken it down in my life. Well-being is the goal for all of us. Peacefaking (as my friend once said) is not peacemaking. The virtue Jesus blesses is not tolerating injustice, mistreatment, disrespect or loss of dignity in the name of some mythical struggle-free environment or relationship. Jesus blesses peacemakers who are so captivated by a vision of respectful, fair treatment for all, they risk the "peace" (the institutions that protect even their personal status quo) for the sake of a lasting peace - one that guarantees dignity, respect, truth and love for each member.

Fairfield Ohio: Effigy of Obama hung... People I'm scared!

I have not wanted to believe that racism was this deep or that close to the surface in our own neighborhoods! For those of you out of state, Fairfield is the town over from ours. It's where my son goes for math tutoring, it's where our favorite big supermarket, Jungle Jim's, is located, it's where a large number of our friends live. This is an ordinary middle-class suburb outside of Cincinnati, not Appalachia.


I'm horrified by both yard displays (it is despicable to depict John McCain as a member of the KKK). The other display (and subject of this local news report) that features Obama swinging from a tree, however, really frightens me. The Jewish star on his head, the name upside down, the middle name across the ghostly body, all hanging from a tree... these images really scare me. To think that the owner of the home was reported to have said that this is a "white Christian nation" and he doesn't want a black man running it... What does that really mean? How far will these kinds of people go to be sure that doesn't happen?

And just when I was feeling heartened by the enthusiasm for Obama in my own neighborhood (out of 75 doors knocked on Sat., I made 32 contacts and 25 were for Obama!). Unheard of in GOP land...

If you pray, pray for Obama's safety. My God. What is wrong with us?

My professor, Adam Clark, mused on FB this a.m.

Adam is wondering why Democrats are forced to distance themselves from sixties radicals but Republicans never have to distance themselves from sixties segregationists.

Yeah, I wonder that too!

Obama: Yeah, more about him

So the biggest news is that canvassing and phone banking have become a heckuva lot more fun now that Obama is winning (leading) in Ohio. Last weekend, Liam, Caitrin and I hit eleven houses in a row (in West Chester, yes way!) that were Obama fans. Our neighborhood has seven Obama/Biden yard signs and three McCain/Palin. I can't remember a single Kerry sign in all of West Chester, last time. The tide is turning.

Even while it's clear that Obama is leading in the polls, there's a certain element in the voting population who still believe that Obama is a dangerous, alien, terrorist-affiliate. These friends become strained and even hostile toward me when they see my t-shirts or buttons or Facebook status updates. With all the thousands of words Obama has written and spoken to the press, with his record public for all to see, with his hours of youtube clips available, with his detailed policy papers easily downloaded from his website, there are still voters who believe that he is going through all of this exhausting hassle (mostly without a hitch) to hide a nefarious agenda to take down the United States of America once in office. I find that charge (that he's the "beast in Revelation," that he's a secret Muslim, that he's tied to foreign terrorist organizations - or even domestic ones!) utterly outrageous.

Meanwhile, these same voters (often conservative Christians) believe that McCain represents safety (a safe bet) - a man who cheated on his hospitalized wife, married Cindy before divorcing his first wife, has a pro-choice record in the Senate until he switched to a conservative posture for this election, not much of a notable Christian testimony and selected arguably the least qualified vice-presidential candidate in American history. How is he the safe bet? How is Obama the risk?

I thought it might help to read a bit by Obama himself and what he says about his Christian faith. I'm going to post quotes from his own book over the next week or so so you can read what he writes himself (instead of all those crazy email forwards filled with deliberate misquotes and lies).

"...I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community's political, economic and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather it was an active, palpable agent in the world. In the day-to-day work of the men and women I met in church each day, in their ability to "make a way out of no way" and maintain hope and dignity in the direst of circumstances, I could see the Word made manifest. (Audacity of Hope 207)

I attend an inner city black church here in Cincinnati. One of the startling features of weekly attendance is to listen to the pastor mention the church members who need prayer at the end of each service. My very first week, we were asked to thank God that one of the women members was yet with us, as she had been car jacked at gunpoint (placed against her temple) the night before and yet survived (never mind that she lost her car). Since that first, shocking week, I've heard of teenage boys who've been gunned down, neighborhood shootings, and other tragic deaths. I've also listened to sermons devoted to urging the congregation to get "legal insurance" to protect themselves against the likely need for fair representation against our city's police, unfair job firings and the notorious "driving while black" syndrome.

In the midst of economic challenges, this church continues to take love offerings any time a minister visits from out of town, they sing joyfully and pray enthusiastically. Sometimes just the mention of economic hardship during prayers leads the women holding my hands to a flood of tears, yet they come back every week, ready to praise God again. The black church has been a gift to me. It is the first time I've experienced the merging of both community identity and individual faith.

One of the reasons I find Obama's candidacy not only timely, but truly revolutionary (on par with the work done by MLK Jr.) is that Obama is able to be a president to all of us in a way that perhaps no president before him has ever been. He brings with him an intimacy with ideas, attitudes, and both white and black cultures that will shape and inform how he governs. His sensitivity to the diversity in himself has led him to be sensitive to the diversity of opinion in America. I strongly recommend reading his chapter on Faith in The Audacity of Hope next time you get coffee at Barnes and Noble. Find out what he says for himself. Don't take someone else's word. We've never had a president able to relate to so many in history. That doesn't mean we haven't had good presidents. We just haven't had one with this unique set of experiences that will help Obama to be a bridge of understanding between a stunning variety of backgrounds, socio-economic conditions, international relations and racial experiences.

Today a college friend sent me a message on FB gently chiding me for my Obama enthusiasm. He told me he has a bumper sticker that suggests who to vote for: "Coldest State, Hottest Governor." Really? Is it possible to be so flip this year, with the economic crisis, the war in Iraq still raging, with a fraudulent executive team leaving the country in shambles and a tattered Constitution?

If you are feeling nervous about Obama, take the next few weeks to read his own writings. Get to know him. Don't just watch the sleazy attack ads or trust some forwarded email. Read Obama's own words. Think about what he says he plans to do for America, what his vision is. Then make your decision.

Edited to add: Susan asked in the comments for verification of the McCain affair/divorce and I wanted to include this article from July from the LATimes: McCain's Broken Marriage Fractured Other Ties as Well.

Obama: First Black Democratic Nominee

Best hangover ever, say the democratic blogs this morning. Without a doubt. Two fuzzy navels and hours later, I'm still shaking my head in mild disbelief. Did that just happen? Did we actually put Obama over the top? Did the honk and waves, the phone calls, the traipsing around Republican neighborhoods and inner city churches, the hundreds of dollars each person contributed, the email lists and digging of articles, the blogging.... did the voting and caucusing and cheering and arguing and crying and laughing and waiting in long lines just to see Obama or his wife speak really result in this history-making moment?

Yes it did!

Obama shattered all expectations. A virtual unknown a year ago on the national stage, today he is the first black candidate of a major political party running for the highest office in America, the most powerful leadership role in the world, the baddest power in cyber-space and outer space... He's da man!

Add Obama to the Fantastic Four and make it the Fantabulous Five.

Our Cincinnati primary party room erupted into utter pandemonium as the digital check box popped onto the MSNBC screen with Barack's smiling face and full name listed as the "Democratic Nominee." It was true last night, is still true this morning: Barack Obama makes a run for the presidency (catch him if you can, McCain, Mr. Cottage Cheese in Lime Jello Mold)!

Obama didn't limp across the finish line either. His stadium appearance last night in St. Paul (the future site of the RNC) drew crowds of 17,000 inside and turned away 15,000 outside (numbers may be off - I took these from memory of last night's pundits commenting away over the rousing laughter, cheers, clinking drinks and general dizzy enthusiasm that filled our primary party downtown).

Just had to comment on Michelle for a moment too. That little kiss on the cheek, followed by the thumb's up and knuckles to her husband will symbolize for me, for a long time, that we are in a new era. They are a team, they are NOW.

In any event, what set Obama's speech apart from McCain's curmudgeon-y, stale, deflated balloon approach to our future in America and from Hillary's bizarrely out of time, tempo and context march through each corner of America where she was hugged and whispered to by downtrodden blue collar, non-elites (gosh, her litany of unhappy Americans gets depressing) as they poured out their health care and jobless woes to her, the "Messiah in a pants suit," was the fact that Obama made his speech about us - Americans who want to take the control over the future back from the paternalism and condescension of politicians who have their political legacies more in mind than anything resembling democratic participatory government.

When Obama said that we voted this time in record numbers because we believed we could make a difference through our actions, through participating, through demonstrating that we are meant to be a part of America's future (not just asking someone else to fix it for us), he was right. He is the only candidate who gets it. His speech was not about how great he is, how well he meets people's needs (like Hillary's). It was about recognizing the hunger Americans have to get back into the ring, to rise above apathy and matter again. Yes Obama embodies that vision, but it was that vision that set him apart from the other candidates. I don't want someone to "fight for me," I want the opportunity to act, to participate, to be a part of the solution.

In any event, if Obama's campaign is anything to go by, that is exactly how he wants to govern. Whether he'll get his chance, well that's up to us.

Yes we can!

Fired up!

Obama will clinch tonight!

I'll be at the primary party with Jon downtown (Sully's on 7th and Race for those who are local and want to join the celebration). It's almost hard to take in - Obama has defeated a Clinton in a primary race when he began as a virtual unknown. He's overcome his youth, his "supposed" inexperience, his ties to a controversial pastor and church, and the unrelenting parsing of his speeches and comments. Through it all, the momentum he built early on combined with the astounding organization of his local teams which created one of the most mobilized ground forces of volunteers and donors in the history of American politics has led to this moment: our first black presidential nominee for a major political party.

Celebrate tonight. Get to work tomorrow. (I'm now one of several "Faith Community Outreach Captains" which basically means I'll sit in the narthex of my church each week registering unregistered voters. Glam job! Be jealous.)

Obama and my breaking heart

I haven't written about Obama and his current media struggles (let's reword that shall we?) - the current media savagery on Obama - because I actually admire and respect the man, because I still think he is the best person for the job of president, because I admire and accept Rev. Wright and his theology.

What is so flipping ugly about this current battle is the way white America seems to have been taken completely off-guard by the idea that there are still blacks in America who aren't satisfied with the status quo. It's as if white America is waiting for a big thank you note signed by black America: thanks for ending our slavery! thanks for giving us the vote! thanks for guaranteeing our civil rights! thanks for all the ways you tell us we are no different than you and so should not feel at all in the slightest injured by what we perceive to be racism! thanks for all that old-fashioned respect for our abilities to transcend white injustice by the "boot-straps" techniques. In other words, thanks for just being you - white, privileged, unconcerned with the color of our skin, so happy when one of us finally moves into the suburbs and drives a compact.

The idea of vomiting comes to mind right about now.

The Daily Kos has a great post on this topic.

Yes, I have officially migrated to the dark side, completely radicalized, in the pocket of black radicals... you know, the ones on crystal meth, who live paycheck to paycheck, who have spent time in prison but are trying to find a way now, who go to church each week hanging onto the white man's religion for hope. Those "out of touch" blacks who still imagine that white America has it out for them... because clearly whites don't - I mean look at the fair treatment of Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama...

When the primary season started, the Right thought Hillary was the danger and Barack would be a preferred candidate. They were utterly taken aback to find out that there were huge numbers of whites in America who really don't see race when evaluating a candidate for president. About that time, Sean Hannity switched his "Stop Hillary Express" to "Stop Barack Obama." No one had discovered the Reverend Wright yet. So Hannity spent his days explaining that race would become the issue and that he would find the dirt on Obama.

Yes, fair and balanced Sean Hannity.

The entire scandal and debacle is manufactured shit. Rev. Wright's tirades from the pulpit have nothing to do with presidential policy and everyone who stops to think for six minutes knows that. This is one more instance that Colin Powell predicted: Build up the black man, then publicly Take. Him. Down.

You think blacks were cynical before? You ain't seen nothing.

Driven to blog.... Obama and Wright

I'm reading comments about the scandal of Rev. Wright's comments and now Obama's attempt to address them from his own point of view. I worried at first that the nation would be derailed from the primary race into a fear-fest by the remarks of an inner city black pastor speaking to his own congregation about the ideas he felt were nourishing to them (never anticipating that they would be the subject of national scrutiny with the intention of derailing one of the bright rising stars of politics this century).

I've changed my mind. This topic deserves center stage because it reveals the gross misunderstanding of the white community when it regards racism and black history in America. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this discussion is the one that is long overdue in the states and has been suppressed since the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Malcolm X. Geraldine Ferraro's comments now rise as petty hand-wringing "take my marbles and go home" whining compared to the much more explosive force of Wright's ideas, suddenly unleashed on an unsuspecting, far-too-comfortable and trusting, white middle class.

That blacks have lingering feelings of oppression: not acceptable.

That blacks see the white race as the perpetrators of the most violence in the history of the world: dare not speak it.

That blacks live daily in a different reality than we whites: not the fault of whites (oh no!) - theirs: for not rising above it cheerfully, without criticism.

It is amazing to me the way no matter what black Americans do, they are painted together with one brush. That Obama has transcended race in his quest for the White House, has not allowed a limited vision of his future to dictate his place, has made use of the advantages offered through the Civil Rights Act to become an advocate for those whose rights continue to be threatened... this is of no consequence. The fact that he attended a church with a pastor who felt free to speak his mind (to even dissent with a "Damn America") is enough to say that Obama is all of that and therefore dangerous.

Let's look for a minute at the Southern Baptist beliefs, shall we? People without Christ go to eternal hell, including Catholics. Women are inferior to men in role and therefore are not equal to men in their ability to lead spiritually. How about the long relationship between war and standing for violence in the American Christian tradition that runs counter to the pacifism that characterized the early church? These are the beliefs of a Huckabee. Shall we also delve into the strangely unsubstantiated views of the Mormon church too because of Mitt Romney's candidacy?

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell could say that the two towers fell due to our immorality (God keeping score on homosexuals and abortions) but Rev. Wright can't say that our capitalist, insensitive foreign policies led to the attacks on 9/11. Yet of the two, whose assessment deals with facts and reality?

In reading black theology and studying it for two semesters (and then again while working on my thesis) what stood out to me most was that the black Christian community is caught between "white man's religion" and a genuine experience of hope gained through the struggle to be free of the white man's domination. That hope comes through the message and person of Christ. It's the hope that fuels Barack Obama's passion for politics. It is a hope that might even say, "Damn America's past; Bless America's future." We can't get there through a pretense that somehow white America had nothing to do with the present conditions of black experience. In church on Sundays, the black community should finally have the dignity of a space to say what they think, what they need to to get beyond the nearly 400 years of second-class status we've accorded them.

One commenter to Obama's apologetic related to this scandal wrote along these lines: Here we whites ended slavery and gave blacks civil rights. And this is how we're repaid?

There you go. That's the problem in its starkest version. Get outside yourself and listen with different ears. Allow yourself to be troubled, pushed back, knocked out of your comfort zone. I'd contend that's how it is for many blacks every day.

De-centering the self: Michael Dyson

One of my favorite pomo expressions is: de-centering the self. It's one I've spent a lot of time contemplating. Most of us live in our own bubbles of comfort, culture and "correct" thinking. We interpret the world through the lens given to us by our parents, our race, our socio-economic backgrounds, our Englishes, our educations, our faith traditions (or lack of them), our gender, our topo-geographic localities, our relationships, our pains, our abuses, our joys... all of these wrapped together create us, shape how we understand the world and each other. As we become competent in our worlds, we gain speed at navigating the requirements (passing tests, earning degrees, getting jobs, managing money, initiating relationships, respecting the tax laws, obeying the rules of the road, shopping, dressing up and down and when, showing respect and disrespect including knowing when and how to do each, having sex, managing the level of technology your world affords and/or requires... and so on).

One of the reasons going to a foreign country is so often recommended as an "expanding" experience is that in deliberately leaving behind what we know, we are suddenly de-centered. The way we know the world is no longer "normative" but in many cases, an impediment to successful living. For instance, my history degree didn't help me bake bread or wash my clothes by hand in Morocco. I was seen as a flawed married woman without the necessary skills, not as a highly educated "prepared for adult life" individual.

What I took for granted (knowing the price of postage, counting change, finding a store open at hours you expect, locating the bus line, weighing vegetables, lighting a stove, hooking up a telephone, daylight hours, flavors, words, etiquette, smells, the shapes of buildings, toilet flushes) suddenly cost me energy. All day long I was bombarded by ineptitude... my own.

It's not uncommon to need naps when you move to a new country. It's also perfectly normal to develop irrational fears and judgments: What if I get lost downtown? How will I find the right bus? Why does that man look me in the eye? Didn't she just snub me? Why do they do it like *that* when it would be so much easier to do it like *this*?

The advice to people who face culture shock (or culture stress, as it is more commonly called now) is to let go of the old expectations. The quicker someone immerses self into this new reality, the faster she becomes happy. The more language a person has, the more fluency in all aspects of foreign living. Over time, the expatriate not only learns that there are other ways to successfully live on the planet, in some cases, the new ways become prized as more valuable than the formerly most comfortable ways.

What is really remarkable about living abroad is that you have no option but to recognize that your way is not the only way. Hearing about a foreign way of life is no approximation for how it actually feels to live it. When your senses are overwhelmed, you are obligated to either have a breakdown or figure it out. You must yield to the reality that there are multiple ways to live that give people the things we all crave: love, belonging and competence.

Last night, Jon and I attended a lecture given by Dr. Michael Dyson. We've heard him before. He's what is known as a "public intellectual, teacher and cultural critic." Dyson speaks from his personal space of being black, of interpreting and representing what are black issues today and he does so in an almost Robin Williams-esque style (freely flying between ebonics, black speak, white speak, intellectual-ese and rap).

We arrived at Xavier about five minutes before the start of the lecture. The hall was already filled with audience members... virtually all black. It hit me. I'm used to Xavier being white with a smattering of other ethnicities. Yet last night, Jon and I found two seats smooshed in the middle of the hall surrounded by blacks. I was not troubled. I was aware. This must be how it feels all the time in the suburbs for blacks. When a black family joins our homeschooling co-op, they know that their kids' friends will all be white, that they will be the only blacks in the room much of the time.

Last night, I felt it. Not just that I was white-skinned, but culturally white. When Dyson would talk about the way their "mammas and daddies" raised them, he talked about teaching kids that they have to rise up and overcome obstacles. He talked about two languages: the ebonics of the home and the standard English of the outside world. He quoted Marvin Gaye and the Temptations and found the audience finishing his sentences. He rapped like Jay-Z and the college kids rapped with him. Jon and I laughed our heads off with the crowd, but we were not a part of it. We had entered that other world where the assumptions I have mean little to the gathered.

It was a lot like visiting a foreign country.... only different in one important way. When I go abroad, I'm deliberately choosing to place myself in the mode of "learner." I know I will not "know" how to be, do, talk, live. I choose to be open to learning. When I'm in my country, I don't want that experience thrust on me. I expect to feel competent, at ease. Last night, I was reminded again of how important it is to deliberately seek to be out of my comfort zone, to listen to the points of view of those who even see me as a threat, an enemy or an impediment to their competence and success in the larger culture. In other words, I realized that for blacks, they spend a lot more energy than I do accommodating the largely white culture I come from... every day. I dipped into it for about three hours one night.

I don't know how else we ever get to that place where we know and honor each other's experiences unless we de-center the self regularly: like jogging, like eating right, like holding back bad words, like de-cluttering the house, like taking medicine or vitamins. Self-discipline to give up my right to be comfortable and right.