Recent Wanderings on Cumberland Island, GA.

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

February 9, 2022

America Will Be Great Again When It is Not Great

“The nations make much ado, and the kingdoms are shaken; God has spoken, and the earth shall melt away” (Psalm 46)

Russia has 100K troops and weapons galore surrounding Ukraine. The United States and Europe respond and negotiate. Such ado. Leaders play with the fate of the common citizen trying to make a living and a life – as if the leaders in their policy and politics matter and the citizens don’t. Our war mongering is so self-important. It’s absurd, tragic and so small-minded. Yesterday reading in former President Barack Obama’s memoir, A Promised Land, a good section on how the U.S. has its own history of empire building, not without running roughshod over peoples and nations, to arrive where we are now. While we may not be a physical border invader, saber rattling, we still invade countries with our consumerism that feeds on the natural and human resources of other countries, all supported and defended by a military apparatus that is world-wide, ubiquitous and too structured by an economic system of loans and debts that keep the poor marginalized and the wealthy prioritized. 

I bought last year a winter jacket, high end Columbia Sportswear brand, and got a good deal on it. I saw the other day that it was made in Viet Nam. Viet Nam of all places. Nothing new there, I know. But think about how the French colonialized that country and we (the U.S.) destroyed it (while killing 60,000 of our own) in order to maintain a dominance over any Eastern (aka Chinese, Communist) threat against our ever-spreading economic hegemony. We destroyed resources in order to maintain and gain resources. We lost that military “battle” of Viet Nam but still won the “war” of Dominance somehow. People live in poverty (by our standards) by the millions, eking out a living by providing me with my cold weather creature comforts. 

I know, there is nothing wrong with providing goods and services. All I am saying is that we need to realize the real cost of our expected “First World” standard of living. America can lead the world into a global community of equality and justice only if we are clear and sober about how we got to this place of dominance. Contrary to popular belief (especially with the way we teach our American history as a matter of white ingenuity instead of a matter of dependence on black enslavement) America has not been great yet. Really, with all its wonderment and amazing feats and a democracy success story bar none, America is still one of many nations making “much ado.” We could be great if we considered justice rather than comfort (and safety and security) as our standard of living. By justice I mean distributive justice, where all get everything they need instead of some getting everything they want. 

I just saw a few minutes of NYTimes columnist and author Thomas Friedman interviewed  by Joe Scarborough on the Cable Show Morning Joe (Friedman of Hot, Flat and Crowded and Thankyou for Being Late and so much more, should be President as far as I am concerned!). In his usual smart ability to synthesize in a short fashion a ton of information into comprehensive categories that can direct policy or at minimum, help us name what it is we have before us (e.g. all this national turmoil we face is over the fact that so many Americans feel they are losing what “home” feels like and means to them). Friedman said we need to see that “Out of Many – One” could be better said now, or should be said now, as “Out of Many – We.” He just published today and OP-ED about how America is now a place where everybody has rights but nobody has responsibilities. A couple of things about that:

1) Notice how it highlights how we have lost the sense of “we” for all the glorification of “me.”

2) It’s interesting, and a telling story of why religion has lost its footing with a disillusioned Boomer generation and distinterested Millenial and Gen X generations , that the church isn’t the bully pulpit for this kind of moral call for justice and that rather it is enlightened and impassioned journalists and others that are stating the case and lighting the way.

Ok, where do I land this plane today? 

America can only be great it if sees itself as one nation among many who make “much ado.” America can only be great if it realizes and then acts on the truth that it is not great and will never be great. Great by only not being Great? Sounds like something I have heard before: “but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your servant” (Mark 10:43-45). 

Sound like pie in the sky? Tell that to Jesus.