Rewarding Bad Behavior

The new economic stimulus package raises a concern for me. I am wondering if it penalizes those who have been the most prudent. 

No, I am not talking about good homeowners versus bad homeowners.

I am talking about those states and commonwealths and territories and districts who have, over the years, created long-term models for infrastructure development which are not responsive to "shovel-ready" demands.  

I know it is important to get the economy going quickly, and getting the money flowing through needed projects is essential, so we are not just throwing money at the problem but rather getting something enduring for our money. 

Let me cite one precise example.  

The United States is pitifully behind in the development of High Speed Rail.  In this country, getting a train up to a speed of 90 miles per hour is considered working on high speed rail.  The Acela high speed train sets of AMTRAK, while capable of 150 mph, reach top speed of 135 for less than 10% of their routes, and their average operating speed is 69 mph.

In  China, Turkey, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and all of Europe cruising speeds of 150+ mph and overall  operating speeds of 120+ are not only the goal, but the achievement. 

For the US to join the worldwide High Speed Rail club  (which would reduce air pollution and congestion) would require innovative, long-term planning.  But it must be relevant, state-of-the-art planning.  If we today were to work off of "shovel-ready" 1990 plans, we would stay well behind the curve.

However, if we were to create a 2009 plan right now, the planning alone would takes several years, and if we then had to wait for funding, the likelihood would be that all we would do is fund something already out of date. 

Most of the projects which are "shovel-ready" are projects which, by reason of design or application, are of the past, not the future.  It is easy to come up with quick plans fix broken ancient water mains, but it is hard to come up with quick plans to equip the nation with cutting edge broadband. 

Likewise, it is easy to cut a contract to repave the Interstates, but hard to cut a contract to begin the construction of a true high speed rail line. 

Now, I am all for the stimulus package.  Inaction at this time is not what we need.  However, I worry that we will spend all that money simply to get us to 2009, and not to get us to 2020.  We need some way to reward those who have long term plans, not just those ready and eager in the short term. 

Once more picking what can be done quickly rewards bad behavior.  I hope we can see a transition in the next few years to a culture which rewards the visionary and not just the expedient. 

Talking with the Gorilla

You all know the phrase about the "800 pound Gorilla in the middle of the living room," an allusion to something big which cannot be ignored but which is being ignored. 

I have been thinking about such a gorilla lately, in relation to how we, as liberal religious communities, are called to function. 

Here are my preliminary thoughts - subject to revision by the gorilla:

if there is some overwhelming presence in any situation we have three options:

• we can talk about what the gorilla represents, but not about the gorilla.  So, for example, we could say "I am concerned about wastewater treatment," but not "I don't like what the Gorilla has to say about wastewater."  
• we can talk with the gorilla. "Gorilla, tell me more about wastewater," or "Gorilla, I don't agree with your understanding."
• we can not talk about either the Gorilla or what the Gorilla represents. "Say, how about those Marlins!" However, we can still hear the Gorilla muttering.

But, I think there is also another option which is rarely recognized by us liberals.  We can decide that it is our living room and if we don't invite the Gorilla in, the Gorilla doesn't belong.  

For example, just because someone tries to demand that we address our lack of woodworking classes doesn't mean that we need to address our lack of woodworking classes.  If we have decided that we, as a congregation, are not about woodworking, then we don't have to invite that Gorilla in. 

The only Gorillas who can be in our living rooms are the ones we allow in, or allow to stay in. In our polity (governance), by the way, it is the congregation, not the Gorilla nor a Bishop nor the press, that decides who stays in the living room. 

I remember a few years back, in a congregation with which I was consulting, one gadfly member decided that the congregation had to deal in a certain way with a specific social issue.  The social action committee did not agree.  The Board did not agree.  Eventually, the congregation as a whole decided to not include the issue on the agenda at its annual meeting. In other words, no one invited that Gorilla to come in.   

Better than trying to figure out if we will or will not talk with a 800 pounder in our midst, we need to be clear about how our living room will be used.  And clearly, if we don't want an uninvited guest, we don't serve bananas. 

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BEING UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST

A situation I am dealing with in my congregation has me pondering what it is that defines Unitarian Universalism. 

I look around our Meeting Room in the UU Fellowship here at Mile Marker 1, just one mile from the start of everything, and I see the current Purposes and Principles of our movement.  

They are a wonderful statement of ethics and faith:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; 
  
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; 
  
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; 
  
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; 
  
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
  

However, are they really definitive of a distinct faith tradition?  I suspect that every one of those principles is affirmed in more than one religion. 

It takes a little more reading, and some historical sleuthing to go further.  

Just beyond the Principles in our Association's Bylaws is a section on Freedom of Belief: 

Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, covenant, or bond of union used by any congregation unless such is used as a creedal test.

This "liberty" clause, or a version of it, has been  included in every statement of faith in the history of Unitarian Universalism, and of Universalism before the consolidation. 

It is what establishes us as a non-creedal religion.  It says that while we affirm certain principles, we do NOT require a unfied interpretation of those principles.  

No one person's understanding of the implications of those principles is binding on any other, nor upon the whole.  For UUs, dogma is not the content of a doctrinal statement but any insistence that certain beliefs or actions must consequentially flow from our shared values. 

So, if any individual Unitarian Universalist were to say: "See things my way, or else!," it would be a most un-UU statement, because in the whole history of our movement Freedom of Belief trumps any stated Principles.  

At its core, Unitarian Universalism is about that Freedom of Belief, which also implies that when people are free in their faith, not bound to one interpretation of important principles nor bound to one expectation of action, a wider truth, a greater good, a deep faith will result. 

Getting Some Real Change from Our Stimulus Dollars

A New York Times article  (thanks to Tom Dow for pointing me to it) titled "The Big Fix" considers the current economic situation. In it we read:

In the early 1980s, an economist named Mancur Olson developed a theory that could fairly be called the academic version of Rahm’s Doctrine. Olson, a University of Maryland professor who died in 1998, is one of those academics little known to the public but famous among his peers. His seminal work, “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” published in 1982, helped explain how stable, affluent societies tend to get in trouble. The book turns out to be a surprisingly useful guide to the current crisis.

In Olson’s telling, successful countries give rise to interest groups that accumulate more and more influence over time. Eventually, the groups become powerful enough to win government favors, in the form of new laws or friendly regulators. These favors allow the groups to benefit at the expense of everyone else; not only do they end up with a larger piece of the economy’s pie, but they do so in a way that keeps the pie from growing as much as it otherwise would. Trade barriers and tariffs are the classic example. They help the domestic manufacturer of a product at the expense of millions of consumers, who must pay high prices and choose from a limited selection of goods.

Olson’s book was short but sprawling, touching on everything from the Great Depression to the caste system in India. His primary case study was Great Britain in the decades after World War II. As an economic and military giant for more than two centuries, it had accumulated one of history’s great collections of interest groups — miners, financial traders and farmers, among others. These interest groups had so shackled Great Britain’s economy by the 1970s that its high unemployment and slow growth came to be known as “British disease.”

Germany and Japan, on the other hand, were forced to rebuild their economies and political systems after the war. Their interest groups were wiped away by the defeat. “In a crisis, there is an opportunity to rearrange things, because the status quo is blown up,” Frank Levy, an M.I.T. economist and an Olson admirer, told me recently. If a country slowly glides down toward irrelevance, he said, the constituency for reform won’t take shape. Olson’s insight was that the defeated countries of World War II didn’t rise in spite of crisis. They rose because of it. 

This reminds me of something Rikkity has said - that people do not fear too much change, but rather too little change.  In every situation there is the absolute necessity of change.  Even when it appears that we are in stasis, it is because our changes and the changes of our environment are parallel and equal.  We live in an organic existence, so therefore change is central and essential to the very definition of  "being" and "reality."

We have become very adaptive to a certain level of change.  We do not normally sense the millions of skin cells which leave us every day.  The slowly shifting sands on the beach are not noticed moment by moment.

However, on a larger scale, we do notice change.  Change which we notice because the change is of such a degree (scale) or such a direction (difference) that it is not equal and parallel to our own changes is usually experienced in two ways:  loss and enhancement.  

We all know about loss: something which was in a certain way is not that way anymore.  When the path of that something began equal and parallel to us and then veered off, it feels like some component of the plane (temporal, spatial, emotional, spiritual) on which we exist is left us.  We feel like we are less than we were before because that something felt like part of us by its intimate similarity. 

The other side is enhancement: something which was not a part of us becomes intimately connected to our existence.  The path of something began separate from us, often unknown to us, but then becomes equal and parallel with our plane of existence, and it seems like it is us.  We fel like we are more than we were before.

People do not like the loss side of change.  People like the enhancement side of change. 

And too, too often, when societal systems (religion, politics, families) change they only go so far as the loss side.  Little changes.  As Frankie says in Rocky Horror Picture Show: Remove the cause, but not the symptom.

People fear that all they will know is the loss, with nothing of equal but different value to replace that loss.  You don't want to have a 12 X 24 X 6 foot hole in your backyard if that is all you have - but if you then get a swimming pool full of water in the place of the hole, that is another story.

We are ready to accept change which will move us to the enhancement side of the equation.

And this is what Olson is arguing.  We often hear people say "It is time to get this country back on track and we will do whatever it takes." 

NO!

It is time to get this country onto its new path (which may not involve tracks at all).  Don't start with the problem and stop with getting things back the way they were.  

Start with the vision of how things would feel better, enhanced, more expressive of the values which we hold as central.  Then ask which new and different paths would feel equal and parallel to those values.  Head in that direction.  

In the current challenge, we, the people, have a right to fear that government will only go as far as getting the DJIA back in the growth range and the unemployment numbers down and not really go the distance in which enough fundamentals have been changed that we all can feel like we have moved beyond what has gotten us into this crisis and that we are not "back to business as usual" but rather that we are "exploring the land of our dreams."

For every dollar we spend on stimulus, I hope we get back some big change. 

An Observation from in a Black Church

One of the preoccupations of Unitarian Universalism in the last twenty years has been the oft-repeated claim that "11am on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America." It has become a mission of many UUs to try to make this less so.   I have heard endless discussions about "how can we attract more people of color to our services?"

Now, let me get this straight.  We see ourselves in general as people of privilege, "white privilege," and we seek to bring in more people of color as a way of . . .?

As a way of assuaging guilt over the past . . . that somehow if we can have people of color sitting next to us history can be redeemed?

As a way of enhancing our own experience . . . because ethnic people will enrich our mix and make things more diverse?

As a way of sharing . . . letting some people who are different in on some of the privilege?

As a way of justifying our militancy . . . sanctifying our righteous indignation and our steadfast positions on everything from proper use of ethnic songs to "cultural misappropriation" to reparations. 

Let's face it:  the usual UU attempts to attract more people of ethnic and racial diversity is not about any anti-racism, anti-oppression, multiculturalism.  It's either about religious imperialism.  We think we have a message which is superior to what people of color might be getting in their own traditional religious communities and they would be better off with us.  Or it is about our own religious insecurity.  We think our message is insufficient unless we look inclusive.

Now, I have to tell you that in all of my contacts with the traditional Black Churches here in the Conch Republic, including in-depth time with their leaders, I have never heard  one, not one, that was concerned with trying to attract more white people to their congregations. 

You would think that they would want to attract more people who we claim hold privilege and power.  You would think they would see a sprinkling of those who envision themselves as burdened with unfair higher status as a bonus, an affirmation, a blessing.  They might even have a conversation that would go like this, "You know, some of those white folks who might be open to our message are put off by the music and the dancing and the shouting we do, so maybe we ought to tone it down a little and make them feel more comfortable."

But, they don't!!!!!  

Instead, the historic Black Churches focus on their salvific message and the many ways of expressing it.  They are not scanning faces for traces of color or lack thereof.  They are not counting members by race.  They are preaching the message of divinity on earth revealing the universal and eternal promise of wholeness for all people regardless of race.  

I think it is high time that we Unitarian Universalists stop focusing on what we are not and what's wrong with the world and start focusing on what we have to say and what's right with creation.  If we did that, the people for whom our message is liberating will fill our congregations and it won't matter to them or to us what color their skin happens to be or what accent edges their voices. 

I think we have now complete a detailed exploration of a deadend cul-de-sac; it's time to get back on the main road of Unitarian Universalism. 

Seen at the Inauguration

A delightful piece in the Times of London  concludes:

The filming on Tuesday [of the inauguration in detail] wasn't about illusion or manufacture, however: the intimacy was real and in real time. Anybody watching the footage surrounding the oath will have felt closely acquainted with the Obamas: they laugh with each other, they sometimes look as if they are going to have a giggling fit, sometimes she rolls her eyes and then stops herself, sometimes he suppresses a yawn. She kicks off her tight new shoes, like we do when we sit down at weddings; he goofs around with his children, like a normal person. They are immediately familiar, recognisably human, like us (which means that, cleverly, the colour of their skin becomes irrelevant).

So, even in gesture and simple acts, the new first family helps us transcend the old patterns in which what was familiar was based on race and introduces us to a new world in which what is familiar is based on humanity.

As Rikkity says: We can all make it if we focus on connections, not difference!

And sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures

A great composite from Inauguration Day - people were asked to choose from among dozens of words - see what we are saying about our feelings that day: