This was the same Obadiah....

 A confession - this week's Haftarah (Prophecies) portion - the book of Obadiah - is probably my favorite in the entire TANAKH (Old Testament).  Why?  Because it is short (about 1 1/2 pages) - but it packs a punch. The entire book is about Obadiah's message from G-d.  Ok, so what is so important/special about that? The TANAKH is full of messages from G-d.  What makes this one noteworthy?

It wouldn't be - unless you consider the messenger.  Obadiah (if it is the same Obadiah, and most of the scholars agree that it probably is) is the captain of King Ahab's guards.  The one that lead the search for the prophets after King Ahab declared them enemies of the state and put a bounty on them.  Nowhere in the history is he identified as a prophet.  Scholars debate whether the proper introduction to the book is "The Prophecy of Obadiah" or "The Vision of Obadiah." In fact, even though Obadiah had a vision, he still isn't called a prophet, but his vision is recognized as being prophetic and has been included with the writings of prophets with bone fide credentials.  But why is this important?  And what does it have to do with our lives right now?

Very often, people without credentials, without the proper "alphabet" behind their name or title have insights into important issues.  Something that they are able to see from their unique perspective, very likely because they do not have the appropriate alphabet behind their names and titles.  They are free from the blinders that the credentialed people have and are able to see things that the experts can not because their expertise blinds them to viewpoints that are derived by experiences in other disciplines.

Reading Obadiah, it is clear that he is not a prophet in the traditional sense. Even though he speaks in metaphors, his message is not mysterious or hard to understand.  His metaphors draw clear parallels with events happening right then and relates them back to prior historical events. He is a man versed in intelligence, in counter-surveillance, in espionage and treason (as the account in First Kings says "this was the same Obadiah that hid the prophets of the Lord).  He has experience with living a double life during the years that he hid the prophets and protected them from discovery during the search - all while serving the very king that signed their death warrant as his highest-ranking military officer.  

As a prior double-agent, he is able to see that Israel has trusted "allies" that are working for the other side.  He speaks of allies deceiving Israel, and confederates "prevailing against you." He is warning that if Israel continues to believe them and continue down this path, Israel will be destroyed. He speaks of the betrayal of the tribe of Judah by the Kingdom of Israel, and how this betrayal will have consequences. Even though he speaks of the "day of the Lord" - intimating that G-d is the one that will bring about the disastrous consequences - he is quick to point out that his own people, the Israelites, will play a large role in their own downfall because of how they behave. 

There is speculation about the "we" language at the beginning of the chapter.  Scholars theorize that this points to multiple authors of the book, but having studied with military advisors and policy analysts, I find it more likely (if it is the same Obadiah), that Obadiah has received accounts from many sources - including prophets and seers, and he is distilling them down into this report - a "prophecy" from the Lord. The ascribing of this account to Divine authorship gives it weight and veracity.  Kings were far more likely to listen to and obey words they believed came from Divine guidance and authority.  Military advisors - like Obadiah - were often less important than prophets and seers when it came to advising Kings on military and foreign policy matters.  Still, this book, even with its prophetic sounding language and use of "Lord" and "G-d" as the ultimate authority on the matter, sounds suspiciously like a military and foreign policy briefing with plenty of warning about what is likely to happen if Israel continues to ignore what is happening within its own borders and allies and continues to believe in their own moral and military superiority.  Sometimes when I read Obadiah, I wonder if he is again operating as a double-agent, creating relationships with those who seek to undermine and destroy Israel and reporting back on their activities.

While it is tempting to see this as something that happened "back then" and has nothing to do with our current events, if we were to update the narrative with "Republicans" and "Democrats" instead of "Judah" and "Israel" would we see the relevance?  Would we recognize that gloating and moral superiority undermines good relationships? Would we see that "confederates" - people that we believe to be on our side but actually working for the other side and reporting back on our strengths and weaknesses - will be those that eventually tear our society apart.  Will we come to understand that by failing to listen to individuals with opposing viewpoints to the popular narrative, we risk missing important information and details that could mean the difference between becoming stronger and more united or weaker and more divided? 

The consequences of failing to recognize enemies within our own ranks - whether people or ideologies - weaken our ability to take steps to strengthen our communities and our country.  We must be willing to listen to those who point out the flaws in our thinking, the people who say that they want one thing, but their behaviors and actions show that they actually want and believe something completely different.  The language at the very end of the book is clear - if Israel continued to ignore what was happening within their own ranks, Judah would rise again much stronger and conquer them and completely take over the entirety of the Kingdom.  The only way to save Israel was to recognize false allies, teachings and ideas that undermined the strength of the whole, and thoroughly question what was right for the entirety of the country and what it would take to create a more unified relationship with Judah, rather than tearing the Kingdom apart even further. 

We see this now in our own politics.  The divisive politics that is currently dominating our American political culture is hurting our collective well-being both politically and socially.  Cancel culture hurts the strength of our country because it ends thoughtful, engaged debates from individuals who hold opposing viewpoints.  If we are to take Obadiah's briefing seriously and apply it to today's events, we must be willing to engage in thoughtful debates and test the ideas expressed during those debates against the behavior of those who hold and promote specific ideologies.  By engaging with others in respectful, open, thoughtful debate, we as a country will be able to discern who has the best interests of the whole country in mind and who seeks to create division and weaken us from the inside for financial or political gain.  These are the confederates that we must be aware of and the ideologies we must work to root out of our political culture and collective identity.  We must once again have a place where thoughtful people are able to respectfully discuss issues and disagree with one another in order to regain our strength and unity.

Crossing the Line

 It has been a long time since I posted something to this blog.  I shuttered it largely due a lack of time and feeling like I had nothing to add to the conversation.  However, in the aftermath of the election I am moved to speak, to critically examine an idea that we in the Judeo-Christian community need to consider with a sober and searching heart, regardless of what side we voted for.  If you don't consider yourself a part of this community, or you don't agree with the assumptions at the beginning of the post, please gently consider that you might not be the intended audience of this post and refrain from posting inflammatory or argumentative comments.  This post is not for you.  And as someone who struggles to manage her "spoon count" so that she doesn't run out of spoons before she retires to bed, I again ask you to graciously consider that if you are not a part of the target audience that you don't start a flame war in the comments section or on my FB wall.  If you don't feel that you can respect that request, please stop reading and move on.

If you are still reading, I am making the following assumption: all of us here believe that we are not the ultimate deciders of our political fate.  That we are merely tools in the hands of a Divine Being who uses us, despite our imperfections, to carry out a Divine Plan.  If this is not your belief, then the rest of this is not written for you.  For those of you who do believe that we are tools in the hands of something Greater than ourselves, then we must thoughtfully consider the following argument:

The Divine Plan allowed Trump to be elected in 2016, and, for reasons beyond our ability to understand, allows him to suffer defeat in 2020.  We do not understand why, but, arguably, it is not our place to understand why. Rather, we need to accept  - as with so many other things we struggle to accept - that there is a Reason, and part of our having faith is accepting that we may never understand that Reason during our lifetime.  

This change of Divine selection is not new.  It is, in fact, something we have seen time and again, beginning with the Divine selection of Judges, and then first Israelite king, Saul.  Initially, Saul was humble; he was a servant who accepted his place and his role in leading the Chosen people.  He sought wisdom, acted in accordance with the guidance given to him by priests, prophets, judges, and counselors.  He acted on behalf of the people, implementing what G-d wanted and carrying out that Divine Plan. He "walked with G-d."

But somewhere along the way that changed.  Saul "grew proud."  The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible does not elaborate on what exactly this pride was or where it came from.  He "grew jealous" particularly of David.  He began to suffer from other issues that impacted his ability to rule in a way that was in harmony with what G-d wanted.  He grew apart from G-d, and despite repeated attempts by his prophets and advisors to bring him back and help him reconcile with G-d and the people, he continued to drift further and further away from the Divine plan.  Somewhere, and it isn't exactly clear where, Saul crossed a line where he was unable to continue to carry out the Divine plan G-d had for the Israelite people, and instead became a harmful influence and a source of division. 

Which brings me back to the election and our current situation.  While we may be tempted to call the results "unfair," and "fraudulent," and make accusations of stealing and corruption, we must also consider the possibility that somewhere, in some way, Trump went the way of Saul, and crossed the line between being someone whom G-d could use and someone who presented a danger to the future of the Israelite nation.  If we agree that we believe that G-d uses flawed and imperfect people to further his work, then we must also accept that, like Saul, there may be cases where G-d decides that this person causes great harm to the people that he is supposed to be serving, and withdraws his blessing of leadership (as he did with Saul) and gives it to someone else - in our case, Joe Biden. 

For those of us who supported Trump, this loss is a sting.  We did our part - we voted, we campaigned, some of us may have even contributed money or volunteered with a local election team.  Right now things feel very dark and scary. We feel disappointed.  We feel cheated. We feel grief and loss. We wondered how this could have happened. We look at our friends, those we saw supporting Biden, and wonder how they could support someone we find untenable - perhaps even wondering how G-d and the Universe could let this happen.  There is the temptation to fight back.  

But now is not the time for action.  Now is the time for silence.  To allow ourselves to feel what we feel - all of it - and resist the temptation to act impulsively.  Right now, our first priority is to stop and wait for the whirlwind of emotions and storms of impulse to subside, so, like Elijah, we can hear G-d in the stillness and receive a message of comfort and hope.  By allowing G-d to speak to us and comfort us, we can be reassured that even though we do not understand why this happened, it is a part of The Plan; we need to let go of our desire to control the outcome and have things to go "our way." Instead, we need to have the courage to believe that things are going G-d's way according to The Plan.  Right now, we need to have faith, wait and see what G-d has planned, and reach out to comfort others who are, like us, struggling with trying to understand how this could happen, and where is G-d in all of this.

We may look back when things are less emotional, less fraught, and with a more discerning eye see how we have been divided.  We may possibly see, perhaps only faintly, where Trump had the potential to set things in motion that would have had disastrous consequences later on.  We may see how our beliefs and loyalties were used to create division where we might have built relationships.  Again, this is nothing new.  The clashes between David's supporters and Saul's supporters were violent and bloody.  There are accounts of how families were torn apart over the issue of loyalties.  There are stories about how there were truces and periods of peace, followed again by violence and destruction - instigated by both sides. Following the death of Saul and the end of the civil war between the tribes of Israel, it took both sides willing to be brave and come together in order to heal the nation and return to G-d's Plan for them.  Like them, we may be called to be brave and come together to seek peace.

For those of us who supported Biden, now is not the time to gloat.  There is no glory in a victory that demeaned others by calling them names, casting aspersions on their intelligence, ridiculing their choice of faith, their values, and their world view in an effort to gain an advantage.  If we think that we were successful at refraining from doing those things personally,  look again at what those on our side did when raising his banner.  Were we as a group unkind, hurtful, boastful? Did we use their own teachings or beliefs against them? Did we turn a blind eye to what our friends did even though we knew it was hurtful? What they did colors all of us.  Reading the books of Samuel and Kings with a critical eye reveals that both sides participated in violence and bloodshed in order to promote their chosen leader.  We have been no different.  

While it is tempting to scapegoat the loosing side with the responsibility for how things went down, a thoughtful and sober read of the years of civil war and unrest between Saul and David tells a story of how both sides acted honorably and both sides acted with malice, neither side willing to step down and cede control to Divine Authority or wait for clear guidance from a judge, prophet, seer, or messenger as to what were the appropriate next steps.  The conflict only ended after Saul and Jonathan - whom David "loved more than a brother" - were killed in the heat of battle.  Even then, it took many years following Saul's death and David's ascent to the throne to completely end the low-level infighting between supporters of Saul and supporters of David; fighting that threatened the tenuous peace that held the kingdom together.  We too, are likely to enter a time of tenuous peace, and unless we are willing to own up to the hurt we have caused and the injustices we have perpetrated against those who followed their conscious and believed that they were doing the right thing, we are likely to continue the hurt and discord, similar to the discord that plagued David in the early years of his reign and caused further violence and unrest. 

It is time to lay down the banners.  It is time to stop the hurtful behavior.  It is time to pray, to listen, to ask for forgiveness, and to offer forgiveness when it has been sincerely asked for.  In the words of Abraham Lincoln, it is "time to bind up the wounds of the nation." 

Reflections on Memorial Day

I was born on a military base during the Vietnam War. 

A little over a year before I was born, my father, Lieutenant Commander James Couperus, MD, had been assigned the post of Executive Officer, Medical Services, Whidby Island Naval Air Station - which is a fancy way of saying that he was the number two doctor at the hospital on the Whidby Island Navy Base. The day I was born, the Navy hospital corpsmen threw me my first birthday party - I was about two hours old.  According to my dad, I was the “most spoiled and adored baby” among the medical staff on duty during the time I was in the hospital. (That may have been because I was one of the only babies in the base hospital.)  When I imagine what that might have been like, I envision nurses and corpsmen in BDUs and officer tans giving me weight checks and holding me - a tiny pink bundle cuddled up against camouflage.

To this day I have a visceral reaction of comfort and familiarity to sights and smells associated with living near a military base and a dad who was on active duty.  The sharp smells of jet fuel and diesel exhaust, men and women in all manner of uniforms - flight suits, helmets, battle dress, and formal uniforms; the thunder and roar of military aircraft passing overhead. Again, I have no cognitive memory of this brief amount of time, but my “lizard brain” reaction to them is unmistakable. My first memories of safety and home are intimately tied to our military. My sister and brother - born just before and just after my father’s military service, don’t have these same reactions.  They are uniquely my own. So the tension that is present in the UU tradition between the military and our UU leadership resonates strongly with me.  Because of this, I felt it was important to share my reflections on Memorial Day as a military brat and a UU.

Memorial Day is a day to reflect on what the true costs of liberty and freedom are.  It is also a day to honor those who bravely paid the ultimate price for securing that liberty - to ourselves and our generation.  It is a sacrifice that should not be taken lightly.  For UUs, it is also a day to respect those sacrifices with an honest soul-searching about how we address the conflict between our principles and our politics.  As UUs, we prefer to uphold those social justice leaders who idealized non-violence: those like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi.  We are less comfortable with those who see violence as a means of bringing about social justice when peaceful means are not effective.  We are uncomfortable with Malcom X and other revolutionaries that espouse violence as a means of bringing about change.  We are uncomfortable with the knowledge that violence is sometimes required to end oppression and tyranny.  We struggle with the Doctrine of Just Warfare, with Augustine, with Aquinas, and other spiritual icons who discuss the reality that war is not only inevitable but sometimes necessary to protect those who are vulnerable.  Memorial Day is a day when we can stand in that tension and acknowledge the cost and sacrifice that is sometimes required to secure peace and liberty.  As UU Minister and Navy Chaplain Rev. Cynthia Kane said in the UU World article “Embattled Faith”: “to do the work of peace, I must understand the making of war.” We UUs must also understand the making of war and come to terms with the fact that protecting and upholding democracy and freedom will sometimes require war and sacrifice. Memorial Day provides a yearly opportunity to wrestle with those tensions.

Liberty. Freedom.

Those words have taken on more significance in the last couple of months.  We have all felt the mental strain of having our normal routines curtailed.  We have all felt the pressure of having to account for where we have traveled and remember whom we have come in contact with.  We have, with a strange mixture of hope and fear, watched for signs that life can begin to return to normal.  What we need to recognize is that normal isn’t coming back - and this weekend is a perfect time for us to look to our past as we begin to plan for our future.

We have all heard the saying, “Freedom isn’t free.”  It is sometimes used as a tagline, sometimes as a verbal punch, sometimes said in irony, but no matter which way it is used, every year, we are once more offered the opportunity to pause and reflect on the truth of that saying.  This year, I feel it is even more important that we remember the origin story of Memorial Day and what it can teach us going into the future.

Memorial Day was first commemorated at the end of the Civil War. Former slaves and freemen that had fought with the Union Army in segregated units gathered together to observe an hour of silence for the Union Soldiers that had bravely fought and died to secure their freedom. They felt it was important for them to recognize the sacrifices of those who had fought and died in order to secure the blessings of liberty, protect the ideals inscribed in the Constitution and give them freedom. This early celebration of Memorial Day was later co-opted and folded into the larger fabric of American society, becoming one of several patriotic holidays celebrated in the United States.

The Civil War changed the landscape of American Society.  There was no longer “free” or “slave.”  The 13th Amendment ended slavery and paved the way for what we now call “The Civil Rights Amendments.” Amendments that would seek to secure equality for everyone - Black, White, Male, Female.  Yes, I realize that I am using antiquated terms, but using them honors the intent of the writers: discrimination based on physical and biological characteristics of race and gender would no longer be legally permissible under the highest law of the land. Everyone deserved to live their lives in freedom and as equals, and everyone was to be regarded as equal under the Constitution.  Even though it took nearly a century for those ideals to come to fruition and we are still weeding out inequities and repairing the harm caused by slavery and oppression, the seeds of those ideals were planted at the end of the Civil War, watered and fertilized by the blood of those who gave their lives, and the tears of those they left behind. I was unaware of the origins of Memorial Day until I learned about it during my American History survey course in college. The gradual erasure of the role of freed slaves and freemen soldiers from the origin story of Memorial Day highlights our continued struggle to include stories from minority cultures in our written accounts of US History.   Another aspect that makes Memorial Day especially complicated for me is that so many UU Memorial Day sermons focus on the lives sacrificed in the fight for social justice and equality, while remaining silent on the role of the military and warfare in the pursuit of social justice.

During the Civil War and World War II, Unitarians sided with the Union Army and the Allied Powers.  They spoke out against the injustice of slavery and the threat of authoritarian tyrrany. They felt that there was clearly a “good side” and a “bad side.” In Unitarian history, Memorial Day was heralded as a somber celebration - a time to remember those who served and died to secure the blessings of liberty and make the world a safer place. Later on, the Vietnam war and the violent political turmoil surrounding the civil rights movement changed the UU relationship to holidays and rituals celebrating liberty, freedom, and American patriotism.  We struggle as a denomination to find harmony between our values that celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the honest and free search for truth and meaning, and our democratic values, which denominational leaders felt were co-opted to advance an American political agenda that marginalizes vulnerable populations and cultures. Vietnam created an uncomfortable tension between the democracy and liberty that UUs cherish, and the violence that is sometimes required to achieve those ends.

The mirror of our past reflects the uncomfortable truth that we as a denomination have come up short. While we stood up to oppression and  tyranny during the Civil War and World War II, we turned away and failed to provide honest, difficult leadership during the Cold War when political and military actions created tension between two of our cherished values: the inherent worth and dignity of all humanity and the free and responsible search for meaning through democracy and the democratic process. During the Cold War, securing peace required the willingness to use military force, a tactic euphemistically called “diplomacy through other means.” Our UU belief in the freedom to search for truth and engage in the democratic process collided head on with the equally important liberal religious value of recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of all individuals and the requirement that we treat all human lives with dignity and respect as part of our interconnected web of life.  During the Vietnam War, UU clergy and leadership supported demonstrations and speaking out against the war, while failing to acknowledge that the Constitutional freedoms that gave them the right to assemble and protest were the same liberties that the United States believed it was protecting. The United States military response to what our government perceived as a “real and credible threat” to democracy, not only in the United States, but across the world, changed the UU perception of the military from an ally in creating and shaping social justice to an instrument of oppression and cruelty wielded by an unjust government.  This about-face in perception created an uneasy relationship between our past, our present, and our future that we continue to struggle to resolve.
 
This Memorial Day we again occupy liminal space at the threshold of a changed landscape.  COVID-19 has eroded our liberty and freedoms to an extent not thought possible short of an armed invasion of the United States.  States and counties have issued executive orders that do not provide for Constitutional requirements of due process and judicial review, while at the same time restricting worship and travel - because of the real and credible threat to our individual health and safety. Tensions have flared up between those who feel like the emergency orders are a threat to our Constitutionally protected freedoms,and those who believe that lifting the emergency orders threatens the health and safety of our vulnerable populations. With our never ending 24 hour news cycle, we are inundated with news reports about the deadly effects of COVID-19, while at the same time news reports are increasing about the long-term and sometimes deadly consequences of extended stay at home and social distancing orders. Both are accurate.  Both sides have the advantage of being true.  Lawsuits representing both sides of the argument are being filed. Our individual freedom is tenuous, and both sides feel the abrasive effects of uncertainty. Once again we are challenged as we try to reconcile competing UU values: the dignity and worth of the individual, the individual search for truth and meaning, and the value of the interconnected web of life, when all choices available result in some form of collateral harm.

The American Military is the personification of that tension. Members of our UU community, who also serve in the military, report feeling tension and stress around holidays and rituals honoring our military and memorializing our participation in armed conflicts.  They feel called to serve in the military while at the same time identifying spiritually as UUs; explaining this call to service can often be difficult. They are grateful for the service of UU military chaplains who help them navigate and explore what it means to be UU and serve. They are grateful for UU military chaplains that share this dual identity and  struggle with how to honor both their military identity and their spiritual one.  Memorial Day is especially difficult because while the larger military community comes together to remember, pay respects to our fallen soldiers, and grieve, many UU congregations shy away from addressing the needs of UU service members who seek comfort and support from their faith community, choosing instead to recognize spiritual and political leaders who sacrificed and died while engaging in social justice work and remaining silent on the contributions of the military in pursuit of those same ideals.

Outside the military, UUs - particularly UU clergy - have the difficult challenge of reconciling the uncomfortable truth that our values of freedom and democracy come at a price. As our faith tradition also values and prioritizes the worth and value of all individuals - regardless of political or religious beliefs - the price of life in exchange for freedom feels like too high a price to pay.  For those of us who have been a part of military life, we understand intrinsically that the absence of war does not equal an absence of suffering and death. We have learned that  doing the right thing sometimes can and will result in injury and even death.  We understand that protecting those who are weak and more vulnerable comes with risk, including the risk of suffering and death. The struggle to successfully engage with and reconcile the values of human worth and dignity and the values of freedom and democracy are challenges that all UUs share, especially now as we face an uncertain future.

This Memorial Day offers UUs the opportunity to confront those tensions and acknowledge the price of democracy and freedom. It offers up the opportunity to remember the history of Memorial Day and pause to remember those who gave their lives in order to protect our right to worship together, regardless of whether or not we as a denomination agreed with those decisions.  This Memorial Day gives us the opportunity to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of those who felt called to serve and gave their lives in service.  It also gives us the opportunity to engage in the difficult conversation that our UU values can be at odds with one another and part of our faith journey is to confront those difficulties and find a path that respects both.  As we look toward what the future brings and the struggles between safety and democracy that are on our horizon, I hope that we use this Memorial Day to remember our UU history and pay the highest respect possible to our UU service members who gave their lives: to engage honestly and bravely with struggle between our cherished freedoms that they sacrificed their lives to protect and their belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.