A curtain call

One of the true accomplishments of the Trump administration was its effort to ensure a free and fair election in 2020, led by Chris Krebs. In 2017, at age 40, he became Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection. In 2018, he became Under Secretary of Homeland Security for the National Protection and Programs Directorate and a few months later, the first Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Krebs helped state and local election officials protect election integrity by (among other things) securing paper ballots that could verify results in the event of recounts. No more hanging chads, a “nightmare that goes on haunting” after the 2000 Florida debacle. Like an ironic, dystopian novel, the Trump administration’s good work, led by Krebs, countered his narrative that the election was “stolen.” On November 17, 2020, Trump fired Krebs for telling the truth.

It’s sad that the Big Lie will be Trump’s enduring legacy. It’s sadder that obeisance to this false narrative is now a litmus test of loyalty to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The saddest part is that a significant percentage of our country accepts the lie and no longer supports democracy. In the midst of this mess, a Chris Krebs curtain call is appropriate. He is now Chief Intelligence and Public Policy Officer at SentinelOne, a fast-growing cybersecurity company.

From “SentinelOne to acquire cybersecurity consulting firm Krebs Stamos Group,” by Jonathan Greig, The Record, November 9, 2023.

Georgia on my mind

In Myers-Briggs language, I’m uber intuitive and de minimis sensing. As 2024 approached, my intuition was ramped-up with a consciousness that 2024 would be very consequential. For me, and for many friends and loved ones, two events loomed large. The first event was the United Methodist General Conference meeting in Charlotte on April 23-May 3. The second event would have a more global impact–the November 5 US elections. I anticipated 2024 with more hope than fear, but just barely.

Somewhere in my deepest self, I believed this General Conference would be different because many delegates who opposed greater inclusiveness had disaffiliated. That proved to be correct, but I was not prepared for the Conference’s swift, thorough and decisive votes to remove one’s sexual orientation as matter of scrutiny for ordination eligibility.

It took decades for Methodists to decide in 1956 (by a vote of 389-297) that women would have full ordination rights. That 56.7% majority came after many decades of effort, personified by Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) a Methodist professor of theology. Much has changed. My congregation’s senior pastor is female, as is my presiding bishop and my newly appointed district superintendent.

Georgia Harkness is on my mind. So is the State of Georgia, which on January 5, 2021 elected a Black senator and a Jewish senator, effecting a peaceful transfer of power in the US Senate. That should have been the big story of the news cycle on January 6, 2021. Six months away from the November elections, it helps me to have both Georgias on my mind.

The struggle between hope and fear takes many forms. Regressive, fearful actions abound. Heather Cox Richardson’s May 6 Substack blog post at Letters from an American provides the historical context for current anti-immigration, anti-Chinese sentiments among us.

Grace wins, eventually

Our journey has many obstacles, including destructive climate change, widespread injustice and the proliferation of violence. They’re ours. We own ’em. I once naively thought we had evolved beyond the dictatorship phase of history. I underestimate our forgetfulness and our capacity for wrong choices.

Still, I believe grace (love-based reconciliation) ultimately wins. I’m not singing Que Sera Sera and I don’t see divine control over the granular details of every life. But, I believe we have agency, or free will, and–imperfect as we are–we can be stewards of a gracious Providence.

Yesterday, after celebrating our denomination’s removal of some restrictive language that had been inserted in our Book of Discipline in 1972 and 1984 (described in Friday’s post), I read the article below about Pope Francis and his gracious, reconciling relationship with some of society’s outcasts.

It’s encouraging to see glimpses of healing reconciliation, reminding us that grace wins, eventually.

From “How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers,” by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli, The Washington Post, May 5, 2024

40 years in the wilderness

In the big scheme of things, given the 2000+ year history of Christianity and the 200+ year history of its Methodist variations, debate about homosexuality is a very recent phenomenon. However, it has been a major reality of my lifetime (which began in 1950) and my clergy years (which began in 1970). I was a college student finishing my second year of parish ministry when the 1972 General Conference approved restrictive language about homosexuality. The New York Times reported: After heated debate, the general conference of the United Methodist Church declared today that homosexual had “sacred worth” but that homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

I attended the 1984 General Conference as one of ten monitors representing the Commission on the Status and Role of Women, networking with other progressive groups. A New York Times article, “Methodists Bar Homosexuals from Ministry” began with: The General Conference of the United Methodist Church passed legislation today that rules out the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals. The article’s third paragraph focused on what some participants called the “seven last words”:

The homosexuality issue was addressed when the delegates added a phrase to the Book of Discipline, which governs the church, that calls for ”fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” as a qualification for ordination to the ministry.

This week, in 2024, the General Conference removed these relatively recent restrictions to the Book of Discipline, ending my tribe’s 40 years in the “wilderness.” The Associated Press noted: This change doesn’t mandate or even explicity affirm LGBTQ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them.

From “United Methodists repeal longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy,” by Peter Smith, Associated Press, May 1, 2024

R-E-V-E-N-G-E

In 1940, a paper by Harvard senior John Kennedy was published as Why England Slept. I thought of JFK’s sobering title when our son Rob forwarded a Time article, “If He Wins,” by Eric Cortellessa, who interviewed the former and would-be president and some of his close collaborators.

Donald Trump’s Republican Party–win or lose–will inflict great damage on America in 2024. As I read Cortrellessa’s description of Trump’s intentions, I began humming a new version of Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT, substituting the main objective of a second Trump term: REVENGE.

Trump’s litmus test for appointees will be whether they affirm Trump’s lie that he won in 2020:

Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration. 

Beyond ideology

After several months at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and a swing for some hiking through Tazmania, our son Cully stopped to visit on his way home to Maine. Tazmania helped him re-orient to the sights and scents of Fall. An occasional re-orientation helps us move beyond ideology.

William Barr isn’t there yet. When Kaitlan Collins asked why he will vote for Donald Trump, Barr said, “I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”

Justice Samuel Alito seems enamored with making sweeping ideological policy rather than focusing on the specific case before the court, opining that the immunity case can be “one for the ages.”

Our son Rob sent this YouTube link to a poignant 30-second political ad reflecting the impact of recent ideologically-driven state legislation regarding reproduction.

Dartmouth College’s approach to the conflict between Hamas and Israel was the “Last Minute” segment on last night’s Sixty Minutes. Bill Whitaker concluded the segment with, “American education might benefit from a few more Dartmouths.”

From “College campus chaos continues amid anti-war protests,” CBS Sixty Minutes, April 28, 2024

Who are your mentors?

Our son Rob spends most of his available energy doing medical research. He linked me to the best article on any subject that I’ve read in a long time. A post from Everything Is An Emergency by blogger Bess Stillman, “Debugging the Doctor Brain” is good reading if you’ve been (or might be) in an Emergency Room. It’s relevant to any vocation or avocation. Here’s an excerpt:

Do emergency medicine for 80 hours a week for three to four years —the length of an ER residency—and a resident doctor will have spent around 10,000 hours on direct patient care. It’s during those encounters that doctors are (supposed to be) guided towards developing and deepening the fundamental mental models that run in their cognitive background while evaluating each new patient.

Dan Luu’s Why don’t schools teach debugging got Stillman “thinking about the way science and medical education universally teaches the fundamentals: badly.” Stillman wrote, “In medicine, we often mistake the speed of initial understanding with a students’ capacity for mastery.” I believe this is true in every significant human endeavor. Stillman’s post will connect with your life’s experience.

Stillman reminded me of my student pastor days. Years 1-3 were my last three undergraduate years. Years 4-6 were my three seminary years. Stillman helped me see my student pastor time as a “theological residency,” with older clergy colleagues and gracious laity complementing my faculty and fellow students. They were my mentors. Who are your mentors?

From Massachusetts General Research Institute

Among the urgent

Tyranny of the Urgent was a 1967 InterVarsity Press booklet by Charles Hummel. Among the urgent issues before us in 2024, the sad embrace of religious nationalism by evangelical Christianity helps me understand a variety of related issues. Diana Butler Bass helps me understand the insidious temptations of religious nationalism and its impact behind many of today’s headlines.

Bass is a long-time observer of the influence of right-wing politicians over evangelical Christianity. She has a strong presence on YouTube. She’s written eleven books. Her posts from The Cottage are available at Substack. A January 25, 2024 post replies to: “I don’t understand how Christians, especially evangelicals, can support Donald Trump. I don’t understand any of this.”

From her introduction to The Cottage:

… I am a Christian (even though that label is more than a bit awkward these days) and I write from that perspective, with a generous heart toward wisdom wherever it is found. The “creed” that guides me most closely aligns with these 1,000 year old words from the mystical poet Ibn Arabi:

There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
An abbey for monks.
A table for the Torah,
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That shall be the path of my faith.

Or, in the simple words of Jesus: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Coffee with Diana

Technology helps me adapt an ancient faith rhythm–an early focus for the day, which I consider prayer, a consciousness that seeks to embrace all reality within the realm of self-transcending grace.

A cup of coffee accompanies Substack emails of the day, sent overnight from several trusted sources: Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, and Joyce Vance. Then follows a daily meditation (also emailed overnight) from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.

Yesterday, a second cup of coffee was accompanied by a Diana Butler Bass newsletter (which comes twice weekly via Substack email). Her passion is the history of religion and she always moves me deeper into a realm of consciousness that for me is a realm of prayer.

Bass knows evangelical Christianity’s foray into religious nationalism. (More about her on Friday.) Yesterday, Bass covered an evangelical battle among Congressional Republicans.

From “The Great Divorce? Evangelical Style,” in The Cottage, a newsletter via Substack by Diana Butler Bass, April 23, 2024.

54 years

Earth Day began 54 years ago in 1970. Heather Cox Richardson captures its historical context in her “Letters from an American” post for today, which notes the bi-partisan beginning of the environmental movement, facilitated by President Richard M. Nixon:

In February 1970, President Nixon sent to Congress a special message “on environmental quality.” “[W]e…have too casually and too long abused our natural environment,” he wrote. “The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.”

Richardson closed her post with a quote from President Joe Biden, who encouraged “all Americans to reflect on the need to protect our precious planet; to heed the call to combat our climate and biodiversity crises while growing the economy; and to keep working for a healthier, safer, more equitable future for all.”

Happy Earth Day 2024.

From “10 Surprising Facts About Earth Day,” by Solcyré Burga and Simmons Shah, Time, April 21, 2024