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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

An Open Letter to Congressional Republicans

Posted in Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , , on January 12, 2019| 2 Comments »

Dear Congressional Republicans,

You’re not helping.  And you know it.

The course you are choosing through this shutdown – now the longest in history – is damaging to our country, our democracy, millions of federal workers and contractors, and millions more who depend on them.  And it’s costing the government billions.  All for the ego of Donald J. Trump.

Of course, you could stop this at any time – simply pass a funding bill and override a veto – but choose not to, perhaps for fear of being on the wrong side of a Presidential tweet, or of a primary challenge.  Satisfying your base seems to you the only way to protect your job.

It won’t, though.  The longer this shutdown drags on, the more lasting damage will be done to our country, its citizens, and our economy.  The longer you ignore your constitutional responsibility to act as a check on the President, the more the public will see and name the cowardice at the heart of your inaction.  When you are blamed for a collapsing economy, for suffering farmers, for the inevitable resuts of long term security lapses, you will find yourself discredited, out of office, and out of power.  

And for what?  A border wall?  Very few of you actually believe a wall would do much to slow illegal immigration, or that it will ever be finished if it is ever started.  So why is it?  Why are you dragging your feet?  The Senate voted to fund the government, by unanimous acclamation, before Christmas.  The House was ready to do so.  Why not do so now?

Are you waiting in the hopes that loyalty to President Trump will garner you favors?  One has only to look at the history of his “friends” to recognize that Donald Trump feels no loyalty to anyone but himself.  Are you doing it out of fear?  This situation will not end with a Presidential victory.  Sooner or later the pressures will become too great, the hungry too many, the news too awful, and you will vote to reopen the government, whatever the Presidential consequences.  Are you doing it out of principle?  You know better than most that the cost of this shutdown goes against everything you claim to stand for, and that the longer it goes on, the less secure we all are.

So I implore you – not only for the sakes of federal workers, contractors, their families, all who depend on them, our national lands, our economy, and all of us – but for your own sakes.  Stop the bleeding before it becomes fatal.  End this shutdown.  Vote to fund the government.  Stand up to a bully.  Do what you know is the right thing.

Do it for your country.  Do it for your party.  Do it for yourself.  You might even get reelected.  You’ll certainly be thanked.

Sincerely,
Dan

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Stolen Children

Posted in Music, Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , , , , on January 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »

As of this week, 130 migrant children taken under the cruel practice of child separation have yet to be reunited their families, and despite court orders and stated changes in policy, children continue to be taken from their families, sometimes for no reason beyond a prior immigration violation or the inability of their parents to produce a birth certificate.

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US government photo

Almost 15,000 children remain imprisoned in detention centers and camps.  Almost two dozen have died there. Others have been abused.  All have had their freedom and their childhoods stolen.  Migrant children seeking asylum have been subjected to tear gas.

But for the most part, we’ve stopped hearing about the cruel treatment of migrant children and families.  News stories have become hard to find.  It is as if, having heard it all before, the public has grown accustomed to the reality of state sponsored cruelty to children. We have stopped paying attention.  Instead, we are consumed with the ludicrous proposal to erect and maintain a wall across thousands of miles of rough terrain, and with alarmist falsehoods about terrorists coming over the southern border (they are not).

Policies that persecute migrant children are not new in the United States, but they have been taken to a new level.  We cannot allow ourselves to forget or to turn away from the pain these policies cause, or to imagine the problem is solved simply because we are not hearing about it.

This is what has been in my heart these last few weeks, and as so often happens, the words and melody of a song came to mind.  In this case it was an old song, written by Robert Lowry in 1877:

Where is my boy tonight?
Where is my boy tonight?
My heart o’er flows for I love him, he knows
Where is my boy tonight?

Over and over, those words ran through my head.  I sang them through tears, until at last I found myself adapting the old words into something quite new:

Where is my stolen child tonight
The child that I love so dear
To save his sweet life we came in flight
But they took him away in tears                                         

Chorus:
  Oh, where is my boy tonight?
  Oh where is my boy tonight?
  My heart o’er flows for I love him, he knows
  Oh, where is my boy tonight?

We came here alone, afraid and poor
My child playing at my knee
No face was as bright, no heart so pure
And none was so sweet as he

Oh, could I hold you now, my child
Six months we’ve been torn apart
Oh, could I hear your voice so mild
And heal my poor breaking heart

Bring me my stolen child tonight
Please look for him where you will
And if he should come into your sight
Tell him I love him still

  ¿Donde está mi hijo?
  ¿Donde está mi hijo?
  Se rompe mi corazón, por que lo amo
  ¿Donde está mi hijo?

On the night that President Trump declared a “crisis of the soul” at the border, I sat in my living room and recorded a simple video of this song, as a reminder to myself and others of our real crisis of the soul.

Where are the stolen children tonight?  What will we do to return them to their families? How will we change as a people because of what we have done?  How will we end the cruelty, and make sure that we are never again complicit?

Where is my boy tonight?

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Speak Out and Act Up

Posted in Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , on October 27, 2018| 1 Comment »

On Wednesday of this week a man fueled by hatred attempted to enter a Black church in Louisville, Kentucky, only to find the service had ended and the doors were locked. Instead, he went to a nearby supermarket and began shooting at African Americans.  This week a far right extremist sent bombs through the mail to the critics of his favorite politician. And today, a man walked into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and reportedly shouted “All Jews must die” before opening fire and murdering at least eleven people.

These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a society whose leaders increasingly give comfort to White supremacist ideologies, lending their tacit and sometimes explicit support.

Violent extremists are frightening, but mercifully few.  What is more concerning is the fear and hatred that finds traction among ordinary people who themselves are afraid for their livelihoods, or their ways of life, or their place in a world that is changing. Because extremism depends on on corrupting the intentions of basically good people, it cannot prevail in the end. It is always overcome in the end, not with guns or fists, but with integrity, justice and truth.

It is up to all of us to counter this movement. We are not helpless, but we have to take responsibility. We have to counter the narratives of hatred and fear. We have to speak out and act up. We have to come together to change the leadership of the nation. And yes, we have to vote.

I am grieving today, and I am angry, but I am also determined.

We have power. It is time to use it.

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Turn and Face the World

Posted in Politics, Public Life, Spirit, Uncategorized on September 28, 2018| 1 Comment »

In a service at the Unitarian Congregation of West Chester a few weeks ago, just before Yom Kippur, I spoke about the Jewish spiritual practice of teshuvah – turning in the heart. How do we turn, I asked, when the failings belong to all of society?

Today those failings are more in evidence than ever. Women and others who report sexual assault continue to find themselves ignored, blamed, and belittled by privileged men in power. Children continue to be separated from their parents at the border, even when the children are United States Citizens and the parents legal asylum seekers. Evidence of global climate change and our failure to address it is greater than ever.

In the pain of the news, I find myself coming back to the that service. Here are some of those words.

“There is a natural instinct in the face of overwhelming grief to cover our eyes with our hands. When we’re mourning, we tend to turn away from what is giving us pain and find whatever is most comfortable. A friend, a prayer, a song, a comforting phrase, we find something, anything, to take us away from the agony of the moment. It makes sense that we would do this; it’s part of being human.  We need to do this sometimes. As we grieve, eventually and slowly we allow ourselves to confront our sorrow, and we emerge wistful, perhaps wiser, certainly more empathetic. It is a healing process.

“In the grief of global and societal injustice, we naturally turn away, because it is our human instinct to do so, and hard truths cause us pain. The spiritual practice of turning bids us to uncover our faces, open our eyes, and turn back towards the pain.  

“Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that ‘prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.’ And he put those words to practice, marching in Selma with Dr. King and so many others. When he came home, he said, ‘I felt like I was praying with my feet.’

“I want to ask us to turn and face realities we would not like to admit, to accept the leadership of those who are most directly affected by those realities, and to pray with our feet. I want to ask us to let go of whatever stands in the way of this work, to forgive ourselves and ask forgiveness whether we think we need to or not, to forgive others whether or not they have yet completed their own turning. I want us to look into our hearts, so filled with goodness and love, and remember why we care so much for other people, and this sacred earth.

“Then, we take that love, that goodness, and let it feed our living in the world, as we give ourselves to the work before us.”

Members of the Unitarian Congregation of West Chester vigil in support of survivors of sexual assault.

 

 

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When Is the Right Time, Speaker Ryan?

Posted in Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , , , on February 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Dear Speaker Ryan,

This week, a 19 year old man walked into a high school and murdered 17 people, wounding countless others. In response, you said this is not the time to talk about gun laws.

“This is one of those moments where we just need to step back and count our blessings….  We need to think less about taking sides and fighting each other politically, and just pulling together. This House, and the whole country, stands with the Parkland community.”

I’m not sure what “step back and count our blessings” means in the wake of the grizzly murder of 17 teenagers and teachers.  Perhaps it is meant to stand in for the now discredited “thoughts and prayers” Congressional leaders have offered so many times in the past.

While I understand that special cases make bad law, this is not a special case.  This is normal in the United States of America.  According to the Gun Violence Archive, 30 mass shootings have resulted in 58 deaths and 124 injuries in the first 45 days of 2018 alone.  In that same time, there were 1806 gun deaths and 3126 injuries.  69 of those reported deaths and injuries were young children.  331 were teenagers.

So my question is this.  When is the right time, Speaker Ryan?  How long a pause in the bloodshed is required for Congress to begin addressing its cause?  You speak of mental illness, but every country in the world has mentally ill people; among Western nations only the United States experiences violence on this kind of scale.  Blaming the problem on the mentally ill distracts from the true causes of violence while perpetuating a hurtful and harmful stereotype.

The issue, Speaker Ryan, is easy access to guns.  The issue is a lack of any form of training or licensure to own a deadly weapon, widespread legal ownership of assault weapons, a lack of universal background checks, and above all, a Congress beholden to the National Rifle Association.  (Last year you personally received $171,977 from that lobby, more than $90,000 more than the next highest recipient.)

So I ask again, when is the right moment?  The longest we have gone between mass shootings in 2018 has been three days.  Would that be enough time to “count our blessings?”

If it is not, then I submit that you do not “stand with the Parkland community,” nor any community that has suffered such an attack.  You do not stand with the over 150,000 American students who have been witness to a school shooting.  You do not stand with the vast majority of the American people, who overwhelmingly support universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.

More importantly, you do not stand for life.

How long, Mr. Speaker?  How long must we wait?

In faith,
Rev. Dan Schatz

 

photo by Elvert Barnes

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A Response to Bigotry

Posted in Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , , on July 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

My Dear Friends,

We live in an era of hatred and intolerance directed against those who do not conform to an increasingly archaic set of “norms” – White, cisgender, male, ethnically and economically privileged. This hatred is stoked by those who would elevate their own power at the expense of another human being’s dignity.
Anti-Transgender “bathroom bills” and the incredibly cruel announcement from President Trump (which could potentially start a purge from the military of well over 5000 openly transgender troops currently serving our country) serve no legitimate purpose. They protect nobody, save nothing, accomplish nothing beyond the undermining of our national security, credibility and moral authority. They exist entirely to bolster the status of politicians who view bigotry as a convenient path to power.
It is an old story, and an intolerable one. It is the story of Dixiecrats, the “Southern Strategy,” “Defense of Marriage” acts, anti-immigrant racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, continued legal discrimination against the lgbtq community, and much more; the list stretches far too long. Always the method is the same – find a vulnerable group in society, paint them as less deserving of human rights, and therefore less than human, and use them as objects to create societal division. Always the consequences are the same – violence, discord and despair – and in the extreme, genocide.
To my transgender family, friends and neighbors who are suffering today, I give you my support and my solidarity. You have been victimized, not because of who you are, but because of what you are – an easy target. It is wrong on every level, and I pledge myself to your struggle.
I am far from the only one.  I only hope you know, in this moment of suffering, the love that is yours, the support you have, and the determination with which we will continue on behalf of your dignity, your freedom, and your rights.

Please do not be silent. Tell us what you need, and we will listen. We must listen. At stake is the soul of humanity.

In faith,
Rev. Dan Schatz
and human being
photo by Tim Evanson, used with permission

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“There Are More Waters Rising” Is the Song for Our Times

Posted in Music, Politics, Public Life, tagged , , , , , on June 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Pete Seeger once said about Woody Guthrie’s music, “Any damn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.”

Saro Lynch-Thomason has written a simple song, and it’s genius.

I first heard the young Appalachian folklorist, ballad singer and songwriter last Fall at a Washington, DC area folk music retreat. In a mini-concert which featured a number of traditional and older songs, she ended with one of her own, leading the packed room in harmony.

There are more waters rising,
This I know, this I know,
There are more waters rising,
This I know.
There are more waters rising –
They will find their way to me,
There are more waters rising,
This I know, this I know,
There are more waters rising,
This I know.

As she led the crowd through verses about fires burning and mountains falling, I began to hear echoes of voices past – Jean Ritchie and others whose deeply rooted music documented the devastation brought by mountaintop removal mining, often falsely referred to as “clean coal technology.”

Then the song took a turn.
I will wade through the waters,
This I know, this I know,
I will wade through the waters,
This I know.
I will wade through the waters
When they find their way to me,
I will wade through the waters,
This I know, this I know,
I will wade through the waters,
This I know.

Saro Lynch-Thomason had not written a lament, as I originally thought, or even a warning. Hers is a song of resistance and hope. It stayed with me for a long time, and after the election last Fall, the song began to take on new meaning.

I will walk through the fires
When they find their way to me,
I will walk through the fires,
this I know….

When I finally asked Saro if she could send me a recording of her song, she did one better, creating a video for everyone to share. I thought of this song when I marched through the streets of Philadelphia the day after Inauguration, with my child beside me holding a sign that read: “March today and work everyday for justice, equality and compassion.” I remembered its words when airports filled with demonstrators, and immigration lawyers became the new heroes of the age. I heard its melody as I worked with my Unitarian Universalist congregation to reach out to immigrant communities made vulnerable by the government’s actions. Its echoes came to me as I watched the fires burn at Standing Rock. I sing it again today as we face the very real impacts of climate denial and environmental policies that place profit over responsibility.

We are all walking through fire.

There will be damage, it’s true. Many of us are learning what the people of Appalachia have known for decades – that we can’t stop all the harm done by those who act without regard for the land, the water and the people. It would be easy – too easy – to fall to hopelessness. But there is another lesson here – when the people stand strong, holding on to what is important, we can begin to repair what has been broken. We begin to make a difference simply by letting our voices be heard, and we are only beginning.

I will rebuild the mountains,
This I know, this I know,
I will rebuild the mountains,
This I know.

Saro Lynch-Thomason’s song ends as it begins –

There are more waters rising –
They will find their way to me….

– but somehow, having crossed waters and fires and rebuilt mountains, these words no longer feel like a cry of despair. Instead they are a call for resistance and resilience, an affirmation of what is possible when communities from across a country and a world come together in support of human decency. This we can and will do, although the task will be difficult. It always has been, but we will wade through these waters. We will walk through these fires. We will rebuild these mountains.

There are more waters rising!

This I know.

(This article has also been posted at The Huffington Post.)

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Sing Through the Hard Times. Work for the Good Times to Come.

Posted in Music, Politics, Public Life, Spirit, tagged , , , , on November 22, 2016| 3 Comments »

George Stephens, Lisa Null, Saul Brody, Brendan Phillips, Terry Leonino, Duncan Phillips, Greg Artzner, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer "Singing Through the Hard Times"

George Stephens, Lisa Null, Dan Schatz, Saul Broudy, Brendan Phillips, Duncan Phillips, Magpie (Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner), Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer “Singing Through the Hard Times” in 2010

When I was a very small child and I needed comfort for whatever reason, sometimes my mother would sit up on her bed and take out her guitar. I would sit beside her and she would sing to me. It didn’t really matter what the song was; I sang with her, and we would make music together. It was closeness and connection, a reminder that not everything had to be hard. There was goodness to be found.

Recently many of us have needed that kind of comfort. The rise of open race hatred, misogyny and religious intolerance in the United States and elsewhere is terrifying. For many it has been a wake up call, bringing new clarity to the work we have before us. There are entire communities at risk, and it is up to each and all of us to be allies to these communities and to one another.  There are principles of human rights, human dignity, and respect for the environment which will need defending.

But it can be hard to get started in that work when the weight of it seems so heavy. After all, the usual day to day events of our lives go on – school, work, getting ready for the holidays, and everything else that fills our attention.  When we combine all of these things with the national mood, it becomes easy to get depressed or defeated, or to turn our attention entirely away from the need that seems so much greater than our ability to help.

That’s where the singing comes in. Several years back, when I was producing a CD to honor the folksinger Utah Phillips, I learned a relatively unknown song of his called “Singing Through the Hard Times,” which eventually became the title of our album. “We are singing through the hard times,” he wrote, “working for the good times to come.” These were exactly the kinds of times he was thinking about when he came up with this verse:

And when the war clouds gather, it’s so easy to get angry
And just as hard not to be afraid.
But you know in your own heart, no matter what happens
You just can’t turn your back and walk away.  

Our “singing through the hard times” may take any number of forms; it doesn’t need to be musical. We might share food, do art, or enjoy conversations with people we love. We might come together in congregations, gatherings or holiday celebrations. Whatever it is that we do, it will be important to keep our spirits whole and strengthen our hearts as well as our communities for the work ahead of us.

Then we do the work.  Bringing “the good times” will take the dedicated effort of a great many people, and we know it won’t be easy. It will be up to all of us together to protect those who are unsafe, speak up for those whose voices are taken away, rebuild broken relationships and begin to create new and stronger ones with all kinds of people. That’s our task, and as daunting as it is, others have done this work before, and successfully. Now it is our turn.

So hand in hand together, we help each other carry
The light of peace within us every day
And if we can learn to live it and walk and talk and give it
The world of peace won’t be so far away.

Sing through the hard times. Work for the good times to come.

“Singing Through the Hard Times,” from the Righteous Babe CD, with footage from U. Utah Phillips

 

 

 

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The Work of This Election Begins on November 9

Posted in Politics, Public Life, Spirit, tagged , , , , , , on November 1, 2016| 1 Comment »

Election Day this year has been a long time coming. It’s as late as it can be in November, and this year it feels even later than that.  A great many of us are ready for this to be over.

As a minister serving a congregation, I always feel torn during elections.  There’s a delicate balancing act involved in speaking our values with all the passion that is their due without crossing the line into electioneering.  When we feel passionately about a candidate, and when that passion arises in part from religious conviction, it can be hard to set the work of the campaign apart from the work of the congregation.  I find myself speaking passionately from the pulpit about social justice and encouraging members to vote and help others vote in any way we can, while carefully maintaining the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

But elections like this one are difficult in another, more subtle way.  During especially divisive campaigns, we sometimes find ourselves wondering about our most treasured values.  Candidates may say and do things we find morally reprehensible, and supporters of one side or the other may do some things we consider even worse. Unitarian Universalists like myself affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, but we sometimes find it tough to concede the worth and dignity of candidates we vehemently oppose.  We speak of the right of conscience and of acceptance of one another, but may find it hard to be accepting of family, neighbors and frends who see things very differently than we do.  Other religions face similar dilemmas, perhaps viewing all people as children of a living God, while finding it difficult to acknowledge the divine spirit within those whose words or actions cause harm to others.  Those without any religious affiliation deal with the same issue, as all people do whenever our deeply held values come into tension with one another.  Language and beliefs vary, but the challenge is remarkably constant.

No matter who wins this election, on November 9 we will all have work to do.  Issues of racism, misogyny, homophobia, economic and environmental justice will still need to be addressed, along with many others.  We will have work ahead of us to rebuild the respectful community that has been damaged by the rhetoric of such a harsh campaign, and to create a new and better society that honors diversity.  This, as much as anything else, is the work of my faith and many others.

My prayer and my wish is that we enter this task with compassion and open hands, creating connections and
building bridges among people of every political stripe.  Despite our political differences, we and our neighbors have far more in common than divides us – love for family and friends, simple human compassion and kindness, the realities of human suffering and frailty, the experience of awe at the beauty of Autumn.  May we nurture our connections with every kind of person, so that we truly learn to live the spirit of love, this year and every year.

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Why America Needs More Taco Trucks

Posted in Politics, Public Life, Spirit, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

When conservative activist Marco Gutierrez warned about the consequences of a loss for his side in November – “taco trucks on every corner” – the internet rejoiced. “I’m not seeing a downside here,” any number of people commented. A friend pointed out that panang curry trucks would be nice too, and it would be awfully helpful to have easy access to some good shwarma and tabouli, along with a real New York bagel.

Our conversations about immigration in the United States have tended to center around fear. It is, after all, normal to be afraid of what we don’t know or understand. The problem is that when we hold our debate on these terms – one side expressing anxiety, the other reassuring – we miss the real benefits cultural diversity brings.

As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I live in a world defined by differences. My faith is rooted in the idea that we are stronger when we’re surrounded by people of many backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, abilities, cultures, gender identities and sexual orientations. Each week I preach the value of a community of diversity, in which all of us deepen through our connections with people who don’t see the world as we do, or have different life experiences, or bring different gifts and perspectives. Each week we remind one another that we grow when we interact meaningfully with people who are different from us.

This isn’t just a religious idea. It is the best of what America can be – a country in which we learn from differences, honoring the unique cultures which have come together to make our diverse society. Every culture has value. In my America the cultures of the West Virginia hollers, North Philadelphia neighborhoods and Latino communities of South Texas each form an essential part of a rich whole. In my America we embrace not only the food and the music of every culture, but also the wisdom.

I believe in an America in which we don’t just tolerate differences – we celebrate them.

Yes, America needs more taco trucks. We also need more Asian festivals, more pow-wows, more African American poetry, more old time fiddle music, hip hop and banghra, more mosques and temples and gurdwaras, more Humanist societies, more diverse churches of every stripe. We need more libraries filled with books by every kind of author. We need real community shared with thoughtful neighbors of every political persuasion. We have moved beyond the old idea of a melting pot, in which each of our cultures loses its distinctiveness; instead we are a tapestry, woven together by our connections and conversations. We are better when we are not all the same.

Politics aside, I think the United States is moving in this direction. It is the inevitable product of a world in which communication across cultures has become the norm. That world may be frightening, sometimes – the unfamiliar often is – but if we embrace its promise, there is no end to the wonders and wisdom that await.

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