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Remembering Don Williams
Dad at home
My dad was born in Hollis, OK on December 8, 1928, and died in Canyon, TX on March 18, 2010. The family moved from Oklahoma to a homestead in West Camp, TX when he was a very young child. The first house they had in Texas had two rooms, with no running water or electricity. He told my sister Deana and me wonderful stories about that house and what it was like to grow up there, taking baths in a number 3 washtub with water his mother Bonnie had heated on the stove. He attended school at the West Camp schools for some time, but eventually went to high school at Farwell, which is 9 miles north of West Camp and is the town in which I was raised. That is where he met my mother, and played football with her brothers on the five man football team.
Dad attended Texas Tech University for a while, then joined the Air Force, serving from 1950-1953. He was initially stationed in Fairbanks, AL. He proposed to my mother via mail from there, and his parents drove her from Texas to Alaska to marry him. My mother despised cold weather, so the fact she would travel for weeks with her future in-laws to the northernmost parts of Alaska to be with my dad is a testament of love.
After leaving the Air Force, Dad returned to Farwell to farm. Farming was more than an occupation for Dad, it was a vocation, a place where his great joy met the world's deep need. To say he had a green thumb would be an understatement. He grew lush fields of wheat, corn, maize, and cotton, and at one point was among the largest growers of watermelon in the nation. Every few days he would haul a few watermelons home from the farm in his pickup truck for me to sell for $1 each in the front yard, and I got to keep the money. Farwell is a sleepy little town, so doing the actually selling was kind of boring. Making the signs, setting up the stand, climbing the willow tree in the front yard, and fighting / playing with my sister was where the real action was.
Dad retired from farming in the early 1980s with a worn out back and creaky joints. In 1985, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is fast moving and always fatal. Her mother had died of cancer when she was a girl, and having cancer was one of her greatest fears. She faced the next 18 months with bravery and grace, and died at home with him at her side.
The following year, he married Liz, a close family friend who taught me 7th and 8th grade history. They had 19 good years together, although Liz contended with cancer for more than a decade of their relationship. She was cheerful and brave even in the toughest of situations, and Dad was a devoted caregiver. All told, Dad spent more than 14 years caring for the two women he loved as they faced cancer.
Shortly after Liz died, we realized that Dad was becoming more erratic and forgetful. He had developed vascular dementia. We had a couple of more good years with Dad, but he declined fairly rapidly and died in 2010.
Like many people of his generation, Dad saw amazing changes over the course of his life. He went from living in a tiny house without amenities to the era of cable and the internet. When he was born, antibiotics hadn't been discovered and bacterial illness was often fatal. As a boy, he plowed the ground with a team of mules. By the time he died, tractors had television and GPS to guide them. He was a boy during World War II, saw the booming but fearful America of the 50s, and witnessed the upheaval of the 60s. He and Liz were directly affected by the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s, giving love and support to me and Liz's son Craig in the midst of tremendous challenges. He lived to vote for and see the inauguration of the first black President of the United States.
Through all of these changes and challenges, my Dad had a few sayings that he repeated to Deana and myself, and that he lived by:
- Learn to accept people as they are.
- Remember that God is love.
- Work hard and make whoever has hired you "a good hand."
- Smile and the world smiles with you.
- You're the only son I have and I love you (he said the same thing to Deana about being his daughter.)
Dad taught me that the measure of a man is how generous he is with those in real need, not only financially, but in terms of time, love, and money. He had a wicked sense of humor, and he helped me learn that nothing is unbearable if we can find something to laugh at. He loved his family, and took great delight in and adored his grandchildren.
I was blessed that he was irrationally proud of me, once telling a startled close friend that he was "real proud of my t-cells" after I got a good lab report. Three days before he died, he turned and looked at me and said, "Son, I'm so proud that you met a nice young man like David," a saying that delighted my slightly older husband.
He was salt of the earth, the apple of my eye, and the best dad that anyone could have or hope for. I feel him with me every day and I am grateful for his presence in my life. Happy Birthday Don Williams.
Hypocrisy and Cowardice
Tonight, I attended the Empire State Pride Agenda Fall Dinner, the major fundraiser for the New York organization fighting for LGBT rights. I was dismayed to see US Representative Sean Patrick Maloney invited to speak. When he took the stage, I did something I almost never do. I booed.
I did so in response to his craven and hypocritical political calculations in voting 11 times with the extreme Republicans who shut down our government. This was driven by the fact that he represents a fairly conservative district with a candidate running in 2014 who is sure to get Tea Party money. He had a chance to lead and make the case for what he says he believes in, but instead chose to bow to the worst type of political calculation. He tortures logic and rhetoric to justify siding with the far right, but the truth is that he displayed remarkable cowardice and exhibited a profound lack of leadership. I'm ashamed to have once supported him.
Understanding the Affordable Care Act
There is a lot of confusion about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), largely caused by a campaign of misinformation led by talking heads on the far right of the political spectrum. This has led to an ignorant public, who say they like the Affordable Care Act and its elements when it is presented by its real name and the elements are listed one by one, but react negatively when asked about "Obamacare." A video demonstrating this ignorance would be funny were the situation not so serious. I'm writing this post to explain the act, why it has the mandate that every American have insurance, what the health insurance marketplaces do, and what the ACA will do for each one of us.
First, let's explore the need for a mandate. The mandate states that all Americans must have health care coverage, and specifies that employers with more than 50 full time employees must provide it for their employees. Other Americans must buy it for themselves, and older citizens will continue to be covered by Medicare. There are penalties for not having coverage that increase over the next several years. The aspects of the ACA that people say they like depend on the mandate, because it would not be economically possible for the private insurers (who will continue to provide our health care coverage) to offer the more generous terms without a larger pool of people to cover. It is especially important to have more healthy young people in the pool, as that brings premiums down and reduces risk. The second reason to like the mandate is that it distributes the expense burden more rationally across the system. This is because uninsured people often use the emergency room at local hospitals for medical care. This is among the most expensive of places to deliver care, and when the uninsured cannot pay for the treatment they receive, the expense is absorbed by the institution and passed along to either other paying patients or the taxpayer. Insuring the uninsured will also help them get the care they need in more appropriate settings than the emergency room, and provide continuity of care by helping more people have a primary care physician who knows them. The mandate is central to making our system work better and more fair.
Health insurance marketplaces are exchanges where consumers can shop for health insurance plans that satisfy the requirements of the mandate. The governments (federal or state) running the exchanges are not providing the coverage, but aggregating information about private insurers to allow consumers to shop for policies. Think of what Travelocity or Expedia do for airline tickets and hotels and you get the idea. The original goal was to have each state run its own exchange, but right-wing politicians in 27 states refused to do so, so the federal government is operating their exchanges. Many people are confused that the exchanges are government insurance, and we hear a lot of crazy talk about it being socialized medicine. This is not the case - they don't fundamentally change the variety of models of insurance we have in the US. The marketplaces are simply one-stop shopping exchanges for insurance.
Finally, let's look at the benefits of the ACA to the average citizen. Here are the provisions it contains.
- The ACA eliminates lifetime and annual limits on coverage. Prior to the ACA, if you have a serious disease and reached your lifetime limit, the insurer no longer had to pay. You had to cover expenses yourself until you had exhausted your resources, and then apply for Medicaid to pay for care.
- The ACA requires insurers to cover dependent children until age 26
- The ACA eliminates pre-existing condition exclusions starting in 2014. Prior to the ACA, if you had a chronic disease and bought coverage, your policy could be written to exclude paying for that disease.
- Insurers won't be allowed to charge women or people with medical problems higher rates.
- The ACA limits deductibles in the small group market to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families. Prior to the ACA, plans could have extremely high deductibles, placing a strain on families in the event of a serious illness.
- The ACA requires health plans to report the percentage of premium dollars spent on actually providing care, and to provide rebates to their customers when that figure falls below 80-85 percent.
- Premiums of older people can’t be more than 3 times the cost of those of younger people
- The ACA makes coverage portable
- The ACA limits waiting periods for coverage to start to 90 days. Prior to the ACA, long waiting periods could be in place, meaning you could be paying for insurance that wouldn't be available if you needed it during the waiting period.
- The ACA standardizes the terms explaining the benefits and limits of a plan, which makes it easier to compare options.
The ACA is a step in the right direction for our country. Like any legislation, it isn't perfect. The Republican party would better serve our nation, and their constituents, if they stopped the campaign of misinformation, confusion, and obstruction and started working to help ensure the system works for all Americans.
Betting on Love
Every September, I do the Braking AIDS bicycle ride from Boston to NYC. It is 3 days and almost 300 miles, so it is quite a challenge. Two years ago, the ride lost use of the space in Griswold, CT where they had traditionally set up an oasis. Oases are where riders take breaks over the course of the day. It is very important to have one every 10-18 miles to keep riders nourished and hydrated, and to allow us to use the bathroom. Most oasis sites charge us a fee, and we staff them with our own volunteers - they just provide the space. In serious need of a new space, our ride director approached First Congregational Church of Griswold, which is a congregation in the United Church of Christ tradition. Not only did they say yes to hosting us, but they told our director that they would staff the oasis with church members, and they would not be charging us anything to use it. When we arrived, they had prepared hot soup, homemade pie, and ice cream for us. Their children had made cards for each rider during Sunday school. They had a wooden cross that they asked us all to sign to memorialize the ride. And to top it off, they had a special offering the Sunday before the ride and made a donation to the event. They truly reflected the love that Jesus taught at the heart of the Gospel.
Today, one of their members posted on our Braking AIDS community page on Facebook. Here is what she wrote: "The lives of the riders are not the only lives that change with this ride. The lives of the volunteers from First Congregational Church of Griswold are changed, too. You, the riders and crew, have enriched our faith. You have provided us with more smiles then you could ever know, and you have made us a better 'church family.' We will be praying that God keeps you all safe until we meet for 'soup and pie' next September."
This church was the high point of my ride. It was the most Christ-like encounter I have had in a church, and it didn't involve a formal service. Jesus taught a message of radical love and grace. Those on the margins were his primary audience, and his message was incredibly potent and attractive to those in need of healing. It challenged and enraged those who were enthralled by the prevailing systems of domination and power, and they sought to destroy him and his message. This didn't work. The message was so potent that it took on new life, resonating in ever larger ways. At times, the message has come under duress, but it has always found new expressions and ways to continue to reverberate in the world.
We live in a time when the message of love and grace is under terrible strain. For decades, conservative Christianists have allied with powerful voices on the far right of American politics, distorting Jesus' teachings in order to affirm their own righteousness and condemn those who are different from or disagree with them. The damage has been enormous. Communities like First Congregational Church of Griswold stand as a beacon of hope and truth during these turbulent times. What they do isn't easy, yet I know where I am placing my bet, because love always wins.
Small Step: Don't Buy Water
Addressing the huge challenges facing our world can sometimes feel overwhelming, so I'm starting a new series on Beyond Dogma called "Small Steps." These are suggestions for small ways we can effect change, and my goal is have them appear infrequently enough for us to have time to build new habits. When we collectively adopt these practices, and build up a number of them, the change can be profound.
The first small step is simple. Stop buying drinking water. Here's a very entertaining eight minute video that explains why this matters. Instead, buy a stainless steel reusable water bottle. Over time, you'll save a significant amount of money, and ease the burden on our planet as well.
This simple practice can have profound consequences, as bottled water is incredibly polluting. On the production end, creating plastic bottles is an energy intensive petroleum-based process. On the disposal side, plastic is incredibly problematic, with plastic being a major component of the great pacific garbage patch, and mounds of "recycled" plastic being dumped into the developing world.
Stay tuned for more small steps that can make a big difference.
Tuesday Haiku: Ambient News
Public space TVs
Continual bombardment
Force feeding me news
Pacem in Terris
Fifty years ago, on April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII issued the encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). The situation in the world and for the Pope was serious: the Berlin Wall had been erected two years earlier, the Cuban missile crisis had taken place six months earlier, and John XXIII had been diagnosed with stomach cancer nearly seven months earlier. The disease would take his life within two months of the promulgation of Pacem in Terris.
Radical in its vision of the possibility of establishing peace on earth, and aware of the awesome forces at work that threatened that possibility, Pacem in Terris was the first encyclical that the Pope addressed not only to the Catholic faithful, but also to "all men of good will."
The encyclical is long and carefully written, but straightforward in its message. The overarching theme is that peace on earth can only be achieve through the observation of the divinely established order among people, between people and the state, and among states themselves. At the core of this order are human rights, including the right to live, the right to bodily integrity, and the right to proper development of life. These are the foundational rights given to us in the gift of life. Each right conferred to us in the gift of life imposes a duty on us as well. The right to live implies a duty to preserve our own life and the lives of others, the right to bodily integrity implies a duty to care for our bodily state and not to violate other's physical integrity, and the right to proper development of life implies a duty to develop and use our gifts fully and to respect and recognize the gifts of others.
In the wake of several recent shootings, our leaders are struggling with what are largely common sense measures for addressing gun violence. These are supported by a significant majority of the American public, but our leaders are reluctant to act for fear of the gun lobby. While we debate ways to stem the tragic tide of senseless death, let us remember that something much more fundamental than the right to bear arms is at stake. People have an inherent right to live, to bodily integrity, and to develop themselves fully. All of these have been repeatedly and brutally violated in the many shootings that have taken place in the past few months. Please join me in doing whatever you can to hold our elected officials accountable for protecting these most sacred of rights.
Speaking about God
In his novel on the life of Saint Francis, Nikos Kazantzakis recounts the story of Francis coming upon an almond tree in midwinter. He says to the tree, "Sister, speak to me about God," and the almond tree bursts into blossom. This blooming, the bringing forth of new life within a bleak and barren winter landscape, is a metaphor that illustrates what all right speech about God does. First, it recognizes the relatedness of all creation. Saint Francis addresses the almond tree as his sister. Second, it calls forth life in those who hear it, even in the midst of bleak and difficult situations. Francis' invitation to the tree causes it to bloom. And the tree's answer to Francis is beautiful and inspiring. Notice that the great saint does not preach to the tree, telling it what he thinks about God. He invites the tree to share its understanding of God, and it does so in a way perfectly suited to its nature.
As wonderful as this example is, speaking about God is dangerous business. A lot is said about, and for, God by people of all political and religious persuasions, and much of what is said creates confusion and suffering. It is easy to use language about God as a kind of bludgeon, a tool to dominate those who differ from us in their views. This leads to two terrible outcomes. First, both those who speak and those who are attacked with aggressive "God language" are spiritually damaged, and any possibility of relationship between them becomes extraordinarily challenging. Second, we hamstring our ability to address profound challenges where spirituality could be helpful. Once we make God into an object of domination (a form of idolatry), we can no longer speak about the Divine in times of extraordinary need without facing cognitive dissonance and the risk of tripping into hypocrisy.
In Zen, we are told not to confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon. Language and concepts are often barriers to the realization of enlightenment, which is a direct encounter with reality itself. This encounter occurs not through study or discussion, but through practicing awareness of the present moment. The Reality of God is encountered the same way, through the practice of deep contemplation where we find the love and compassion that then infuses the reality of our relationships. At that point, we are blossoming with life for those with whom we are connected, and we invite the same from them.
photo credit: pizzodisevo, slowly i will recover via photopin cc
Goodness vs. Purity
How we understand virtue determines how we see and treat each other. Goodness and purity are distinct but related ways to understand virtue. Which one we emphasize deeply affects our view of others and of moral behavior.
When we talk about a good person, we are usually referring to someone who demonstrates properties such as kindness, fairness, love, honesty, and so on. When we talk about someone being pure, we usually mean freedom from vice, sexual immorality, and the like. A view of someone as good typically depends on how they treat others, while a view of someone as pure depends on how they maintain their own emotional, psychological, and physical state. There is a deep connection between the two, and when it is lost, the meaning of virtue is distorted.
I believe that our society currently places a disproportionate emphasis on purity as the basis for a virtuous life. When this happens, the results are always tragic. The quest to remain pure causes us to move away from one another, shunning those on the margins and most in need. Having some success in our quest to remain pure leads to a toxic cycle. Feeling more pure feeds our ego, and simultaneously leads to seeing an increasing swath of our sisters and brothers as impure. The result is disconnection, desolation, and despair.
Understanding virtue from the perspective of goodness works the other way. Those on the margins and most in need are not impediments to virtue, but vital to its practice. The way we treat them is part of what makes us good. Again, some success in our quest leads to a cycle, but this one is positive and contagious. When we treat others well, they begin to feel loved, and to love. The result is connection, community, and courage.
Yet ultimately, goodness and purity are neither separate nor strangers. The connection between purity and goodness is found in the heart. A pure heart is free of delusion, aggression, and greed. The pure heart sees situations with clarity, and responds with openness and generosity.
Understanding this connection, we can see that moral virtue consists of two things: (1) cultivating purity of heart (which I will discuss in a future post) and (2) taking action in the world from a connection with our pure heart. These two practices are the basis for the radical change we require, and they lead to naturally taking deep care of ourselves and providing care and comfort to a world in need.
Photo by Wade M. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License