Urban Dictionary: A death cult is a religion that has a focus on either all of their members, or everyone who isn’t a member, dying in some sort of religiously significant way.

Not for the first time, I heard a Trump administration official recently refer to Iran—and specifically to Iran’s leaders—as a death cult.  The most recent comments came after the killing of high-ranking Iranian leaders whose deaths might be considered by some followers of Shi’ism as a form of glorified martyrdom.

But beyond martyrdom, these US officials were referring to Iran this way because of Iran’s pursuit (according to them) of nuclear weapons, which, once obtained, would immediately lead to their use and the annihilation of entire nations (notably Israel and the United States).

The combination of an (alleged) quest to obtain weapons of mass destruction and adherence to Shia Islam is proof of a desire to not only experience a meritorious death, but also to wreak death and destruction on the entire world. They are proof that Iran is a death cult. 

I won’t dwell on the simplistic understanding of Shi’ism this characterization demonstrates.  I will also not focus on the way that this administration treats Iran as a nation and people unlike any other on the planet.  (They are, seemingly, a people, unlike others, who should never seek hegemony in their region or arm themselves as a deterrent against others in that region that have weapons of mass destruction.) 

Essentially, if Iran wants a nuke, it is because Iranians are bent on destruction. End of discussion. 

I will not dwell on that; rather, I will reflect on what it was like growing up in a death cult and living in one today. And by using the word “cult,” I explicitly introduce the idea that we are dealing with a religion. A cult is a religious sect or system of belief—often extreme.  A death cult, as we have seen, is extreme in its attraction to death.

Like all religions, a death cult has its liturgies.  Liturgies are “customary public rituals of worship performed by a religious group” (according to Wikipedia).  James K. A. Smith (Desiring the Kingdom, 2009) defines a liturgy as a “formative practice.”  To Smith, our cultural liturgies form us to be certain kinds of people.  Smith notes: “(E)very liturgy constitutes a pedagogy that teaches us, in all sorts of precognitive ways, to be a certain kind of person.”

Let’s examine a few of our liturgies—the practices that form us.  

The background noise of my life has been war.  I cannot remember a time when my country was not engaged in war—and wars by other names.  When we weren’t waging them directly (Viet Nam, Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) we were supporting them (Horn of Africa, Angola, Nicaragua and other places in Central America, Afghanistan (USSR war), Yugoslavia, and myriad other locales where the US supported insurgents, “freedom fighters”, or others in the struggle against global communism or global “terror.”

Support for the Pentagon budget is one of the last truly bipartisan efforts in the United States. Military spending has sunk deep roots in the soil of our land. 

The US budget is challenging to decipher because it comprises mandatory (legislatively required) and discretionary expenditures.  Whatever the case, the US military budget stands at approximately $1 trillion per year.  It consumes about half of the US’s “discretionary” budget. 

These expenditures are not audited, there is little accountability for their use, and hard debates about the need for this or that piece of military hardware are perhaps a once-a-generation activity. Closing a military base represents a major inflection point in history. 

If, as has been said, budgets are moral documents—documents that reveal our priorities and values, then it is pretty clear what we value. 

But budgets are not liturgies. To understand our liturgies, we must examine other, more mundane and quotidian practices that form us to be certain kinds of people. 

We are a nation that brings the military, and the reminder of the destructive power of our warmaking capacity, into all aspects of our lives.  A sporting event of any consequence must include a fighter jet flyover, and dead soldiers returning from abroad are met with a solemn quasi-religious homecoming offered to honor their sacrifice. We love having our heartstrings tugged by the surprise reunification of a soldier with his/her family, captured on camera. We treat our veterans with reverence (while using them as political pawns). There is no group more routinely used to manipulate public opinion than a veteran of a foreign war. 

Maybe I should pause to talk about martyrdom and the liturgies associated with soldier death. 

We don’t call our fallen soldiers martyrs.  That is a religious term that (still) cannot gain purchase in our popular imagination.  Still.

Do we not venerate them?  Do we not speak of “ultimate sacrifices” or “dying for freedom?”  Is that not martyrdom-like language?  When a Pat Tillman dies, do we not revere him (until we find out he was killed by friendly fire)? We have our martyrs, and their names are engraved on black walls and myriad stone emplacements in public parks around our nation. 

In the flyovers, the solemn reception of the dead, the veneration of the fallen, and the ritual visit to memorials which are ubiquitous across our land, we engage in practices that form us to accept the death and destruction of war and to value the destructive power of our weapons.  They form us to stand in awe of destruction and to value a certain kind of sacrifice over all others. 

They form us to believe in our own God-given destiny to stand astride a planet and dictate the terms of peace. The teach us to look past double standards and celebrate our uniqueness. 

Double standards.  

They are terrorists; we are liberators.

They are bloodthirsty; we do what is necessary.

They are bent on destruction; we build nations.

They are a death cult; we are (obviously) pro-life (in the long run at least).

Except no…

I remember General Schwartzkopf providing witty commentary during the early days of the Gulf War (that almost quaint mini-war launched by George H.W. Bush in 1991), a made-for-primetime engagement that showed off our military might in graphic terms. 

While a video showed the trajectory of a missile toward a bridge, across which a delivery truck traversed, he joked about how that guy had just escaped destruction. 

That guy was a human being, presumably with a family, just trying to make a living.  

But the commentators hosting the revered general laughed.  Lucky, he made it.

That’s when I knew. We are being desensitized to death and destruction. It was “funny” now, and we could deliver the comedy of destruction in primetime on CNN.  

(During the mop-up campaign of that same war, I remember when news shows filmed Iraqis surrendering to US troops. Their fear, their decrepit state… on full display.  They were living in holes in the ground.  I remember that I wept—that these men had been reduced by us and by them to this state was so profoundly dehumanizing that I could barely stand to watch.)

That experience brought war and its glory into our living rooms, and we marveled at the utter destruction that our military could bring to distant parts of the world. Whether we viewed it with pride or with horror, it was a profoundly religious experience. The annihilation we witnessed was awe-inspiring.  We were like god. And we all engaged in the liturgy of the military-entertainment complex (as Smith calls it).

That war was the first time we saw, in real time, the destructive nature of our armaments.  In previous wars, there were newsreels and newscasts with recorded images, but seeing that destructive capacity live was new.  It introduced us to the lingo of war, and we no longer had to leave the destructive and death-dealing nature of our weapons to our imaginations; we could see them in full color.

This is when I first remember hearing about “collateral damage;” a quaint way of saying innocent people had been killed by weapons designed to destroy and kill. Despite the claims of amazing precision (remember the truck and the bridge), it became increasingly clear—visible to our own eyes—that death was the outcome of our investments. 

And while they tried to convince us that modern warfare was respectful of innocent life because of our ability to knock out the enemy’s weapons of war, we saw the outcome of war for what it was—the creation of refugees and internally-displaced people, vulnerable to exploitation and violence; the loss of industrial and agricultural bases that promoted health; and the general disruption of normal human activities like education and vaccination programs. All of these things combined to increase mortality.  Even sanitized war was/is ultimately about death.

And because we have been formed to be certain kinds of people, we stand back and watch the destruction in the current war, lacking a coherent response to the nation we have become. 

Even if we oppose the war, we cannot extract ourselves from the death we are uniquely qualified to bring.  We cannot find a way out of the ritual expense of ever-greater sums to ensure that we remain capable of “defending” ourselves. 

We don’t call any of it into question in a fundamental way. The bipartisan funding of the war machine will continue.

The apocalyptic^[1] administration that has led us to this current war has, true to form, told us the truth of who we are.  Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, promising mass destruction, and warning of the annihilation of an entire civilization.  It, at least, has told us the truth about this is really all about—who we really are, what kind of people we have been formed to be.

We are a death cult and have been one for quite some time.  

From Sherman’s march, to the firebombing of Hamburg, to the inevitable actions far above Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the Napalm of Vietnam and the My Lais, and the death road out of Kuwait, to Abu Ghraib… we have shown the world the kind of people we were formed to be. 

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^[1] Apocalyptic in its literal sense: revelatory—revealing that which was hidden.

I don’t talk about it very much.  Mostly because it is, by now, ancient history.  Also, because not many people want to understand why I would do such a thing.  And, it turns out to be a great conversation stopper (lots of umm-hmm and feet shuffling after it is revealed).  So I don’t bring it up much. But since the war has, at long last, come, I thought I would reflect on some things I learned during that time.  Not because I expect that my reflection will change the course of things, but simply so I can go on record describing how I think war with Iran is a disaster–and so unnecessary.

Many people (though by no means all) agree that trying to follow the teaching of Jesus as it relates to “love of enemy” is a pretty noble thing… At least in theory.  When it comes to actually putting it into practice with a real enemy–a flesh-and-blood one as opposed to a theoretical one–I have learned that most people think it is just plain crazy.  Especially if that enemy is the president (if not the true leader) of a nation described by some as a “death cult.”  But I want to be really clear that I did what I did because I was aspiring to follow the teachings of the Nazarene. Back then, I might have called myself a Christian. No longer. But then, as now, I take the teachings of the man as the source of a normative social ethic that I try to follow (often poorly).

In any case, when I got the phone call from the Iranian Ambassador to the UN (there is no such Ambassador to the US, of course), I knew this was going to be an experience that would test some pretty fundamental things about my true commitments (and those of the organization with which I worked).  I was the Executive Director of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) — the relief, development, and peacebuilding arm of the Mennonite Church in North America (Google “Mennonite” to learn more about who these people are).  I won’t go into all the reasons why the Ambassador called me, but, in brief, it was because the Mennonites had helped out the Iranian people after a major earthquake in Iran in 2003.  That help turned into a long-term relationship between Mennonites (Mennos from here on out), the Iranian Red Crescent and some notable (and powerful) Islamic clerics.

The Mennos were honest partners, good interlocutors and willing to discuss all manner of issues related to faith and practice with inquisitive Iranian theological students.  One of these had come to the US to study at a Menno institution in VA and had found the experience transformative in many ways.  After his return home this man had risen up through the ranks of the Iranian foreign service but had maintained ties with his Menno friends.

Then Mahmoud Ahmedinijad was elected president and decided to attend the UN General Assembly.  This was 2006.  Though I had not fully recognized it then, my days with MCC were almost over.  I was a lousy leader and was on my way to resigning once that finally hit home (a story for another day, perhaps).  Still, I was the big boss, and so I got the call with the following request: Would the Mennonites be willing to organize and host a meeting of American religious leaders with the President? The “student” was in a high enough position to have recommended this, and his recommendation had been accepted.

In the event, I told the Ambassador that I would need to discuss it with my staff but that we would be in touch soon.  Thus began an extended series of discussions, meetings, phone calls and periods of reflection.  Through it all my conviction grew that we needed to try to meet with this man and that we needed to show hospitality in doing so.  I had worked for many years in Muslim lands and had been fundamentally transformed by what I had experienced in terms of the hospitality that had been extended to me (again, some stories for another day).  I knew that Americans were generally pretty unaware of what showing hospitality entails and rarely practiced it.  So, as the weeks went by this idea remained clear in my mind: “we must show this man proper hospitality.”

Beyond that, nothing was coming together at all.  Though my staff finally agreed that we could host a meeting (they were a pretty risk-averse group), and, though the MCC Board also agreed to move ahead, we could not find any church of any size in New York who would be willing to host the meeting.  It is important to keep in mind that the President was not permitted to travel outside New York City (I think he was limited to a 15 mile radius around the UN).

In the end, we decided to rent a room in a hotel not far from the UN and the Quakers (the Friends Service Committee to be exact) offered to host it with us. Many other denominations expressed “an interest” in attending, but all feared the repercussions, so it was left to a couple of small “peace churches” to put this thing on.

We decided that we would welcome the President and then ask him some questions about his and his followers’ statements about Israel and the US (death to both, was a common chant from his folks). Slowly, some other Christian groups came on board to participate, but they wanted to avoid talking to the man, and many were on the phone at the last minute getting clearance to attend. The politics were comical–we were just going to sit with the President for about an hour and discuss how our faith should inform how we acted in the world. Why was that hard?

It was a strange and incongruous gathering. We represented no one but ourselves, while the President represented (ostensibly) an entire nation. We had no power, no sanction, no authority. And so we offered what we had: an open hand and open heart, and the exchange of ideas, peppered with hard questions about violent language and murderous intent. Mind you, we knew who we were: citizens of a nation with the most destructive military the world had ever seen. We acknowledged that.

The President was not OUR enemy, but he and his country were clearly the enemy of ours.

I remember feeling like “What am I doing here? What does this even mean? What is the point? We are no one. This changes nothing.”

And maybe it didn’t.

Ahmedinijad had wanted a “dialogue of civilizations.” Around the time of our meeting, his predecessor, Mohammad Khatemi, had delivered a profound and compelling speech to a packed house at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I attended that event and was stunned by the depth of thought and articulation of the principles that could foster dialogue between the US and Iran. Indeed, all the news articles following Khatemi’s speech highlighted the “dialogue” aspect of his speech. I will never forget that night. Ahmedinijad wanted, I guess, to practice that dialogue, but he was no Khatemi. Whereas Khatemi was an intellectual, Ahmedinijad was a bare-knuckled politician. He was holding the meeting with us to show his partisans back home that he had the capacity to do what Khatemi could only talk about.

We knew we were being played for an Iranian audience and Iranian politics. Though we were accused of it, we were not naive. We went in with our eyes open.

Our only commitment was to try to live out our understanding of the radical nature of peacebuilding. We were prepared to take the long view (or, as Paul Farmer famously said, “To live the long defeat”).

In the end, all I can really say about the event and the aftermath are the following:

1. We welcomed him. We offered a venue and a space to say, “You are human, we are human.” There was nothing more profound than that: sitting with an “enemy” to witness to our commitment to peace.
2. We upset a lot of people. In the weeks and months afterward, I crossed the country to defend what we had done and answer the angry questions of people who could not understand why we would do that. I answered as best I could, but convinced very few of the meeting’s value.
3. We met political leaders in DC. They were stunned that we had done it… And begged us for details of the meeting. We answered their questions simply and asked them to commit to not waging war on Iran (it was on the table at that time).

I have no illusions. The meeting was not even an apostrophe in the long history of US/Iranian relations (which, keep in mind, begain in the 1950s, NOT the 1970s).

What I learned before and after is that looking at the people of Iran was/is like looking in the mirror. They are human. Their leaders fail them. They want to raise their children in peace and live their lives in security. They are us. That is what I learned.

Meeting with the President was like meeting with any politician–a lot of games, posturing, and playing for the camera, and not much else.

Would I do it again? Yes. Without hesitation.

I have come to believe that the change we want comes through the daily acts of faithfulness to what we believe. I know that change is never in the shock and awe, in the posturing that finds its way onto social media, or in the proclamations of the “powerful.” Change comes from showing love towards others, from practicing compassion in the face of hostility, and from forgiving (ourselves and others). I am committed to that, but I need to take a VERY long view to live day to day.

So, now we are at war with Iran.

And, yes, I am devastated. We know this will end badly, and the people who will be hurt the most are those who merely want to live in peace. What I saw in the eyes of the President was a people. A people so like us that it took my breath away to consider that leaders of my nation might seek to destroy them.

I wish I could be with them in their hour of devastation–to weep with them, to mourn with them–for what we have done, for what they have experienced. I wish I could welcome them in the same way I welcomed the President, and we could reason together in a dialogue of peace.

While the simple definition of “epithet” is a “name” or “moniker,” the connotation is clearly negative, as in “hurling epithets.” An epithet is name-shaming—a designation meant to demean.  It is a rhetorical punch, meant to land with force and effect.

Growing up “born again,” of which I have written before here, here, here, and here, there was an entire list of epithets that were rehearsed on a regular basis at home, in churches, on Christian radio, and in the religious schools that still dot the land.

They were mainly employed as a warning—a warning about certain people, people with ideas or actions that were wrong, dangerous, and possibly demonic.  When I say “rehearsed,” I mean just that. In sermons preached in local churches, large assembly halls, on the radio, and on TV (in the later years), you could almost predict when they would come out as the “preachers” worked themselves up to a frenzy of anger and hate.

At home, they were as regular as the evening news—when they were most frequently employed.  And at the Bible College, where I spent four years, they were given more refined formulations—more intellectual renderings.  But they were still meant to be hostile, and in all cases they were used against people who were (God’s grace notwithstanding) pretty much beyond redemption. 

My purpose here is not to sort through all of them.  In recent reflections, I have only gone back to the most prominent ones, the ones that stood the test of time and evolved even as the targets changed.

My purpose here IS to examine how these epithets, in current times, most aptly describe, not the people I was taught to fear (hate), but rather the people most beloved by the kind of folks who were my teachers.  

I am not going to offer exhaustive proof.  I am merely going to hold up the most public aspects of these people to illustrate how the epithets of my youth have evolved to describe those in power today.

And the lesson—the conclusion, really—is simple.  The epithets that were hurled (with abandon) in my youth were tossed about by men who were envious of the targets of their attempted humiliation.  Let me say it in the current vernacular—every accusation was an admission.  They wanted to be able to “live that way,” but they knew they could not, at least not then.  But times have changed, and now those to whom these “monikers” apply seem to glory in the naming—they wear them as a badge of honor.

Let’s dig in to see what I mean. In no particular order, here are the epithets of my youth.  Some are best expressed as nouns, others as adjectives. 

One note: As you read through these, you will see that about half of them have to do with sex.  This is not surprising since the brand of Christianity I grew up in was positively obsessed with it. I won’t go into all the details about this here. But sex was that one thing that one could simultaneously not engage in and not really talk about in any meaningful way, but was also on the mind of the “preachers” almost constantly, and found its way into their condemnations constantly.  

It’s not an exaggeration to say that pretty much everything was about sex then, and it still is. Fundamentally, it was, and still is, about controlling women’s bodies, while men were/are given a pass for their indiscretions. After all, most of these folks seems pretty okay with “grab ’em by the pussy.” 

Permissiveness

In one sense, “permissiveness” was the root of everything.  Permissiveness was used to describe people who lived without “boundaries.”  Being permissive meant that you could indulge your carnal pleasures without limit or concern for the consequences. Permissiveness by parents would lead to children who smoked, drank, had sex, and used drugs.  Permissiveness was a sickness of the time. 

Back then, permissiveness was associated with questioning authority, eschewing norms, and generally flaunting social conventions.  

The issue of “boundaries” is interesting in our time, when the most powerful people in the world (I mean that literally) can say things like “the only thing limiting me is my own morals.”  In other words: “I set the boundaries, and they are whatever I define them as.”  

Permissiveness has graduated from something we warned children about to a big grown-up thing we assume the powerful will practice—with abandon and without consequences.

Lawlessness  

If permissiveness was for children, lawlessness was a grown-up term.  In one sense, lawlessness was the “adult” outcome of permissiveness.  If you grew up in a permissive household, you would end up a lawless person.  

Lawlessness was, not surprisingly, associated with violence, such as the urban riots of the 60s and 70s.  Clearly, people who would riot in the streets, burning cars and buildings, had grown up in permissive households.  They had not learned limits.  The result was literal lawlessness.  But the problem was in their hearts.  

At home, lawlessness or lawless acts were not against the government, after all, the government was a suspect entity. Acts of lawlessness against the government might not be lawlessness at all. They might be necessary. Lawlessness showed itself in damage to something far more sacred: private property.  

This was how lawlessness was used at home, but there was also lawlessness among Bible teachers. This was the lawlessness that was, essentially, shaking one’s fist at God.  This lawlessness was far more dangerous than the mere physical kind because one’s eternal soul was at stake. 

I will note that all forms of “white collar” crime were exempted from the category of lawlessness.

It is interesting to see how parts of America that, in other times, would condemn physical violence against the police as a prime example of lawlessness, seem to allow it in certain carefully prescribed circumstances (say, at the Capitol on a January day).  In these days, the lawless might be pardoned if their lawlessness is against the right kind of people or for the right reasons.  As was the case in my youth, lawlessness might be okay if the target is corrupt or suspect.  And, as was the case then, if you have enough money and don’t actually throw a punch or a projectile, your lawlessness may not be lawlessness at all. 

Antinomianism

When I went off to Bible College, permissiveness and lawlessness acquired a new moniker—a more theological formulation: antinomianism. Antinomianism is considered a theological error (by orthodox Christians) and a fundamental misunderstanding of God’s grace, suggesting that those covered by grace are not under any moral law. 

In essence, antinomians say that God’s grace covers all sin and that God’s grace is beyond bounds. Therefore, for followers of Jesus, there is no moral law; their faith and God’s grace render moral law unnecessary.  

St. Paul seems to have directly dismissed this idea in Romans 6 when he asked whether we should “continue in sin” because of grace. His answer was a resounding “No.”

Paul never disputed that grace abounds: “where sin abounds, grace abounds even more,” he said just before arguing that this does NOT mean one should continue in sin. 

Perhaps today we could frame this as “where sin abounds, praise abounds even more.”  After all, we have a president who, no matter his sin—be it transgressing the Constitution or protecting a pedophile—receives praise.  The ritual genuflecting at every staff meeting, or the mindless praise heaped on his acts of genius, move in tandem with his worst sins.  

Where sin abounds, praise abounds even more. Indeed.

Our president is an antinomian—relying on the unswerving grace (and praise) provided by his sycophants—to continue in sin and defy any and all moral strictures. 

But antinomianism is also a statement about autonomy. To be unbound. To be free. To be accountable to no one and no standard is a declaration of autonomy.  More could be said about this, but this “freedom” is, perhaps, the unstated goal of humanity, and may explain why we secretly admire the antinomian for the audacity of their declaration of independence.  What Joan Didion referred to as the “dream we no longer admit.”  But, maybe now we not only admit it, but praise it. 

Immorality/Hedonism

Immorality was always about sex. Hedonism was immorality celebrated publicly, wantonly, and unapologetically. If immorality was “grabbing them by the pussy,” hedonism was celebrating it publicly.  

Immorality, let alone hedonism, was never to be rewarded with, say, an election victory…

At best, you were given a pass if you were a man (married) who committed an “indiscretion” with a woman.  After all, women were largely responsible for these indiscretions.  Male immorality was a blemish, but one that could be removed with time and with the ever-enduring empathy for the weak (male) flesh. 

But back then, immoral people (men) were never celebrated, and the clock could run out on a life before it ran out on the opprobrium. 

No more. 

Today, those who would otherwise rail against immorality give immoral people a pass if they provide access to power. Now, immorality is ignored, and hedonism barely causes a stir depending on who engages in it.  

In fact, the most depraved forms of hedonism are seemingly ignored or actively hidden if they involve the wealthy and connected.  There is now evidence that, globally, many wealthy people even banded together in a loose but strong affiliation to commit heinous sexual acts against children. The social capital that enabled them to accomplish things together that they would never have contemplated doing alone is something to behold: deep human bonds nurtured to promote the most despicable acts.

I am a long way from my childhood on this one. 

Situation Ethics/Secular Humanism/Postmodernism/Relativism/Post-Truth

This last category is a cluster of terms that evolved over the course of my life, but all, more or less, came down to the same thing. The overarching characteristic of these terms—deployed in an ever-evolving condemnation—was the belief in the lack of any objective truth. 

In general, these terms were used against intellectuals who questioned the idea of a single, fixed set of moral standards handed down by a deity.  It is not that these intellectuals doubted the existence of good or evil; it is that they would not ascribe these concepts to the dictates of an eternal being. And, according to my teachers, without a god, there could be no truth. Deny God, you must deny truth.

I was well into adulthood before I learned that there were people in the world who held that “truth” could be independent of God.

I was taught that “We hold these truths to be self-evident” could only be understood if a creator were involved.

Having access to truth—God’s truth—was also the basis of morality.  People who rejected God’s existence could not be trusted to tell the truth because, after all, they did not hold to any truth.  Quite simply, if you did not believe in God, you could and would be a liar.  It is not that you would have understood that you were a liar; it is only that truth did not matter to you, because there was no truth. 

Without an anchor in truth, people could say anything at all. And that would inevitably lead to chaos.

Well, where are we today? 

Fact-checking is now a career.

I wake up every morning wondering what new slew of lies will have been told while I slept. We have never lived in a less truthful time, and the main purveyors of the firehose of lies that flow our way every day are those most admired by those who formally condemned our post-truth world. 

Epitaph (not epithet)

I remember all these epithets, these names, now with a kind of wonder. 

But I have buried those years, and the name on the tombstone of my (innocent) youth reads:

Herein lie lies parading as moral superiority. The words were mobilized to attack others, while those hurling the epithets secretly yearned not only to own but to practice them. 

I did something this week that I had long anticipated, but hoped I would never have to do. I told a friend that we were no longer friends. I did not do it in anger. I gave it a lot of thought. It hurt.

Maybe we should never draw lines we will not cross.

Maybe we should never close off dialogue and the potential for reconciliation.

Maybe I was wrong to do it.

But… when fundamental differences about what constitutes justice, or whether compassion matters, or whether some people matter more than others, or whether the evidence of science about things like vaccines matters are in play, sometimes you have to make a break.

I have devoted the majority of my life to bringing healing, caring for the oppressed, and welcoming the houseless and wandering into my life. When a “friend” values none of that, it might be time to say, we cannot be friends.

A friend from long ago sought to reengage, and this is my response:

Past relationships and memories, even good ones, are not the basis for a current or future relationship. The paths of our lives—yours and mine—diverged a long time ago.  For a relationship to transcend time (and physical location), requires more than memories. A shared past does not suffice. A relationship requires shared values, a shared understanding of the world and our place in it, and a commitment to shared goals for how to live in the world.  Values are not merely things we espouse, they are the way we live our lives.  I think it is fair to say that you and I do not have shared values.  You can feel free to present evidence to the contrary.  Given this, I would ask you to please leave our relationship where it belongs—in the past.  I would ask you to not contact me again.  If you do, I will not respond.  I hold no animus towards you, I merely do not think there is a basis for a relationship in the present. 

That is harsh.

But people are dying (I mean, literally).

And differences are no longer just “of opinion.”

Saying goodbye is hard.

But sometimes (like now), the world moves on, and we move with it. And sometimes that movement takes us into different universes across which human engagement is not possible. I think we are in a time like that.

I have the pleasure of working with a group of smart, dedicated, and passionate undergraduates at the Basic Needs Center at the University of California, Davis. Our Center provides food, housing, and financial resources to the over 40,000 students on the campus, and the students who come to us are facing extremely challenging situations as they seek to accomplish their (and their family’s) dream of new opportunities. Just under half of these students are the first in their families to go into higher education. The Federal Government considers over one-third of them to be very low income, deserving of financial support.

Our student staff is a microcosm of this broader student body, and they amaze us as they provide direct service to other students day to day. They deal with the most challenging cases and guide students to the resources they need. It is safe to say that I am, quite often, in awe of them.

We deal with the stress of this work by maintaining a high level of unbridled joking and general pranking. It keeps us sane, and no one is exempt.

So, when a colleague suggested we all go bowling at an on-campus bowling alley (the only one in town!), I got ready for a LOT of competition–with personal challenges and trash-talking. And in the lead-up to the event, I was not disappointed. Challenges got personal, and lines were drawn. I expected much of the same in the lanes.

But after we got our stylish shoes and selected the appropriate balls, everything changed. A silence settled over the lanes, broken only by the crash of pins. Competition turned to encouragement, and trash-talking gave way to grim resolve. I could see it in their faces–I could imagine it in my own.

We rolled.

And while we all had fun, I was struck by the utter seriousness with which every person took their turn. Amid the smiles, a focus and seriousness about the whole affair prevailed. We were having fun, but there was a studiousness that suggested we were sitting for a final exam.

I later learned that all but one of us was a “first gen”-the first of our family to attend university. And when I examined my own feelings throughout the evening (Did I mention it was fun? It was!), I identified what was going on.

The truth is, we did not leave the competition at the office. It was very much present. But we were not competing against the others. We were competing against ourselves. Our grimness was just concentration. Our stoicism was focus.

A focus on doing better.

On bettering ourselves.

And we were our own worst critics.

As I stood back and observed, I experienced a deep sense of pride in these students. I felt a tightening in my chest as I realized they approached this time of fun with the same determination and commitment they brought to their jobs and studies.

I will admit that I nearly wept.

There is a dark side to all of this. Imposter syndrome has followed me my entire life. Despite what has, arguably, been a successful career, I battle with that demon almost every day. Those who don’t live in that reality cannot understand how debilitating it can be: to always have to prove oneself, no matter one’s accomplishments, over and over and over again.

I suspect that my young colleagues face that demon all too often, too. And I mourn for them (as I mourn for myself).

But if one can overcome the challenges of the syndrome, one can marshal the strength to do extraordinary things. One can drive to be better–to serve more faithfully, to work more assiduously, to persevere more completely.

We went bowling.

And it was beautiful.

Maybe this is a lament…

It was just a short stint, providing leadership in the small city that has become home. It was never going to be earthshaking. It was, perhaps, pedestrian.

But it was a formal leadership role, and I would like to believe I helped lead–that I was, in fact, a leader. Some who live here may debate that, and I certainly left no “mark.” But I did my homework, collaborated on making tough decisions, listened to the community, told the truth, strove for accountability, and walked with those in the community who were hurting and needed a listening ear.

Most decisions, especially the consquential ones, were made within considerable constraints. At times I wondered if we were “deciding” or merely “stamping.”

We made sure that the water flowed, garbage was collected, roads were maintained, money was put aside for harder times, and safety was largely maintained. It was blue collar stuff, the stuff that makes a city what it is.

I guess the key in all of it, for me, was that we faced our citizens without guile, with transparency, with, I would say, a desire to make things better. Maybe we failed, but our goals were clear. We knew where the job would lead: to more hard decisions made under constraint (and sometimes duress). But we did it, and our expectations of personal gain were nil.

Nope, we were not heroes.

And we wielded the small amount of power we had with a kind of trepidation.

We

Me and some others.

I never took a bribe.

I never lied about a decision I made.

I never dissembled.

It was the basic commitments that were easy. The commitment to preparing well was without cost (okay, it took time, but that is part of the job). The commitment to listening never hurt. The commitment to explaining my votes actually made things much smoother. The commitment to telling the truth actually paid dividends in trust gained.

None of that is hard.

I did not have to overthink it or scheme with anyone to make that stuff work.

I am reflecting on this today, because I want leaders like us.

There is no hubris in that. We were unspectacular, unnoticed, unrecognized.

Maybe

Maybe leaders like us are not smart enough to lead at any level beyond the local. (I can own that, it may be true). Maybe we don’t have what it takes.

But still, I want leaders like us.

Leaders like us.

How hard is it, really, to have leaders like us?

We took the train from Davis, CA, to the California Capitol to volunteer at the university’s graduation ceremonies.  We crossed the causeway and the river on the Capitol Corridor (CC) train, landing in downtown.

I want to say many things about Davis, my hometown for the past quarter-century.  I want to tell you about the ingenuity of the causeway and the beauty it attracts.  I would love to tell you about the CC and how it connects us to the Bay and beyond.

But those stories are for another day.

On this day, we took the train that, by an apparent accident of time, was transporting people to graduation at the Golden One Center, the June Pride Festival a few blocks to the south, and the “No Kings” protest further south still on the Capitol Mall. 

At the station, the first thing I saw (in addition to the 100+ people waiting to board the train) was a small sign carried by a protester

COMPASSION

We boarded and immediately entered a rolling party.

How can I describe it?

Every visage felt “open,” inquiring, alive.

So many smiles, so much laughter.

Every face bore the imprint of a history—a story.  

Every voice a different accent, language, in-group vocabulary.

Every article of clothing a statement of loves and origins or hopes and futures. 

Everything spoke of diversity—that much reviled, but actually quite beautiful reality that is California. And I wondered why anyone would not want that.  I wondered why that word is so hated.  I wondered why they could not just leave us alone to enjoy that one thing that brings us energy and smiles, and a constant sense of discovery and wonder. 

Why?

The couple across from us heading to Sac for a pride weekend and fathers’ day celebration. Two scientists across the aisle discussing climate change and next steps in their dream to bring lasting change to the world. Beside them, two folks older than us with their water and hats, sporting signs of dissent.  Downstairs, a bit later, three college pals kitted out in their regalia, my wife helped one fix his tie and straighten his collar.  All smiles. 

We breathed together on that train.

We “conspired.”

And though we all approached the capitol with our own goals in mind, there was a solidarity in acknowledging the importance of what, each of us, was going there to do.  We all KNEW that everyone was attending a life-affirming and life-changing event. 

And we celebrated that.

Across America at the same hour, millions lived in hate of who we were, with a clear desire that we would all just disappear.  

But we exist.

And we will persist.

On that train that day, we celebrated our differences but also the things that bind us: love, solidarity, community, and hope.

I will acknowledge that ours has never been an easy marriage. I will further admit that I have stayed in it “for the kids.”

After all, we had a commitment to pass on our values to our kids. At least at the beginning.

Yeah, we have been through some hard times and we both know that when we split up, things got bad—really bad. But, somehow, we patched things up after all that craziness. You admitted I was right—at least you said you did. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

And, for a little while, you seemed to accept the terms of our agreement to get back together. But then you showed your true colors and, well, it’s been a while and I just don’t think you ever acted in good faith.

Still, the kids.

Others have stayed together through tough times because of that promise of tomorrow. So, I figured, why not. Things got better when we faced common challenges and, for a while after things seemed like they might change.

But they didn’t.

You and I never agreed on what was best for our kids—let’s not pretend. But we debated and tried to hash it out. Sometimes you prevailed, sometimes I did.

It wasn’t perfect.

But then the lying started. You lied about so many things, and our kids paid the price.

Sigh… I still feel it is worth trying to focus on the good we want for them. But now I feel you just don’t care about them at all. I don’t believe we share a common goal anymore.

And the lying…

Can I just say that it has gotten far worse. Every word out of your mouth is a falsehood. Every accusation, an admission of what you are doing. Every false outrage, just another way to manipulate me—and them.

I don’t trust you.

Maybe I subscribe to an old fashion view of things, but I just don’t see dissolution as a good idea. It won’t solve anything for them… for us.

But lately you have been telling people you hate me?

You have been telling people that “I am your enemy?”

You have been saying that I want to harm our kids—our future?

So, what’s the point?

Why don’t you divorce me? Send me on my way and we can both start over?

I think I know why. You need me.

You know that I have been paying the bills and doing the hard work of keeping our home safe. I know you don’t really value those things, but…

Why don’t you just let me go?

Take the plunge?

Give me what I know you want?

A divorce.

For many reasons, and for a long time, I have been reflecting on leadership. I am not an expert. I realize there are PhD programs in leadership and many journals devoted to its study. Still, over the course of a 40+ year career, I have learned some things.

I have had the privilege to serve under some amazing people, true leaders, who would perhaps not have been able to describe what made them so effective. Those times (thankfully) were the majority of my career.

I have also, unfortunately, labored under some people who had a title but were not leaders at all. Those times were painful and draining, and ultimately, no matter how important the work, I had to leave. That is always hard.

This brief piece is my attempt, however poorly, to start to enumerate what I think a leader is and should do. I hope to develop these points in more detail with examples later.

If you read this and have suggestions, I would love to hear them. These represent the kind of leader I aspire to be.

Lead with vision, tie it to the mission, and review the mission regularly to ensure it does not drift. Make sure that evolving strategies stay consistent with the mission and don’t allow other priorities to become the de facto mission.

Build accountability structures and processes in your work. Assessing progress toward your mission is not possible without a commitment to assessing your results. In my experience, you need to hire staff committed to this function.

Support staff. Your primary purpose should be clearing the way for staff to do the work that supports the mission.

Be present—both physically and emotionally. This is a specific way to support staff. Yes, leaders are busy and face many demands on their time, but staying engaged throughout the day and week to respond to concerns, gauge the atmosphere, and assist with course corrections in real time is essential.

Remember that this is not about you.  If you set out to make yourself the organizational “brand” or accept the framing that you are, bad things will happen.  Placing your interests as somehow inseparable from the organization’s will harm both.

Keep in mind that institutions—including the organization you lead—transcend the individuals who work there. An institution can become focused on its own survival, which may hinder its mission. Institutions can be abusive, even if individuals within them reject abuse.

Confess when you fail—do it often and, in apologizing, describe steps you will take to do better and avoid the errors you committed. 

Our work in most fields is complex and occurs in a complex world.  You cannot be the master of everything, nor should you try.  So… 1) You should hold up and praise the knowledge and experience of your staff and receive it as a gift. 2) You should make an ongoing commitment to learning.  In fact, if there is any single moniker you should welcome as a leader, it is that “they are a learner.”  

I look forward to your ideas.

We skirted the side of Mt. Tam on a New Year’s Day that now seems so long ago (it has only been five years). That day’s bright, shining beauty could not suppress the knowledge that everything was about to change, to change in ways that we could not quite imagine.

I had been following the unusual pneumonia cases that were springing up in China. If one was paying attention, it was clear that this thing was coming. But what would it look like? No one knew. 

So, on that day, I hid from my fears and merely accepted the possibility that everything would shift. 

I felt powerless. I felt weak.

And then it came, and… Change is so hard.  But in the moment, and moment by moment, we changed.  

But in a sense, we did not change at all.  We only became more of what we were.

I saw that for the first time just a few weeks later when I sat in our County Supervisor’s office. The county Health Officer looked at me and said, “This is our time. This is what we trained for. This is a time for who we are.”

And, we became more.

Though we were weak in the face of the onslaught of that novel coronavirus, though it often defeated us, and though, at times, we defeated ourselves, we became who we were. We did not turn our backs. We fought the defeat, and, sometimes, and in significant ways, we won. 

The sense of weakness in the face of a natural disaster never left us. Our strength came in the weakness of knowing that we had to move on. And we did.

I feel all those things today…

Farmer’s “long defeat” was and is very much about what we see around us today.  His long defeat was the realization that the wealthy and powerful would always end up on top and that the people he loved and to whose wellbeing he was committed would too often die terrible deaths or live diminished lives, while those same powerful folks would never, ever pay the consequences.  Indeed, they would thrive.

And Farmer was saying, “So be it. I know with whom I will throw in.”

St. Paul was making a more explicit theological point—though the same stuff inspired Farmer.  For Paul, weakness made space for the force of God to enter the fray (replace God with “the universe,” “good,” or “truth”—see also King’s “arc of the moral universe”).

But neither King, nor Farmer, nor Paul were pie-in-the-sky dreamers (nor were Dorothy Day, Fannie Lou Hamer, or Rosa Parks). All of these were people of action—not waiting for the arc, or truth, or God to intervene.  No, this great cloud of witness embraced their weakness and the long defeat and became who they were—who they had to be.

The point is that the changes did not change them.  

It made them more of who they were.

They simply lived into who they were, weathered the change—embraced the weakness, and fought the long defeat.  And it was enough to change the world. But the change did not change them.

I take heart.

The changes are coming—indeed they are here.  The powerful will crush the weak.  The least will suffer.  Hopes will be deferred.  And the powerful will walk away from the carnage with their stature and wealth in place. 

This is, after all, the long defeat.

But if we can move through the change and, yet, not change.  If we can simply become who we are—more of who we are: people of love, compassion, persistent in doing good, supporting the weak, standing with the oppressed… If we can do those things…

Then our weakness will be strength, the arc will bend to justice, and the long defeat will turn to victory.  

They have proven it.

It is our turn to live it.