I'm not ready

There’s an old saying “Be careful what you wish for — you just might get it.” The point being, of course, is that it might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

For years I’ve longed for a relationship with a woman, perhaps leading toward marriage, but in pursuit of that I’ve recently had an ugly reality dropped on me yesterday: I’m not ready and don’t know when I will be. The details are too long to get into here, but suffice it to say that it’s been humbling to say the least.

I think part of that is that it’s difficult in our society for single men above a certain age. Most men, especially in the church, my age have wives, children and/or, in some cases, grandchildren they can dote on, and if you don’t have those things you really start to think, “What’s wrong with you?” So you start to do things you probably shouldn’t do, which in this case I’ve likely done and alienated some people in the process. More to the point, since very few men are in my state they simply cannot relate to the emptiness I’ve felt all this time.

But because many, if not most, churches are full of single women, they can congregate among themselves for fellowship and have no need at all for men. (A few years ago a single woman friend in the leadership of a singles ministry said she was praying that God would raise up male leadership. I told her that wouldn’t happen, and it didn’t because I knew that the supply of mature single men in her vicinity was, and still is, too low.)

I’m the type of person that enjoys arts festivals, concerts and other things on which it’s far more acceptable to go on a date; being alone is awkward, and organizing a group is often too hard. On top of that, Valentine’s Day, which I’ve always loved celebrating, is next week, and this year it will be difficult to endure. But, at least for now, I’ll be alone, and in the meantime I’ll have to deliver not only some apologies but also seek to make amends.

Where the divide really comes from

We can complain all we want about the political/ideological divide we’re experiencing today. But unless we name and confront those who maintain and exacerbate it for the sake of power, we can’t address it.

Who are they? Well, I’ll give you a hint: If you see any group or literature that blames the “left” or “liberals” for that, you can start there. Two that come to mind for me are Imprimis magazine, published by Hillsdale College in Michigan; and videos from “Prager University.”

I’ve read and watched a few of those extremely misleading articles and videos and don’t particularly care to revisit them; however, Imprimis recently repeated the canard that “Black Lives Matter,” which exists to oppose police brutality against African-Americans, is dangerous because it doesn’t address black-on-black crime, a totally different and unrelated situation altogether.

But more to the point, I’ve found that such groups, mostly on the right, don’t even take seriously the arguments put forth by their political opposites. It’s as though things would be fine once we neutralize them. You can certainly win elections by doing so, but governing? That’s another matter.

Indeed, it would be helpful if people would take off their own blinders and recognize that they don’t get things right. One example is William F. Buckley Jr., who originally opposed the civil-rights movement but later changed his mind and admitted that the conservative movement of which he was the godfather got some things wrong, saying some years ago in an interview with Time magazine, “Federal intervention was necessary.”

Doesn’t the same apply to the “left”? Not in my experience because, in practice, it will work with those who don’t agree with it for the same goals. It happens all the time in Washington because the hard, uncompromising left has never had much political power and even Chuck Schumer, minority leader of the U.S. Senate, has always been willing to cut deals (such as one recently on the Federal budget). Besides, when liberals criticize conservatives it’s due to their behavior, not their political affiliation.

Further, I’ve never bought the idea that the news media or academia are inherently liberal. By definition we in media can’t simply regurgitate the conservative line, and colleges exist to teach people how, not what, to think. Why aren’t there more conservatives in either of those professions?, you may ask. Well, there’s nothing keeping them out, but if you went through the process — especially academia, which almost requires doctoral degrees, including decades of study — you might see that it’s not as cut-and-dried as you might think.

Basically, I see such complaints coming from people with axes to grind, and no one is served as a result. I think that if we understood the underpinnings of each other’s worldview the discourse might become more civil. But not a moment before.

Opening up one's heart

In a post I made in December I vowed that I would keep my heart open and not hide it away for fear of having it broken again. I knew that the healing process would take time but benefit me down the road.

I didn’t think, however, that it would happen as soon as it appears to be happening.

As many of you know, among other things I’m a jazz composer/arranger, and recently I’ve composed my most beautiful, haunting tune yet that I will arrange for my big band, likely as soon as spring. I’m also a dancer, my preference being West Coast Swing, and now looking to do a routine to a specific song. (I might even take a couple trips to weekend dance conventions in nearby cities if I can afford it and find a church to attend on Sunday morning.)

And — I think I’ll find love again very soon, though again I won’t put a timetable on that.

In the meantime, however, I’ll keep ministering to the similarly broken because I believe doing so helps the process; already I’ve encountered five people who are going through similar (but not the exact) situations. It’s occurred to me that focusing merely upon what I may want can and likely will sabotage my growth, and if my growth is sabotaged I won’t be able to do for others.

I suspect that there’s a certain narcissism endemic in unhealthy grief; while introspection at such times can be a good thing — in my case, nights are the toughest, and I’ve occasionally lost sleep — I’m finding that spending too much time on what’s ailing me causes emotional and spiritual regression. So these days when the tears come, and they do come, I allow them to flow freely and then get right back up. I have a life to live, you know.

Who’s with me?

Doing right by others

Today the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, to which I belong because I work in the newsroom of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, authorized an indefinite byline strike. That is to say, while we wrote stories we didn't put our names to them. (I don't write that much but had something published today.)

This has become as issue for us because contract negotiations between the company and its various unions have become pretty nasty. Not helping matters was a tasteless editorial published on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that tried to downplay President Donald Trump's racism in light of his alleged "s---hole" remarks the week before.

I bring this up because for the last few decades evangelical Christian media have taken aim at unionism, insisting that defeating organized labor would be a victory for "Christian values." I don't see how, frankly, as too often faith has been aligned with corporate interests. And while I may not personally have a dog in this fight, I decided to strike my byline from today's story in solidarity with my colleagues.

The reason is that, as a Christian, I support my colleagues per the Sermon on the Mount's "do unto others" principle. In fact, it's even the second of the two great commandments, to "love your neighbor as yourself." Working and fighting for economic justice meets that principle.

I sometimes wonder how our nation's political life would be affected if we believers actually lived that out. Rather than see folks who don't agree as the "enemy" we would place ourselves in their shoes and consider just how policies we support affect them. And we can't do this just on a personal level, either.

Are things that bad that such drastic measures had to take place? They might very well be.

In 1991, when I was working for a local grocery store, my union called a strike and we stayed out for about six weeks. The company thought that it could simply keep the stores open and induced the full-time workers to cross the picket line. (I wouldn't do that anyway, and besides I was only part-time.) We ended up winning because the customers stayed away, with people coming up to me in church saying, "Don't worry, Rick; we're not shopping at [that store]."

It may come to that as well in this case. That's why the union took the action and I've elected to support it.

I don't pretend to know what will happen with the new contract, but I do believe in taking a stand and also in standing with those who may be affected by corporate decisions. Sometimes a united front is necessary to combat injustice; for that reason I'm glad to stand with my co-workers.

A secondary spiritual gift

Those of you who know me know that my primary spiritual gift, referenced in Romans 12, is that of prophecy, the ability to size up a situation and speak into it, often to the chagrin of people who don’t always agree with me. Part of having the gift is also the toughness to withstand the arrows that inevitably come my way.

But recently I’ve been reminded of a secondary gift I have: That of mercy, which I think of as having, shall we say, an available lap for those in need to sit on. You need to exude a certain amount of safety to exercise that, of course, and I’ve apparently been doing so since the age of 10, when a much-younger girl fawned over me.

Now, like prophecy or any other gift, “mercy” also has to be cultivated, and by that I mean a willingness to enter into the pain of another without trying to force solutions that might not work or otherwise dominating the personage of another. In other words, it means forgetting that “it’s all about me” and connecting with someone where he or she is. In most cases it will mean having already processed one’s own pain or being willing to do so so that when someone comes to him/her with a difficulty the person can be heard properly.

I must say here that not everything can be experienced personally.

Though my parents split when I was 22, I cannot say that I understand all the internal dynamics of divorce since I’ve myself never been married. I’ve never been a parent, so I don’t “get” the devastation of the waywardness or, worse, death of a child. I’m not a woman, so I won’t know exactly what being raped feels like, especially in its aftermath.

Indeed, when I was an active fraternity member, one of the women attending a party of ours was mourning a breakup that she initiated. Having never had a steady girlfriend at the point in my life, I didn’t understand at the time why she would feel sad when she was the one who left.

(Eighteen years later, however, after having had to do the same thing, I got it.)

Also, many whites in America cannot understand what it’s like being part of a racial or ethnic minority and thus feeling put upon; too often we’re told simply to “get over it.” That’s sheer callousness, which has caused a lot of dissension in the greater society and even in some segments of the church. I sometimes wonder if part of the present polarization in society is the result of the unwillingness to “mourn with those who mourn.”

You see, the person with the gift of mercy must have a heart to listen to what a person is communicating and thus respond in kind. And do so in kindness.

One of my most precious moments surrounded a 2002 visit with a friend who lived in another part of the country. We had met during the summer of 1990, when she was in town doing an externship; her “inner child” felt safe with me from the start, and we’ve kept in touch all that time.

Anyway, after church we were sitting on the couch at her place watching a basketball game — to be exact, the second round of “March Madness” — and she confided to me, “I want to curl up with you so bad.” A few moments later she fell asleep in my arms. (I get misty-eyed just thinking about it.) Though I did derive some satisfaction from that, doing so wasn’t my goal.

Nor should anything like that be the goal of anyone who may want to show the gift of mercy — it should always be humble and self-effacing, never demanding its own way.

The Rev. Dr. King

One of my duties at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is to compile the daily Almanac — things that happen on a particular date, celebrity birthdays and a “thought for today,” much of which comes from the Associated Press. The AP noted, and rightly so, that civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date in 1929.

I took it upon myself to make one small addition — “the Rev.”

We often tend to forget that Dr. King, before becoming a household name, was simply a local Baptist pastor who became, shall we say, a “community organizer” whose passion for justice and reconciliation sprang from his Christian commitment. Indeed, the pastor of my diverse evangelical church referred to him yesterday as “born-again.”

That might sound like a stretch, but as a pre-teen attending a Christian academy in the 1970s I got it.

I didn’t come from a classically Christian family but, after reading some child-oriented material on Dr. King, then dead about four years, that my parents had left around the house, I noticed that he was doing things in the “street” that I was learning in school and the church I was attending at the time. Because I had some behavior issues at the time I became quite a handful, and yet the people there didn’t react the way I thought, and was told, they would. Eventually, they conquered me.

I didn’t realize exactly what happened to me until I read these words from his message “Loving your enemies”: “We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

It was then that I perceived Dr. King’s long-term strategy. I didn’t say so at the time, but I immediately recognized him as a Christian leader and that ultimately he called upon the Holy Spirit to cause those changes.

And that creates a dilemma for both sides of the political aisle. Though politically he leaned left, secular liberals often downplay the spiritual side of the movement, while many conservatives still don’t appreciate the obstacles, often placed or at least supported by other “Christians,” that he had to overcome. It’s one reason why I’ve always rejected modern conservatism as congruent with the Gospel; in key ways it certainly isn’t.

One friend who was formerly an elementary teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and openly Christian, in teaching about the civil-rights movement, encouraged her students to sing hymns in class. Administrators really couldn’t do anything about that since participants in the movement did sing hymns — call her efforts subversive if you will, but the sentiment was entirely accurate.

Perhaps it’s time that we as a nation understood that the dismantling of Jim Crow laws happened not just through legal challenges but because God Himself changed hearts and minds to a point where injustices were recognized for what they were — opposition to the intention of God Himself. And Dr. King should be recognized not just for what he did but also how and why he did it.