Holy Democracy, Batman 


Getting the most out of democracy from a sectarian point of view. Also, taking the "nay" out of "neighbor." 

I've been given a gift lately, a gift of understanding. It almost feels like I've shed some very heavy chains. Slowly but surely, I've come to understand that the people with whom I interact day to day are marvelously complicated but invisible entities. This is a revelation to me, because for most of my life, I've been literally seeing people, never realizing that what I was really seeing was their ever-aging bodies and a trail of artifacts that they left in the world in their wake. I actually get it now that the most unique and valuable aspect of people is their unique point of view. Something like this must surely have been in the minds of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin as they framed our precious Constitution. At the prompting of my partner, Stephen, I did a little internet searching and found many articles on the respect that these particular founding ancestors had for Jews and the Jewish point of view. It's interesting if you look it up.

I'm not really sure though, that I can communicate this insight that I have had with most of our citizens. I'm really speaking at a spiritual level here. You stop and think about your own life. You've struggled and struggled to do the best you could do. Like the rest of us, you've been disappointed with yourself at times, discouraged, sick, rejected by friends. But still, you showed up every day, just playing your designated position in the ball game called "life." It's way too complicated to have all the answers; no one does, even the seers and the geniuses. But there you were, little by little, exercising your bitty freedoms and your tiny little choices, cutting a path in this jungle of a world, and trying to make it a little more livable and likable for you and the few people that cluster about you called friends and family. Well, and many of us will even protest, but I had a pretty good life. I give you that if you had it. My main point, however, is that when you really get down to it, each life is precious, an amazing effort by a sincere individual.

This is a revelation to me. Why have I EVER tried to argue with someone about what is right and wrong? Discuss, yes, kindly advise, maybe, but ARGUE WITH??! Woah! Hey. It was MY steps I travelled in. I might share my struggles with you and what it is that I managed to figure out in 67 years of moderately difficult travel, but I don't see how I can tell you that the choices you made were the wrong ones, or worse yet, blame still another person's problems on your bad choices.

I am given to saying that whether we like it or not, we're all theologians. Maybe the Harvard professors or the Deans of the Cathedral won't be calling us for advice any time soon, but we do have to do the best we can to figure out our own relationship to whatever it was that created us. Some of us call that God, others say there is no God, but they still have to deal with their relation to No God, which seems like a pretty big deal to me. We meet God or No God on the road as we travel. Or the Buddha, or Jesus Christ. Some people met Mohammed, others Confucius. I was even fortunate enough that for 15 years my life overlapped with a God-realized master, Paramahansa Yogananda, even though I didn't find out about him until long after he had entered mahasamadhi.

Now hear this. I'm a Christian in a democracy, but I DO NOT WANT this to be a Christian nation. I want this democracy to nurture my version of Christianity without so much as preventing a single other sincere approach to God from prospering and blossoming. YES, even the ones that are trying to tell me I'm doomed to hell. I am trying to honor that at least, they have done the best they could in getting to that particular understanding of a persecuting God. It's their unique, conscious point of view, never mind the content of it, that is so holy.

Needless to say, I feel that there is a whole set of appropriate democratic values that go along with this point of view. I think I've already clarified two of them, at least as I see them. Those are the values of freedom and tolerance. These values aren't just a set of words to me, I really get them. But there is a third value, and that is justice. Justice is painful, but you know it when you see it. Justice means distributing the boons and the burdens of this world fairly to all comers.

Here is a simple example from my own experience. Next door to us live a Japanese or possibly Japanese/American couple; we don't even know their citizenship status. On the other side of our townhouse live a Hispanic or possibly mixed Hispanic/American couple; we know equally little about their status. And that is fine. That's freedom; we don't know any more about our law-abiding neighbors than they care to reveal to us. We live in a six-unit townhouse; our units literally abut each other. In the front of our building is a hedge. Recently, the other owners on the Hispanic/American side of our property did a radical trim of the hedge. The owner who has been here longest informed us that he does this every five years; he says it's good for the hedge. Stephen and I, senior citizens that we are, are not up to such a radical trim, so we hired a gardener to come in and trim our hedge to that height. Problem was, just as our (by the way, Burmese/American/Jewish—how do you like the diversity in OUR neighborhood) neighbor cut four of the six hedges first and then announced it to us, we cut ours to match that without talking to our Japanese/American neighbors. To say that they were upset when they found out would be an understatement.

Now. What is required of us in this land of liberty and justice for all? We actually got squeezed into a situation and possibly a couple of us exercised just a little more freedom than was appropriate and sensible. But it happened, and it happens all the time. Stephen and I were at first inclined to griping about our neighbors. I'll save you the account. But what I see now is that griping will just make the situation deteriorate. No, JUSTICE calls for someone to take an impartial view of the situation, looking at everyone's claim. I guess it's going to be me, and maybe others will join me. It's not going to be easy. For starters, there is a considerable language barrier. Just speaking to our Japanese/American neighbors requires considerable patience. In addition to the mere language, we suspect that the cultural background and expectations of neighborliness are very different, possibly even unit by unit. We are retired, but all of our neighbors work, most of them very hard and long, to make a living. We're all taking care of our property the best way we know how, and we have very different ideas of decor, comfort, and lifestyle.

You know what, I just figured it out. This situation is a diversity lover's dream come true. This is hard, though. I probably need to offer the Japanese/American couple an apology, and tell them that I will do better in the future. I probably need to tell them how much I appreciate them and that they care about the way the hedge looks. I probably need to get the Japanese guy talking with the Burmese guy who started all this. This could even develop into a block party

Oh, I get it. I can be Batman and Stephen can be Robin. People are always claiming that they are a gay couple anyway. We get to ride through the neighborhoods of Gotham City (St. Louis) spotting and eliminating instances of intolerance, incarcerating the unremittant enemies of democracy, or at least forcing them to take seminars on living in harmony with your neighbor. You betcha! We can do it. And Stephen looks great in tights.  

Posted: Sun - June 11, 2006 at 07:22 AM          

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