Monday Must-Reads (August 11, 2014)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

It's been too long! And I missed a week of Must-Reads because I was either traipsing all over the country or recovering from the traipsing. All that means is that there're more links than usual today.

I really appreciated this post by Sarah Markley on road-tripping with her kids without her husband because that is exactly what I just got done doing this week. Strange, yes, but empowering all the same.

Reality-check post for the week: How to Get Rich by Blogging.

Most grateful for this one: "Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million For Poisoning Town." Thank God, thank God, thank God. This company needs to be held accountable on so many levels and stop getting free passes at every intersection for the impact they are having on communities and economies. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's something.

I sent "The Parenting Books Were Wrong" to a new mom of a newborn this week:

"Jesus has said, 'Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself.' And, yes, I find that each day does have its own trouble. But far worse than the particular trouble of each day is our despair when we believe that all we can hope for are storms."

Helpful during my work-at-home/parenting-kids-at-home summer was this from the Nesting Place: "Because Choosing Your Battles Saves Your Sanity: How Having One Decent Space Makes All the Difference."

And here's some heavier stuff. Have you heard of ISIS? An Islamic extremist group that is systematically taking over towns in Northern Iraq and targeting religious minorities? There are reports of beheaded children and mothers and forced "conversions" and other terribleness. Right now there are thousands taking refuge in mountainous areas without access to food or water. Meanwhile, the U.S. is dropping a few bombs on ISIS and airdropping water to the refugees. Google for more info. If you are the praying type, pray.

Because I've been such an avid observer of all things Mark Driscoll, it's been interesting to see the Christian community's response to a growing understanding of some of his poor behavior from 14 years ago. I met Mark right about that time, toured his then-little church building in Seattle, spoke with his worship leaders. The man was "edgy," he was someone who had the vibe of us Gen-Xers, a prophetic voice, and I claimed him as a leader of my generation for a couple years, until I was stung and stung again by the continually vicious comments against different demographics in the body of Christ. Some feel his most recent apology is not enough to heal the wounds said to have been caused by his leadership. Others are asking what "grace" means for Driscoll in this context. The church network he founded (Acts 29) has recently decided to remove him and his church as members of the network. Honestly, I'm thankful that he is being called out by a wider array of the Christian community and not just those of us on the fringes who have been disturbed by his leadership tactics and his message for so long. The last thing I want is to see this man destroyed, but I would like to see him restored and to see relationships with the wounded restored as well. What would create restitution for those who've been harmed and for those who are hurt by now reading these latest comments, albeit 14 years old?

Notes from an Election-Year Observer

“Isn’t it fortunate I’ve got such an imagination?” said Anne. “It will help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven’t any imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?”  --Anne of Green Gables

I’m not an expert on politics; I’m not thinking like one these days. I ruminate like the mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter that I am--a person who generally cares about the well-being (physical and spiritual) of all people.

I can safely say that the election-year discourse is killing me.

Facts about me: There is no political party in this country that perfectly matches (or ever has) my own array of moral convictions. Every four years I’m tormented by choices between lesser evils and greater goods. Sometimes the candidate who, on paper, presents the lesser evils is easily identifiable. But he (and yes, I’ll say “he” for simplification’s sake tonight) might act like an ignoramus (or worse, a jerk) half the time he’s on camera. This induces doubt as to his viability as a competent president.

Character matters to me more than anything else, but by “character,” I don’t mean that a candidate can check off a list of values on which both he and I agree; rather, I’ve been reduced to watching the way a candidate responds to interviews and attacks. Is he sarcastic? Derisive? Dismissive? Disrespectful? Hostile? Arrogant? Does he play the blame game? Are his rebuffs simplistic and/or full of holes? Does he comprehend (intellectually, morally, emotionally) the opposing point of view?  Does he demonstrate compassion and goodwill despite disagreement? Does he, instead, vilify his opponents?   

Evidence of good character can also, of course, be ferreted out in the examination of a candidate’s history: How has he treated his employees? his children? his marriage commitment(s)?

I'm worried about a few things: about a president who, in a television interview of all small things, cannot hold his peace and dignity. About a man who could not keep one, two, or three lifelong vows to a single individual and yet wants to woo an entire nation to trust him with the next four years of our livelihoods, our environment, our health.  And I’m worried about any man who is incapable of empathy because, truth be told, the most important things going forward don’t hinge on either party’s political platform or agenda in 2012; what matters are those actual grueling days in office where executive-branch decisions are made in response to crises that were never forseen, were never made a part of public discourse during election year.  What matters is how our next president responds if and when we encounter the next Katrina, the next 9/11, the next stock market crash.

And while I hope it is a resolute compassion among other goods that drive the speech and actions of the man sitting in the Oval Office at that time, I doubt compassion is achieved in the absence of a vivid imagination. And imagination is what I find utterly lacking in many of the GOP* spokespeople, congresspersons, and presidential candidates this year.  

See, it’s imagination that unlocks for a man the raw and vulnerable experience of a woman’s unwanted pregnancy. Imagination pulls back the curtain on a lesbian alone in a hospital room without her best friend, her partner, there to hold her hand, handle affairs of state, make life and death decisions that no other family member can make with the same intimate knowledge of the patient’s wishes. Imagination guts the superhero illusion of our 9/11 first responder volunteers who are now suffering from cancers and other terminal conditions and whose livelihoods and families bear up under the economic stress of a lost income and lost fathers and mothers. And imagination multiplies broken levees by a million residents of New Orleans and comes up with dehydration, hunger, homelessness, disease, rape, murder, mercenaries, racial profiling, the Superdome.
Despite his ethics, despite his secular or Biblical morality, my faith is in the power of imagination to pave the road to compassion, and compassion can out-think the politics box, it can work with people of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints; compassion will burn the candles at both ends to get the job done. But if, say, imagination is not to be found in the next president (incumbent or otherwise), how will we heal when America breaks another bone?

*The Democrats aren't all off the hook in my book, either, but they're also not center stage at the moment, making any absences of imagination easier to ignore.