[Oe List ...] 1/07/10, Spong: Thoughts on the Passing of 2009

[elliestock at aol.com]

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 Publisher's Note: Spirituality & Practice recently named Bishop Spong's new book, Eternal Life, one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2009. The reviewers call the book "a masterful meditation on God, religion, human consciousness, death, and eternity." Waterfront Media congratulates Bishop Spong on this honor. Read the full review on SpiritualityandPractice.com.




Thursday January 07, 2010 

Thoughts on the Passing of 2009

It was an incredible year, that weary old 2009. It dawned with the high expectations surrounding the new president-elect. We reveled in the pomp and circumstance of his inauguration. The world greeted this new president with an enthusiasm that had not been seen since the election of John F. Kennedy. In the Obama election, the people of this nation had broken the back of racism and given us reason to believe that this long-lasting stain on the soul of America was finally becoming part of history.. The Obama election was an undeniable symbol of the future and people of color around the world felt newly affirmed as the traditional strongholds of "Anglo-Saxon" power were forced to welcome a new player on the world's stage.
President Obama moved quickly to put the stamp of his vision on America. He immediately withdrew the presidential order that forbade aid to family planning clinics around the world if they practiced, advised about or in any way supported abortion. He disavowed torture as a practice never again to be condoned by the United States and in that single action immediately restored America's tarnished reputation. He announced his intention to close the prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, which had become identified with torture. He spoke to the Muslim world in a widely televised and highly praised address from Egypt, seeking to draw the world back from the brink of a religion-informed cycle of terror and counter-terror. He appointed the first Hispanic person, a woman of Puerto Rican background, to the Supreme Court of the United States. He made it clear that legal equality in all things for gay and lesbian Americans would be a priority for this nation. Even that did not seem strange to more and more of our citizens as they became accustomed to seeing Massachusetts' openly gay Representative Barney Frank appearing regularly on television as chair of the House Committee on Financial Services to assist this nation through the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. It was his competence, not his sexual orientation, that made the difference. Later in the year another sign of this new day became visible when an open lesbian, Annise Parker, was elected mayor of Houston, Texas, America's fourth largest city. Much about 2009 was inspiring. Many called these changes cosmetic, but we understood the power of symbols when the Nobel Peace prize was bestowed on our new president not for great accomplishments, it was too early for that, but for instilling hope into the world. Hope should not be underestimated, but hope has to be translated into action, and the subsequent changes that action requires always brings threat to those who have profited by the systems of the past. So for most of 2009 America was caught between hope and fear.
Even the closing of Guantanamo became controversial as soon as it became clear that the persons being held in prison there had to be relocated to prisons in the United States. That was fine with people until they realized that these prisoners might be housed in their own state or communities. Then opposition became visceral. To wind down the war in Iraq was the official policy of this new American government, but when it became impossible not to notice that the invasion by America had served primarily to suppress a religious civil war it made both the war itself and the present withdrawal seem to be violations of all of our ideals. Iraq was not the only disillusioning hot spot. The Israelis invaded Gaza to knock out the missile launchers that had been fired at Israel for some time. War is never pretty and violence is always met with counter-violence and peace in the Middle East seemed as far away as ever. At every point the effort to bring change brought a response that seemed to guarantee strife.
Next, health care became the focus of the nation. Everyone admitted that health care in America was in serious trouble. When the necessary changes to fix the system began to be discussed, negativity flowed without any restraint. Too many special interest groups had been feeding at the trough of our dysfunctional health care system for too long to want to see that system dismantled. First there were the lawyers who thrive on suing doctors and health care companies in aggravated malpractice cases. Next were the pharmaceutical companies whose bottom line was threatened if Americans were allowed to pay the same prices that Canadians and Europeans pay for the same drugs. A government that negotiates drug prices for Medicare patients was destined to be denied the authority to negotiate similar prices for a wider segment of the population. Then there were the insurance companies that keep themselves profitable by withdrawing coverage from those with "pre-existing" conditions. American businesses that had borne the burden of rising health care costs stated their need for relief if they were to compete with foreign companies whose workers are given health care as a privilege of citizenship by their governments. Then there were the labor leaders who had won major victories for workers in the past and who now resisted taxation on those "Cadillac plans." Finally, there were the victims of this peculiarly American system in which one's health care is tied to one's job. This means that in the downturn of the economy, people suffer a double jeopardy since they lose their health care when they lose their jobs. Some of them soon discover that they will never get it back if they have a pre-existing condition. All of this was put on the table when the health care bill, promised by the Obama campaign, began to be debated in the Congress.
The debate became incredibly ugly. Republican leaders, sensing a way to damage this widely popular president, became an uncooperative block of negativity. President Obama found himself being characterized at town meetings as both Adolf Hitler and a communist! It is quite difficult to be both. People, for whom the health care companies have long ago come between them and their doctors, began to berate any reform that would put the government between them and their doctors. Wedge issues were inserted into the debate. Abortion politics polarized the bill as primarily Republican legislators, who constantly advocate smaller government and "getting the government out of our lives," decided to add amendments that would impose a religious agenda on the whole body politic and prohibit abortions in any health care bill that received government money. Strangely enough, these zealots saw no contradiction. Then the public option was killed by the effective lobbying of the health care industry, who managed to demonize the government's role in any health care plan. The debate went on in perpetuity, draining the energy and raising the fears of people across the nation. Obama's poll numbers began a steady decline. So did the popularity of the Congress. People began to say strange things publicly like "I want my country back!" One wondered who took it and how they managed to do that. The election of 2008 was fair and decisive. Power has shifted in this country. Some who were out are now in. Some who had been in were now out, but this democracy has not been subverted by external or alien forces. The plea "to get my country back" sounded more like the whine of the losers to me. Nonetheless the public debate was poisoned and the hope was that no matter how imperfect the final bill was it at least represented a first baby step toward universal coverage. The health care ideal was clearly compromised. 
The decision was also made in 2009 to upscale the war in Afghanistan. Eight years in duration already, thirty thousand more American troops are to be deployed to this barren land to destroy Al-Qaeda, despite the fact that Al-Qaeda today is mostly in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. So between the time the President was chosen to receive the Nobel Peace prize and the actual presentation of that prize, he became a "war" president. Politics is a strange game.
A backlash also appeared in the struggle for human rights for gay and lesbian people. In 2009 the defeat of gay marriage proposals before the legislatures of New York and probably New Jersey occurred. A referendum in Maine overturned Maine's Supreme Court's mandate to establish and recognize equality in marriage for all of the citizens of Maine. To the disillusionment of many, the primary support for homophobia in each of these defeats came from parts of the Christian Church. The Roman Catholic Church continued to oppose equality for homosexual people everywhere it appeared on a ballot. Why anyone would look for moral guidance on issues of human sexuality to an institution that has fostered a culture of sexual abuse and has resisted, publicly and privately, any effort to understand either the depth of the problem or their leaders' obvious cover-up of their crimes is beyond me.
On the Anglican side of Christianity, we watched the Archbishop of Canterbury be hoisted on his own petard. This man's hope and his consequent action was in the service of bringing unity to this communion by tolerating and accepting as legitimate the blatant homophobia in African churches and in dissident fringe groups in the developed world. Now he began to see the fruit of his misguided leadership. Uganda, with the full and enthusiastic support of its Anglican bishops, proposed a law that would imprison gay people, execute them for sexual crimes and fine anyone who worked in support of homosexual equality. That is the inevitable result of weak leadership unable to stand for truth and justice on a great moral question.
Those were some of the notes of 2009 to which we have said goodbye. It has been a roller coaster ride from hope to despair; from ideals to reality; from a nomination to receive the Nobel Peace prize to an intensifying of a rather hopeless war in Afghanistan; from a world where homophobia was dying to one in which there is a momentary setback; and from our dreams of a new world order to watching as the world wallows in the hatreds of the past. History never runs in a straight line, but we enter 2010 with a sigh of relief that 2009 has gone. Hope springs eternal and our hope is that the dreams with which we entered 2009 may be recovered and renewed in 2010.

– John Shelby Spong
 



Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong


Sally and Jon from Washington, D.C., write:
Proposed health-care reform legislation included a provision that allows Medicare to pay for "end-of-life" counseling for seniors and their families who request it. The provision, which Sarah Palin erroneously described as "death panels" for seniors, nearly derailed President Obama's health-care initiative. Some Republicans still argue that the provision would ration health care for the elderly. Does end-of-life care prolong life or does it prolong suffering? Should it be part of health-care reform?
Sally and Jon from Washington, D.C., write:
Proposed health-care reform legislation included a provision that allows Medicare to pay for "end-of-life" counseling for seniors and their families who request it. The provision, which Sarah Palin erroneously described as "death panels" for seniors, nearly derailed President Obama's health-care initiative. Some Republicans still argue that the provision would ration health care for the elderly. Does end-of-life care prolong life or does it prolong suffering? Should it be part of health-care reform?



Dear Sally and Jon,
There is a paranoid quality about the health care debate. Much of it finds expression in the discussion about end-of-life counseling. Death is a fact of life just like birth. Our parents prepared for our births; it is essential that we prepare for our deaths. End-of-life counseling is about what extraordinary measures you want to have used to extend your life. Do you wish to be kept on a respirator indefinitely? Do you want a machine to keep your heart beating forever? What is the point between managing pain and destroying your ability to know those who love you best?
Death is not escapable. We embrace it like we embrace any other experience. Death gives life its passion. Death rings the bell on all procrastination. Only the immature, who pretend they will escape death, could possibly object to end-of-life counseling. Deliberate distortions like calling them "death panels" have so poisoned the debate that it borders on the nonsensical. Most of this we shall surely discover is produced and directed by the lobbyists from the insurance companies.

– John Shelby Spong






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