Taxes, Anyone?

There has been some talk about continuing the payroll tax cuts that have put a bit more money in the pockets of working people. Some members of the GOP, who seem to like every tax cut, are not so happy about this one, or the tax credits that have help working people get out of poverty. Their argument is that everyone should pay taxes as a way to have a stake in the game. But nearly everyone, even those who don't pay income tax, pays federal taxes. For every tank of gas that I buy, the federal government gets $2.76 in fuel tax. That's not much, but it is a stake in the game. And if I didn't own a car, I would still be contributing to some trucking company's tax payments every time I bought anything. Put simply, we all have a stake in the game.

When I was a teenager my politics began to shift to the left. This got me in some trouble with my unwavering Republican grandmother. I wasn't allowed to wear Democrat's campaign pins in her house and I quickly learned to keep my politic convictions to myself. For a long time the memory of being told to take off a campaign bothered me. Years after her death, I found a way to make a kind of peace with my grandmother. I put a bumper sticker on my car: FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS VOTE REPUBLICAN! 

Over the years that I drove that car and even after I passed it on to our son, I got a few negative responses to the bumper sticker, to which I always responded by saying that the bumper sticker was only a joke, and a very mild one at that. But this year I'm not so sure. With many Republicans in Congress unwilling to see that spending cuts alone won't eliminate the federal budget deficit or that spending increases for infrastructure would help the economy, I'm beginning to think that friends should not let friends vote for some of these Republicans. 

Eradicating the Poor

Our daughter, Meghan MacLean Weir, MD - yes we are very proud of her - has a post on her blog about the controversy surrounding the proposal that birth control counselling and presciptions be provided to women at no cost. I won't enter the fray on this controversy, but something Meghan wrote about eradicating the poor got me thinking about something that has been on my mind since the week my wife and I spent at Chautauqua. One of the speakers was Harvard professor Michael Sandel. His course on justice, which was recorded and broadcast by PBS, and his book Justice devote considerable attention to the question of the common good. One of the controversial issues that Sandel considers, one which is the subject of a debate among his students on the PBS program, is whether it is right for the government to use the taxes it collects from the rich to help the poor.

I will not attempt to lay out Sandel's answer to that question, but in the book he considered the claim that those who are rich deserve their wealth. I have long known that their is not a level playing field in this matter in America. Some of us are born with a whole lot more money than others. Some are born with college-educated parents. Some get to grow up in safe communities with good schools. All of that has been part of my understanding for years, but Sandel pointed out other factors that I had rarely considered. Some are born with considerably more talent than others. I knew this because it had bothered me for a while as a teen-ager that some of my friends were smarter, more athletic, better looking and more popular than I was. I had not, however, considered how this factor played out in the question of deserving success and wealth. Tiger Woods did nothing to earn or deserve his athletic ability. it was a gift. Tiger Woods has, of course, put a lot of effort into developing that ability, but even that is not entirely of his own doing. He was encouraged - some might say pushed - to develop that ability by his father. Woods was privileged to have that kind of encouragement and support, to have that particular father. He did  nothing to deserve that, any more than any of us get parents that we deserve. 

So the question of moral deserving is not as clear-cut as some, like libertarians, claim it is. Very successful people owe their successes not solely to their own hard work, but also to all those other factors which they did not control or deserve.  The very successful do not have an absolute moral right to the fruits of their success. In the various lotteries of life they were already winners while still in diapers. It is morally right to tax those who have succeeded and who have more than enough money to meet their needs in order to assist those who weren't as privileged. Given the current political climate in this country, I don't hold out much hope for the kind of tax policy that I consider morally right. After all many of those who are in Congress exhibit a kind of "I've got mine and I deserve it" attitude, as do many of those who contribute to their campaign funds. But I continue to hope that some of the privileged will have the moral insight to understand the nature of privilege and support tax policy that will require them to pay more taxes. That may seem like wishful thinking, but I believe, as Dr. King said, that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

America the Beautiful?

From time to time I get into conversation with friends about our National Anthem. I suggest that a text written in the midst of war, particularly a war with one of our closest allies, might not be the best choice, even if the tune were not so difficult. As a descendant of the brother of Katherine Lee Bates, I also am bold enough to suggest that "America the Beautiful" would be a good replacement. One of my friends - and he remains a friend in spite of this - tends to dismiss Aunt Katherine's poem as Victorian sentimentality. I concede that Aunt Katherine's sensibilities are dated, but every time I read or sing her words I see in them the kind of challenge that this country needs if it is not to slip into the role of an imperial power exploiting those who are weaker than we are.

Consider these words from the second stanza:

America! America!

God mend thine ev'ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law.

 Or these from the next stanza:

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev'ry gain divine

What Aunt Katherine was expressing, in the language of her time, was an awareness that we are not a perfect people, a perfect nation, and that we need mending. As a child growing up in Falmouth, Massachusetts, she had a concern for the welfare of Native American children and an awareness that the way her - and my - ancestors had treated those who were here before us was the reason that those children were not as privileged as she was. She was, actually, not nearly as privileged as I have been. After her father's death soon after her birth, her family struggled for years, but it was in those years of struggle that Katherine became aware of the needs of others, including native American children.

I would be surprised if Aunt Katherine's words ever became our National Anthem, but I hope that they will always be part of our national memory, challenging us with their appeal to our "better angels."

Family

I have been pretty good at honoring my decision not to get bothered by all the high drama within the Anglican Communion, but I do still read some of the blogs that deal with such matters. Recent comments about the ongoing discussion of the proposed Anglican Covenant brought to mind a discussion that I had several years ago with a friend and colleague. He had suggested an analogy for the crisis in the Communion that had been precipitated by the Episcopal Church's decision to ordain Gene Robinson to the episcopate. It was, he said, like one member of a family deciding to paint the family home without consulting others about the color. My response was that the analogy was a bit off, that we had only chosen to paint our own room.

Analogies aside, the idea of the Communion as a family does provide some insight into the crisis and into the attempts to resolve it. Whether in softer or harder ways the attempts have been aimed at making the Episcopal Church get in line with other members of the Communion on the matter of same-sexuality. Not all the other members, to be sure, but with what appears to be a majority of the members churches. The attempts, to use my friend's analogy, are aimed at limiting the choices of color for one's room.

All this insistence upon family conformity brought to mind how mistaken I was about my mother's political convictions when I was 13. That was the year of the Kennedy-Nixon race and I was convinced that my mother was voting for Nixon. After all her parents were staunch Republicans and I never heard her say anything in support of Kennedy during the campaign. It was decades later that she told me that she had, of course, voted for Kennedy, but that she had said nothing about it so as not to upset her parents.

For years Episcopalians had been moving towards "voting for" sacramental equality in the Episcopal Church. Much of that movement was not noticed by many others within the Communion, but after Bishop Robinson's consecration it was hard to ignore it. Like members of some families, some in the Communion think that it is impossible to remain a family with such differences of conviction. I disagree. After all, my mother and I still loved her parents, even though they had voted, we assume, for Richard Nixon.

How Long?

In preparing for this past Sunday's sermon at Saint Michael's Church in Marblehead, I found the opening verse of the psalm claiming my attention: How long, O LORD? will you forget me for ever? how long will you hide your face from me? How rare is it for us to get that honest about our suffering. We live is a culture which is suffering-averse, a society in which the expected answer to "How are you?" is "Fine."

In God and Human Suffering the Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall points out that in the Genesis accounts of Creation there is suffering, even before the Fall. Humans suffer from loneliness, limitations, temptations, and anxiety. In fact, without these sources of suffering, we would not be able to recognize the blessings of friendship, the joy of personal growth within the inherent limits of our humanity, the maturity that comes from resisting temptation, or the peace that comes from entrusting our anxious minds to God. Such suffering is unavoidable, but far from being the ultimate reality for us. Neither is the suffering that comes after the Fall - the fratricide of Cain and all the injustices and atrocities that have followed. 

To find our way to experiencing the ultimate reality of the One who chooses to be God only in relationship with us, to be Immanuel, God with us, we need to be honest about our own suffering. We need to learn again the value of lament, the value of beating down the doors of heaven with our cries of "How long...?" We can never be in solidarity with those who suffer more conspicuously in our world until we are honest - at least with God, if not with those closest to us - about our own sufferings. We cannot be the wounded healers that the world needs if we keep denying our own wounds.

Later on Sunday I discussed the sermon with a close friend who is a psychiatrist. He asked if I thought many of my colleagues would have preached such a sermon.  Perhaps there would not be many, just as in our wider society it seems that psychiatrists are among the few who are willing to face the reality of our suffering. Perhaps aversion to suffering still has the upper-hand and that we continue to be in denial about the impossibility - and undesirability -of a suffering-free world. But maybe, just maybe, the myth of endless progress has lost its allure and we can dare to be honest about the suffering that is inherent in human life and have the courage to relieve the unjust suffering that so many have to endure.

The Good News of Immanuel was lived out by one who was acquainted with suffering, who embraced our humanity, suffering and all. And we who are called to bear witness to that Good News are also called to embrace our own humanity, suffering and all.