Occupy Everything.

Oh friends, I’ve been stretched thin lately. It feels like the older I get, the more I have to worry about and the busier I become. I look back at the countless all-nighters for which I was famous in college and think – man, so much energy and stamina so utterly wasted! If only I could have a fraction of that energy back to deal with the endless nights when Monster refuses to sleep! If only I could time travel back and use those wasted nights to finish my sermon, pay my bills, plan a session retreat or develop a strategic plan! If only I could have a few of those hours to just think! And the great irony of getting old is that, the more you have to bitch about, the less you feel like you can bitch. My nights are consumed by a monster that I created and love more than breath itself. My job stresses are evidence that I, in fact, have a job in this terrible economy: and what’s more, a job that fulfills my greatest calling and desire in this world too boot! In fact, most of the things that make me stressed and overwhelmed are things by which and for which I am blessed! Damnit.

As I grow up, I am learning that the stress I feel (kept to healthy levels) comes from being responsible for the blessings I’ve received. I reap all the benefits of being a father and for that I bear tremendous responsibility to monster and to his upraising and even to society for how I raise him. Seems fair. I reap the benefits of my job, of being a pastor, of being a member of the Hesed Community, from the friends and family I love and from being a member of this great social experiment called the middle class – and so I owe an enormous debt of gratitude for those blessings and have a responsibility to nurture those blessings. And it is knowing how to nurture them and balancing the time it requires to nurture all of them that create much of the stress in my life.

This understanding of gratitude and responsibility is what has led me to be somewhat obsessed with our political system over the years. I’ve never missed a vote since I was 18. I’ve called senators and representatives hundreds of times. I’ve been involved in school levy campaigns and presidential campaigns and everything in between. I speak my mind and I lobby for decisions that I think are in the best interest of all, but especially in the best interest of those who need the most help in our society. I (and my entire family) have benefited from the New Deal policies and ethos that have dominated American politics for the last half century in tremendous ways. And I have watched in horror as that understanding of who we are as a country and as those safety networks have been unraveled by a concerted and shadowy effort of the far right in American politics. I have watched the rise of the neo-Robber Barons have swept aside regulations designed to protect us little folks – from the economy to the environment to work place safety and beyond – and accrued unimaginable fortunes along the way – even as my families wages have dipped and our prospects for the future have flagged. As a pastor, I’ve watched people who worked hard their entire life lose their pensions , have their benefits ridiculed and vilified on the nightly news and whose jobs have been RIF’ed at the drop of a hat by a corporation whose CEO was raking in record bonuses.

A big part of my stress comes from living in country in which things just aren’t fair. And sure, no system is perfect and no economic system ever imagined can end human suffering; I’m not naive. But this America we are becoming, with its Tea Parties and Citizen United is an America in which we are moving farther and farther from our ideals with every passing hour. Justice is for sale in this country. And when money transplants truth in the system, things get messy. Truth is for sale. There is no such thing as fact anymore – everything is presented as one side of an argument, equally valid – so those who deny climate change or evolution or make ridiculous arguments about the stimulus bill or Obama’s birth certificate (despite the overwhelming scientific evidence in the one case and overwhelming legal evidence in the other) are somehow equally valid public authorities as the scientists who do actual research. This is a country in which Bank of America posts a 6.2 billion dollar PROFIT but still claims that federal regulations literally drove it to charging it’s poor schlub account holders 5 dollars a month for using a debit card in order to stay profitable. And no one calls them out on their bullshit. No one cares that they frauded hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure using robosigners or that that their corrupt lending practices lured thousands of homeowners into ruin. And their money makes sure that no politician will ever move against them for their sins. America continues this bizarre drift to the extreme right and for what? For the profit of a few; a few who have never had it so good as this and yet are so adept at convincing us that they are the actual victims.

I’ve about had it. I spend obscene amounts of time considering the occupy Wall Street protests. They offend my more centrist’s tendencies in some ways because they move beyond talk of reform and into talk of revolution. But on second thought, maybe that’s not so far from what we need after all.

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