An
arch of colored balloons towered above, and hundreds of booths spread
out before us. People of all kinds milled around - old and young -
black, yellow, brown and white - able bodied and wheelchair bound -
LGBTQ and straight. It was like a county fair. “PARTY TIME!” I
shouted as I grabbed a miniature rainbow flag and a bunch of silly
buttons. The 2015 Boston Pride march and celebration was in full
swing.
“They're
coming! They're coming!” someone cried; and we rushed to the parade
route. Soon I was standing in the street, cheering and “high
five-ing” the marchers. For several hours I lost myself in the
dancing and commotion.
As
we left the parade, my
wife nudged me and said, teasingly, “Chuck,
you looked like a Dufus out there.” She was right. Here I was, an
older, overweight man, in shorts, with a rainbow flag in my teeth,
dancing around on the street. I didn't care. I had been part of
something wonderful.
“Besides,”
I rationalized, ”I'm not the only Dufus in history.” “Some
pretty important people acted this way when they were transported
beyond themselves.”
President
Obama became the “Dufus-In-Chief” during his eulogy for slain
pastor Clementa Pinckney who was gunned down by a deranged man during
a Bible study on June 18, 2015.i
The President broke with tradition and led the congregation in
singing Amazing
Grace while he
swayed to the music.ii
Speaker
of the house, John Boehner, acted like a Dufus when Pope Francis
addressed the US Congress earlier this year. Mr. Boehner wiped tears
from his eyes numerous times during the Pope's speech. The following
day he announced his resignation with the following statement:
“Speaker
Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this
institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the
one thing that unites and inspires us all.” Critics said that Mr.
Boehner resigned as a failure because he couldn't even unite his own
party.
Mother
Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta, was a Dufus by the standards
of Roman
Catholic Saints. As a young woman, she experienced a dramatic call
from Jesus,
whom she loved with all her heart. She responded by committing her
life to the destitute, providing them with a place where they could
die with comfort and dignity. Early in this ministry, her connection
with Jesus evaporated. Her faith based work for the poor was driven
instead by her extraordinary willpower. For nearly fifty years,
she thought of herself as a hypocrite when she talked about the love
of God.iii
Dorothy
Day also stood outside the mainstream. She, a writer and founder of
the Catholic Worker Movement, was a misfit and embarrassment to the
Romana Catholic Church. As a young woman,
she was attracted to both socialism and anarchism. She was active in
the women's suffrage movement and was friends with leading members of
the Communist party. A pacifist and anti-war activist, she lived a
Bohemian life style in Greenwich Village, had several love affairs
and an abortion. She became pregnant again and raised her daughter
as a single parent.
She
said of her friend, writer Eugene O'Neil, "(He caused) an
intensification of the religious sense that was in me." In
March of 1926, Dorothy Day encountered a local nun who helped educate
her in the faith. She joined the Roman Catholic Church and soon
challenged the hierarchy to live more like Jesus.iv
Dorothy Day's life of special
solidarity with the poor inspired many:
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk;
Cesar Chavez, President of the United Farm Workers Union;
Robert Coles, the Harvard University
medical professor;
and socialist, Michael Harrington. Harrington, inspired by his
experience in the Catholic Worker Movement, later challenged the
nation with his classic book, The
Other America. This
book, in turn, served as
inspiration for President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty.”
Even
some of our most revered religious figures played the role of Dufus,
standing outside socially accepted norms of their time:
- Jesus refused to play the role of a respected teaching rabbi. He hung out with unsavory characters, including skid row bums, prostitutes and the hated tax collectors.vii Some called him a glutton and a drunkard, and others thought him a traitor to the state.
- The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was an Indian prince raised in royal opulence. He, a skilled leader trained in the arts of war, was expected to succeed his father as emperor. Overcome by his compassion and concern for the poor, he abandoned his young wife and child and disappeared into the forest to live as an ascetic. Judged by cultural standards, he was a failure as a leader, husband, father and son.
Pope
John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Counsel, had a wonderful,
almost bawdy sense of humor. In the 1940s he, an archbishop and the
papal ambassador, was at an elegant dinner party seated across from a
woman wearing a low-cut dress that exposed a good deal of cleavage.
Someone turned to him and said, "Your Eminence, what a scandal!
Aren't you embarrassed that everyone is looking at that woman?"
He said, "Oh no, everyone is looking at me, to see if I'm
looking at her." Later, as Pope JohnXXIII, he visited a Roman
hospital called the Hospital of the Holy Spirit. Shortly after
entering, he was introduced to the sister who ran the hospital. "Holy
Father," she exclaimed, "I am the superior of the Holy
Spirit." "Well, I
must say, you're lucky," said the pope, delighted. "I'm
only the Vicar of Christ!"viii
These
Dufus stories are interesting and even entertaining. But they are
more than this. We live in times of great change. Consciousness itself is shifting. With this shift, our images of the
transcendent, our God images, are also changing. Some say this shift
is as profound as that which occurred during the first Axial Age
(800-200 BCE) when all of the major world religions emerged.ix
Established
institutions - political, religious and social - are now less
trusted. Voter involvement is decreasing. Many of the remaining
voters are now attracted to outsiders who criticize politics as usual
- people like Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the
right. Church attendance is declining, particularly among the
young.x
Dominant social/moral values are less well defined as evidenced by;
increasing
tension regarding same sex marriage;
abortion;
death penalty;
relations
among people of different races, religions and cultures. In
addition, we are challenged by human crises: global warming;
inequitable distribution of resources; increasingly violent military
conflicts.
These
shifts have deep social implications,
because our world is profoundly interconnected. Each of our actions
produces unintended consequences that are difficult to predict. As
the influence of old moral and faith traditions declines, our more regressive instincts resurface. Personal and collective decisions are
based more on individual and tribal concerns than for the good of
all. Localized suspicion of those who are different generates
ripples of fear, distrust and violence in the whole. The recent
terrorist attacks in Paris and subsequent distrust of Muslims are
only the latest indication of such dangers. World leaders gather in
Paris to address global warming, a crisis which threatens us all.
This unprecedented gathering
is necessary because many
political, business and religious leaders have too long denied or
ignored the crisis.
Even
as I name these issues, I remain hopeful because we each contain a
bit of that mysterious life that
courses through the cosmos. For
some, this mystery manifests itself through the faith traditions that
have inspired and energized people for centuries. For others, this
mystery inspires, motivates and energizes in ways not completely
understood. Regardless of our personal circumstances, we each have
the potential to step outside our boxes of convention for the sake of
our authentic selves.
Our
challenge now, as in the past, is to nurture this potential. If you
are inspired by traditional faith traditions and practices, engage
these with intentionality and passion. The Apostle Paul, speaking to
Christians, likens this type of commitment to that of an athletic
preparing for competition. He says:
“You’ve all been to the
stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to
win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that
tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally. I
don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line.
I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m
staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught
napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out
myself.” (1
Corinthians 9:24-27 - The Message)
If
you are no longer grasped by traditional religious rituals and
practices, you are still implicated as a member of the human race.
You too are challenged to work for peace, justice, and health for the
earth and all its inhabitant. In many cases, your task is more
difficult than that of traditional believers. You have no set of
proscribed practices to rely on. You must either adapt traditional
practices to your new circumstance or develop totally new ones. You
will be challenged to find or develop communities of like-minded
individuals to support you. In many respects, your journey resembles
Dorothy Day's life of special solidarity with the poor. She
associated with communists, socialists, anarchists, artists and
intellectuals, most not part of religious organizations, to achieve
her goals. Your challenge is to proceed as an explorer into uncharted
territory, drawn by the prospect of discovering new possibilities for
yourself and humanity.
We
all have Dufus potential. At our core we all experience compassion
for those who suffer and a yearning for peace and justice. Even
though we are just regular folk, we can inspire others to be more
than they think they are. We, like the Dufuses of the past, can live
our lives with authenticity and integrity, not taking ourselves too
seriously. We, the ordinary ones, can
live extraordinary lives.
I
will speak more of this in my next blog post - “Changing Times -
Part II.”
i http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/rev-clementa-pinckney-killed-charleston-church-massacre-article-1.2262261
ii http://time.com/3938544/amazing-grace-obama-funeral/
iii http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160#a-new-calling
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/24/wasmotherteresaanatheist
An excellent cummary of Dorthy Day's
life is found in <CHAPTER
8---DOROTHY DAY - SFP Home>
v The Ark of the Covenant contained the stone tablets of the 10
commandments that Moses had received from Yahweh. Furthermore,
Yahweh was said to dwell between the Golden Angels carved on top of
the arc.
vi
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 David
had just become the ruler of a divided Israel. To unite the kingdom
he moved the Ark of the Covenant to the new capitol, Jerusalem.
vii Luke
7:31-35
viii
The humorous stories of saints are directly quoted from the article
by Rev. James Martin S.J., Huff Post, Religion, Nov. 1, 2012
ix Reference
Karen Armstron A New Axial Age –
www.adishakti.org/_/a_new_axial_age_by_karen_armstrong
