Rebecca James Hecking's Blog, page 3

Don’t Just Pray, Do Something!

Last night, the sadly not-so-unthinkable happened in Paris. Of course, we grieve. Of course, we stand in solidarity with the people of France. All fine, all good. Stand and grieve, grieve and stand.

But it is not enough.

Almost immediately, social media was flooded with #prayforparis, photos and memes urging us to pray, and peace signs integrating the Eiffel Tower. A day later, on Facebook, the trend is to superimpose the French flag over your profile picture to show your empathy and sympathy for the people of France, along with all the prayers. I expect that churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques around the world will be filled with prayers for France. All fine, all good.  Prayers and flags, flags and prayers.

But it is not enough.

I am not one who holds to the theology that if only we pray hard enough or long enough or in just the right way believing just the right things that the Big Daddy in the Sky will give us what we want, whether that is a good parking spot, or a miraculous cure, or perhaps to smite those who harm us with pestilence and thunderbolts. Nope. It doesn’t work like that, folks. Don’t believe me?  Open your eyes. I dare you.

For every claim of a miracle cure, there are so many more whose prayers were not answered, whose loved one died of the cancer anyway. For every one whose house was miraculously spared from the tornado, there are so many more whose houses were destroyed, who prayed just as hard, whose faith was just as strong and who are left to pick up the pieces of shattered lives. For every one who hid in a corner, in a closet, in a basement, who were not found by the invading army, or the Nazis, or Boko Haram, or ISIS, there were a thousand who were found, who were taken, who were murdered. So no, do not speak to me of a capricious god who spares one and destroys another just because, just because…

Do not speak to me of a fickle god who gives a damn about parking places, or coffee cups, or whether one says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas, and yet allows toddlers to wash up, dead, onto beaches. Such a petty and small deity is not worth my time.

At its best, prayer changes us, the ones doing the praying. At its best, it can open our hearts, grow our compassion, and transform bitterness into empathy. At its best, it connects us to something greater than our own tiny lives, that we may at times call Divine. So yes, pray for Paris.

Then do something.

Engage in a random act of kindness. Help an elderly neighbor with his groceries, or help him get his trash can to the curb. Hold the door open for the mom struggling with a toddler. Leave some coins in the laundromat washer, so someone gets a load done for free. Do something more, a little extra, that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Do it for Paris.

Make a donation to a charity in memory of those who died in the streets, theaters, and cafes of Paris. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Donate what you can afford. Pick a charity with a good financial record, one that does good work rather than line the pockets of its CEO. Do a little research, then donate. Do it for Paris.

Speak up against radical fundamentalism of any kind. Challenge the theology of that petty, small, fussy god who blesses the televangelist but turns away the homeless, the addicted, and the refugee. Speak up against hate. Speak up for peace. Speak up for love. Do it for Paris.

Speak up, and keep on speaking up.  Do what you can, and keep doing it. Give what you can, and keep giving.

Pray if you wish, but then get busy. There is always work to be done.

Halloween Bugaboos and Really Scary Things

Are you afraid of Halloween? I mean the actual holiday itself, not the old movie. I mean this as a sincere question. I live in a conservative corner of northwest Pennsylvania, sort of a Bible-belt-lite, and around here, there are churches so worried about the evils of the actual holiday that they earnestly offer alternatives to the impressionable youth,  with cryptic names like “Trunk-n-Treat” (I still haven’t figured out what the trunk is supposed to be) or celebrate thinly veiled (pun unintended but still works) “Harvest Festivals” where little kids are allowed to dress up in church-approved costumes while getting candy and a hefty dose of proselytizing. I suppose I could go on about how Halloween itself historically traces back to actual harvest festivals, but that’s for another post.

Before I go any further, let me declare for the record that I am not one who enjoys horror movies or any sort of violence as entertainment. I abhor violent video games, and think animal abusers should be locked up.  I do not even really celebrate Halloween beyond putting up a few jack-o-lantern decorations around the house. I don’t care for fake-blood splattered seasonal haunted houses, even if they do raise money for charity. This year, now that we have an empty nest, we plan to avoid the thunderous herds/hordes that descend upon our neighborhood in the annual sugar-fest of actual trick-or-treat night and maybe go to a movie instead. For me personally, it’s huzzah for beautiful autumn and a big giant “meh” for Halloween.

I am not, however, afraid of it, and I hope you aren’t either. It astonishes me that churches feel the need to offer an “alternative” to the mainstream, presumably Satan-induced festivities.  Seriously? Seriously??  In centuries past, before modern science explained things like solar eclipses, bacterial plagues and mental illnesses, ascribing all the scary things of life to an evil figure like Satan allowed people to make sense of the world. It also allowed the religious hierarchy to persecute innocent people (mostly women, of course) under the guise of them being in league with the big bad dude downstairs. In the 21st century, it’s time to call Satan what he really is: a psychological projection of our own fears that has historically been hijacked for purposes of controlling the masses. Boo!!

At its best, Halloween invites us to contemplate our own mortality, remember our ancestors, and sip some hot cider while we cozy up by the glow of a jack-o-lantern.

At its worst, it is a silly bugaboo, a psychological projection of the fears of fundamentalists (Omg, there are people who think differently than we do! They must be evil) that has been hijacked for purposes of indoctrinating the masses of kids who just want candy. If Satan existed, he would be found in CIA black sites and Nazi concentration camps, not in plastic cauldrons or bed-sheet ghosts.

There are plenty of scary things in the world, even things I would call evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that the line between good and evil passes through every human heart, and given world history, I would have to agree. Evolution has left us with primitive survival instincts and group-cohesion instincts that can drift toward violence if left unchecked by good judgement from our ethical prefrontal cortexes.

Moving from the global to the personal, the REALLY scary things out there include war, genocide, especially religiously motivated genocide, climate change (yes, really), mass extinction, the destruction of the natural world, pollution, poverty, corporate greed, racism/sexism/homophobia, sexual assault, child abuse, cruelty to animals, and how we have a tendency to dehumanize those with whom we disagree.

Nowhere on that admittedly incomplete list do I find a holiday that involves costumed kids and large amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. Okay, maybe from a dental point of view it is a little bit scary.

So, no fear! No fear. Dress up. Have fun. Be safe. Most of all, be kind. Be strong. Be loving. Be brave. Pick an issue from the list of really scary things, and do your small bit to make the world better. Don’t let the fear-mongers and fundy preachers have the last word.

Boo! Happy Halloween.

Rethinking the American Dream

Here in the U.S., we have a collective fantasy: the American Dream. In many ways it’s out of touch with reality, but yet questioning it or challenging it brings a fierce pushback because we WANT it to be true so very badly. It fuels our hopes, and (conveniently) provides a weapon to bludgeon and blame those who fall short.  Enough already.

The storyline is this: that anyone, no matter their background, ethnicity, race, religion, or economic status can “make it” and succeed in this country if only they try hard enough. No matter the obstacles, if you name it you can claim it. If you see it, you can be it. Believe in yourself. Just try. No success yet? Try harder. Still no success? Well, that’s your fault. We love an underdog, but only if they eventually become the top dog.

Examples are all around us. Just watch any “reality” (ha) style talent show like American Idol, The Voice, America’s Got Talent, Top Chef, or whatever… The winner, flush with victory, gushes “Anything is possible if you try! Anything is possible if you believe in yourself!”

People like current presidential candidate Ben Carson are trotted out as examples of the possible. Carson came from humble beginnings and worked hard to get to the top of his medical field, even before his presidential run. I do not doubt that Carson worked very hard. I don’t doubt the obstacles he overcame. I know that his success is also due to a combination of personal support (family, teachers, mentors), financial support (scholarships both public and private) and the occasional lucky break. He is gifted intellectually, and has a lot of natural people skills and that most ephemeral of traits, “personality.”  His good looks certainly don’t hurt matters either.

Although I don’t agree with Carson politically or religiously, I can respect him, and all the hard work on his part that it took for him to be where he is today. I also know that he is an anomaly, the exception to the rule, the one-in-a-million. Good for him. If he inspires others to study hard, that’s fine too. But for all those million kids who look to him in admiration, and study hard, only one will become THE ONE. What about the other 999,999?

This is where I take issue with the American Dream. The near-impossible is held up as the norm, and the attitude toward (for example) poor, disadvantaged kids is “Ben Carson made it, why can’t you??” followed by cuts in funding for programs to help those same kids.

Not every little kid in Little League will make it to the majors. Chances are you won’t ever be a movie star, or an astronaut, or president, or play in the NFL, or be a James Bond type spy living a glamorous life with top-secret clearances.  This is the case even if you work hard, and even if you have talent and intelligence.

Every semester, when I start a new class, I give my students a survey. This mostly serves to let me know who their advisor is, what their major is, and if they have any special circumstances or issues they want to tell me about. One of the questions is about “career goals, hopes and dreams.” Nearly everyone lists very grandiose goals: doctor, lawyer, start my own company, coach in the NFL, FBI agent, surgeon, write novels, become a billionaire…  Doctor or entrepreneur? Possible for some. Billionaire or NFL coach? Unlikely.

I had one student years ago in a remedial class who desperately wanted to be an aerospace engineer, but who, try as he might, just couldn’t master the math. No amount of hard work and effort on his part could change that.  No amount of effort on my part could convince him that he should rethink his career goals to something not quite so math-intensive. I could think of many career paths far more suitable, but he was having none of it. He was convinced that he only needed to “believe” and it would happen. Eventually, after several semesters of struggle, he left, disappointed and miserable. I wonder what ever became of him.

Somewhere along the line, he had completely bought into the American Fantasy of Anything is Possible if Only You Believe.  The dark side of this fantasy is that if you fail, we will blame and shame you for your failure.

I think that we, as a nation, need a healthier mindset. We need to stop idolizing our billionaires, and stop blaming the working poor. We need to be realistic with ourselves, and gentle with ourselves when we struggle.  It’s not that we shouldn’t GO FOR IT, but rather we should go for it with eyes fully open to reality, and with a Plan B in mind.  We need to let go of the delusion that we can all be movie stars or Wall Street masters. We need to be kinder to each other, both personally, and with our public policy.

We need a new dream. Better yet, forget the dream. We need a new reality.

Back at it.

After several months off and on hiatus, I’ve decided to pick up Snark and Bluster again. Life intervened as life tends to do, but I’ve missed writing, and find that the regular discipline of a blog helps focus my thoughts and refine my ideas. So, back to the drawing board (rather, computer keyboard) we go.  I’m aiming for a weekly post every Saturday, so check back regularly or better yet, subscribe to the blog feed.

So many things call out to me from the week’s news, and most of them tend to fall along very predictable political fault lines. The usual suspects are trotted out on both sides. The usual accusations are flung (one imagines baboons flinging poop at this point). And then everyone retreats to their respective corners, hunkering down. I’ve done it too, but by now, my small circle knows what I think, and either ignores me or gives me virtual high-fives.  I know who will do what going in, but social media is like catnip. Irresistible.

I find myself of two minds, with the pendulum predictably swinging between wanting to simply disengage from it all entirely, and wanting to jump in with both feet and fists flying. Which mind wins out on any given day may depend on what else is going on in my life and how many cups of coffee I’ve had. Maybe there’s a third way. Maybe I can disengage from the drama, but still dig into the issues of the day. I’m not quite sure it can be done, and I know there are moments when I’m not capable of it, but I’ll give it a go.

One topic of the week was the congressional hearing with the head of Planned Parenthood. As expected, both sides talk past each other, and remain as deeply entrenched as ever.  I now consider myself to be pro-choice, but I used to be pro-life, mostly for religious reasons. As my religious beliefs shifted over the years, my thoughts on abortion paralleled that shift.

The intractability of this issue comes from both sides arguing from the extremes. Pro-life believers conjure images of fully formed, full-term, healthy babies just moments from birth in their arguments. Pro-choice advocates by contrast tend to use fertilized eggs, zygotes, or early-stage embryos for their arguments.

The reality is that a pregnancy, wanted or not, encompasses the whole spectrum, and therein lies the problem. Would I morally support the idea of a woman 8 months pregnant with a healthy fetus just “changing her mind” and waltzing into a clinic on a whim?  Of course not. Absolutely not.  At the other extreme, do I think that a fertilized egg, or an embryo in the earliest stages of development, cells just starting to differentiate, is the moral equivalent of a 6 month old baby or a 3 year old child? Of course not.

Should the act of taking the “abortion pill” immediately upon learning one is pregnant be the moral equivalent of infanticide? I think most people would say no. The further along in the pregnancy, the more morally problematic pregnancy termination becomes, and the more it should be restricted.

If I really want fewer abortions overall, and fewer abortions occurring later in pregnancy, what has to happen is clear. Contraceptives must be freely available, with as few barriers (financial or otherwise) to their use as possible, and terminating a pregnancy very early on should not be made difficult. The more barriers we put to block early termination, the more we push the procedure into the moral quagmire of the second trimester.

Of course, my entire thought process takes religion out of the picture. I no longer look at this issue through a religious lens. And therein lies another social conundrum. Those who advocate from a position of religious morality cannot allow any policy that deviates from it. They invoke “God says thus” and are relieved of having to wrestle with the issue in a complex way that acknowledges biological reality.

Biological reality is that development occurs on a continuum, from single cell to full term birth. Historical reality is that abortions have occurred in every culture across time, regardless of legal status. Sensible policy requires us to acknowledge both those realities.