A View From the Sycamore

Hey You! Yes, You!! You’re in the War!!!

I’ve unintentionally shared fake news. The odds are pretty high you have, too. it’s embarrassing, annoying, and uncomfortable. We are in a war and if you are on social media, you are almost certainly a combatant. Russia attacked our 2016 presidential election. Investigations into how the American public was manipulated by Russian cyber strategies report that evoking “outrage” was the easiest and most effective avenue for spreading disinformation designed to influence elections and to destabilize our nation. On Facebook, Twitter or whatever other media platform you use, it’s easy to share outrage with the click of a button. Right now, there is a lot to be outraged about, but when outrage is whipped up artificially it becomes a weapon. I’m easily outraged, so today I remind myself and encourage all of us to beware of manipulation. It is one thing to be outraged over actual injustices. It is another to become a tool of a hostile government in a cyber war on our democracy.

Outrage is a powerful tool because it heats up our emotions while simultaneously shutting down our thinking. We feel emotions faster than we think thoughts and our emotions will then color how we process the information as we read it. It requires mature intentions to reign in our emotional impulses and think. It doesn’t matter how intelligent we are or what our political perspective is, we can be had. Outrage arises out of a sense that our values are being violated. The more fundamental those values are to our identity, the more outrage we feel. Also, it feels good and moral to call it out. Sometimes it is, and that is why outrage is a useful part of our emotional repertoire. It also makes us vulnerable to manipulation with lies or twisted facts. This happens on both the political left and right, in sermons, in commercials, in the news, and most especially on social media. We are fed a constant diet of outrage that is turning us into a frightened, angry, and even violent nation.

What can we do? You can, of course, decide just to turn it all off, ignore everything and go about your life. At times, that’s absolutely the right thing to do, but in a democracy, we have an obligation to participate at least in voting. Responsible participation requires that we spend some time getting informed. Perhaps in times of personal crisis we can ignore the world, it is not a wise overall strategy because then our world will be shaped by those who count on our cynicism, ignorance, or non-participation.

To get informed, here are some useful questions about what we’re ingesting on social media:

Is it verifiable that what I’m reading really happened? According to Business Insider in 2019 the top 100 false stories were viewed over 150 million times on social media. That’s about the number of registered voters in the U.S. Out of that Top 100, her are a few from the 2019 Top 10 most-shared “fake news” stories:
- “AOC (Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] proposed a motorcycle ban. (It didn’t happen.) – 6100 shares
- “Joe Biden called Trump supporters ‘dregs of society.’” (He didn’t.) – 9500 shares
- [Congresswoman] “Ilhan Omar Holding Secret Fundraisers With Islamic Groups Tied to Terror” (Never happened.) 14,000 shares
- “Nancy Pelosi diverting Social Security money for impeachment inquiry.” (No, she wasn’t and didn’t.) – 29,000 shares
- “Trumps grandfather was a pimp and tax evader, and his father belonged to the KKK” (Neither is true.) #1 (156,000 shares)

Each of these stories are meant to provoke outrage in a segment of the population. Seven of the top 10 most shared false news stories intended to outrage Trump supporters, but the most shared one promoted outrage among Trump’s more liberal opponents.

2. Do I find this outrageous? Just because a story riles me up does not make it false, but it is every reason to slow down and double-check the story. Is the source relatively unbiased? If you’re not sure, you can check where the media source falls on a continuum of skewed Left to Right, and Less Reliable to More Reliable by clicking here.

3. Can I find this story with similar details on news sites rated as “reliable”? Reading the same story on a couple of different sites with different skews can help you both know more about the story and begin to determine which sites are skewed which direction.

4. Does the headline use words like “destroyed” or “explosive”. Does the language in the article use language like “BLM terrorists” or “conservative idiots”? All such language communicates a bias and simultaneously inflames outrage in the intended audience.

Outrage is easy, skews our thinking, and influences our votes based on false information. Thinking is harder, but the more discerning we become the less likely we are to be unintentionally drafted into a cyber war against our own country.

Be careful out there. AB

How to Tell a Fish It is Wet

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA, Photographer, Nick Hobgood, Wikimedia Commons

In my Master of Social Work studies, I was required to take a class on policy. I was not enthused because I viewed policy as boring. How wrong I was. I soon realized we all swim in a sea of policies making our lives easier or harder, wealthier or poorer. Policies express our values. From paved roads to public toilets, from tax codes to building codes, from education to economics, from abortion to Jim Crow, from definitions of marriage to unpaid maternity leave, there are tens of thousands of policies impacting and shaping our daily lives. Every law or regulation implements a policy. We are all in the sea, and we are all soaking wet. Those policies get put into place by politicians and politics is how we select them. So, when people tell me they are not interested in politics, I know they are, as I used to be, a fish who has no idea what it means to be wet; failing to recognize the sea in which we swim. Politics determines policy and we should care about that as much as a fish cares about the quality of the water in which it lives.

Around this same time, I came across a quote by one of the most conservative Presidents of the 20^th Century, Calvin Coolidge:

“When you live in a democracy, you are a politician whether you wish to be or not.”

By voice and vote we all influence policy, but the opposite of that is also true. When we silence our voices or ignore our votes, we also influence policy. The difference is that by the first means we do it intentionally while by the latter, we do it by default. Either way, policies are added or subtracted from the sea in which we all swim; we all get wet. Failing to be “political” means I have ceded all my influence to others and must live with what they choose to give me. It also means I fail my democracy.

While policy bores us, politics annoys us and we love to hate politicians who run “the Government”. And this is not accidental. From at least the time of Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Inaugural pronouncement that “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” we have been fed a steady diet of how bad government and politicians are. We have been taught the government should get out of the way of the market and let the market rule. We have been made cynical about government and this led us to today, what many Gen-X and Millennials refer to as “end stage capitalism.” As anti-tax warrior Grover Norquist put it, the plan is to make government so small you can drown it in the bathtub.

Here’s the problem. We’re the government. We’re the politicians. We’re the ones called to pay attention, educate ourselves on the issues, and vote accordingly. Our learned cynicism has diminished our voices in the face of market forces that care nothing about societal good. The markets will not save us, nor do they plan to give us a better society. Indeed, they are told their ethical obligation is to maximize profits even over societal good. (Read an excellent blog on this here.) One of the most expensive crimes in the nation is wage theft where businesses fail to pay their employees for worked hours. This theft amounts to $8 billion dollars stolen annually from workers. If corporations are people, many are sociopaths.

While we held politicians in contempt, failed to vote, and proudly proclaimed our disinterest in “politics”, powerful monied interests simultaneously found ways to absorb the vast majority of the wealth and fix the laws so that what was once considered blatant corruption is not only legal, it is the general practice of the day. When the Supreme Court—packed with conservative judges placed there by “trickle-down” politicians—ruled that money was free speech, they silenced us by taking away the volume of our voice. It now takes millions of us to match a single billionaire. We are outshouted by the wealthy. For example, 89% of Americans favor universal background checks on gun purchases, but so far the NRA and other gun manufacturing lobbyists have successfully stifled any legislation to this end by “donations” in black money. Why doesn’t a bankruptcy clear student loans? Because banks didn’t like it. As Congress became less responsive to us, our cynicism about government grew. Enough.

What to do? Dismiss your cynicism about government. The government is not the problem because the government is us. But it will only work for us when we invest ourselves and demand those we elect represent us. Reclaim your voice and your vote. It will not be easy. The monied interests have deeply embedded themselves in our psyche, and in electoral and legislative processes, i.e. in our government. They may say they hate it, but they sure know how to use it. They have diminished our power and our voice. Right now, the tools we have are our bodies, our voices, and our votes. They will fight with every trick, every personal attack, every backroom arm-twist they can muster to keep us cynical, silent and passive. Why is voter suppression rampant? Because your vote matters. Why are peaceful protesters met with violence? Because your bodies and your voices matter. Don’t badmouth the government; be the government. Insist your family and friends be the government, work to change the election laws and legislative processes that have crippled our voices and suppressed our votes.

The most cruel way to teach a fish it is wet is to leave it high and dry. We are nearly there. That is the brutal lesson we are forcibly learning now from our oligarchy bought-out Congressional and state legislatures. It’s past time to rouse ourselves back into the polluted waters of our political processes and demand the policies that will make the swamp clean again. It will never be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be poisonous.

May we heal the nation. AB

The Problem of Baboons

“The alpha male baboon is not a leader; he just has the best stuff.” –Robert M. Sapolsky, author, professor

I thought long and hard before writing this piece because comparing someone to one of our primate relatives is historically an odious, racist trope. Yet unlike racist intent, this is not about appearance or intellect – which one cannot change – it is about behavior which one can change. I use the comparison because it highlights a problem we must see clearly. And we do have a problem.

Robert Sapolsky, Stanford Professor of biology and neurology, studied baboons in their own habitat to better understand the biological basis of human behavior. Baboons live in social groups and the alpha male, typically the strongest and most aggressive, keeps his standing by intimidation and, when necessary, by violence. He does what he wants; getting his pick of the females and stealing food from other less aggressive males. Should you offer him food, he would think you’re weak. He will slaughter infants that are not his but keep his own progeny safe. In Sapolsky’s bestselling book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, he makes the observation I’ve quoted above, “The alpha male baboon is not a leader; he just has the best stuff.” The alpha male has no intention of serving the troop, he just wants access to the best resting spot, food and females for himself. In his standing, he feels entitled to anything he can take, all others are beneath him, and any resistance is met with force and violence.

America, we have made the mistake of putting an alpha male primate into a position calling for leadership. We mistook wealth—acquired by luck of birth, media fascination, and amoral animal cunning—with “success” as a leader. Too many of us mistook bullying for strength because the bully said things we wished we had the nerve to say. Donald J. Trump believes he should have the pick of the females and the possession of anything else he wants, including your lunch. His response to any challenge is to dominate and he will escalate to violence if intimidation fails. He will protect his own progeny and be violent to others. He has called state governors “weak” for not intimidating and “dominating” those protesting the murders of unarmed African Americans. In this behavior, Donald Trump literally has the morals of a baboon. I don’t say it merely as an insult; I say it as a statement of objective fact.

I also hesitated to write this because I don’t typically indulge in mere name-calling. I try to understand what’s correct in someone’s positions. However, as we now work to remove DJT from office, we see intimidation escalating to violence as a response. In recent days, DJT sent anonymous armed thugs into U.S. cities to deny American citizens the right to peacefully protest. Indeed, it appears they intend to provoke resistance so that he can make a show of force to impress and intimidate the rest of us. He cares not at all if anonymous “officers” violate the protesters’ Constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and free speech. To him the only rules or societal norms that matter are those serving his purpose to remain at the top. With all that, the time for being civil in our opposition is over.

Worst of all, this has happened at a time of maximum peril from a global pandemic that requires actual leadership. Such leadership springs from an intent to serve the common good, in turn requiring empathy and concern for others. These are impulses which the alpha male’s brain is not at all wired to do. Thus, the outcome of Trump’s baboon brain has been to serve only himself, to downplay the seriousness of this pandemic because it does not serve his re-election goals. Now we are a global epicenter of the pandemic, trapped inside our own nation by a wall—only ours is made up of disease and international disdain. How ironic. Our economy is trashed because the pandemic is uncontrolled because the alpha male baboon-in-chief is bored with it. Worse, DJT has inspired others to copy his behavior, engaging in their own narcissistic impulses, so that even wearing a mask – the simplest, most effective public health practice we currently have – has been transformed into a divisive message. A leader would have had the humility and intelligence to follow the science. The baboon-in-chief could not.

The next six months are going to be a dangerous time in America, perhaps the most dangerous since the Civil War. A plague is upon us and we not only have no leadership, we have an authoritarian baboon who plans to hurt us for trying to replace him with leadership. He has at his disposal levers of power and henchmen who will do his bidding regardless of legal barriers or social norms. This is a crisis; we must act like it.

I absolutely do not advocate violence of any kind, but our own non-violent response must be tougher and more unwavering than his. Conceding anything to him will be interpreted as weakness. He and his followers must obey the rule of law. We must insist that the U.S. Constitution means what it says. We must demand that law enforcement follow the Constitution, that our courts, our political leaders, our medical experts, and our own family, friends and neighbors do their civic duty to speak, to vote, to act, to publicly protest (in masks), to demand a higher calling from ourselves as a nation.

“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side.”

This is that moment.

If we fail, we will become Baboon America, and no one in the world will be safe from that.

Done With Dixie

I remember the first “minstrel” show I ever attended. My father was on the stage in blackface as one of the performers. This was the local Ruritan Club’s annual fundraiser in my small hometown in Virginia when I was a preteen, just becoming aware that the world was more complex than I had known. If anyone in the white community thought this show problematic, I never heard it. That annual event ended after a night when a group of brave, local African-Americans, with tickets duly purchased, took seats in the back of the hall and sat quietly stone-faced during the show and left just before it finished. This quiet confrontation put faces and names on those in the group being ridiculed and the minstrel show was never staged again in our community.

I was raised drenched in the Confederacy. Lexington, VA where I grew up is the home of Washington & Lee University where both of the named gentlemen served as Presidents. That campus is the Home of the Lee Chapel and Museum where Robert E. Lee is honored and he along with his family are interred in their crypt. Lexington also houses the Virginia Military Institute where the cadet/students who fought in the Civil War battle of New Market on the side of the Confederacy, are still lionized in a mural. The parade field there is lined with four of Stonewall Jackson’s cannons the so-called “Cadet Battery.” I was told Jackson named them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John because they “spoke loudly for The Lord.” The only home Jackson owned was a house in Lexington when he was a professor of philosophy and artillery at VMI. That building, now restored as Jackson’s dwelling for historical tours, housed the local hospital at the time I was born. So, yes, I was literally born in Stonewall Jackson’s house. Decals stating “The South will rise again” featuring an angry old Confederate soldier were commonly seen in public and private spaces. This genteel racism permeated my childhood; genteel from my perspective. I have no idea of what it was like to live in “colored town” as we called it – the African American community in the town. My school was first integrated under Federal order the year I began high school, much to the dismay of my family. It takes time, distance, and education to overcome the perspectives and misinformation we’re given as children. Some never achieve it. I recount my personal history on this issue to say that I get the Confederacy. I reject it and here is why.

I am proudly American and a student of history. They say “winners write the history” but that was not true of the Civil War. It is a singular, sad exception that in the century following the Civil War it was the South that wrote the history. The so-called “Lost Cause” narrative suggested the South fought for “states’ rights” while conveniently overlooking that the “right” they fought to preserve was nothing more than an inhumane policy to hold darker-skinned humans and their progeny in perpetual bondage. They erected monuments to those who led an armed insurrection against their own nation. Robert E. Lee was a former West Point Commandant who was offered the position of leading the Union forces. He wrongly chose the Confederacy and should bear the cost. Today people say their desire to maintain those memorials is to “honor tradition.” What in that tradition is honorable – the slavery, the racism, the betrayal of country, the Jim Crow laws? The Confederacy lasted a little over 4 years. I have underwear more resilient than that. They lost the war due to bad tactics and thank God they did. The only thing they won was the propaganda war that followed, the rewriting of history to glorify white supremacy by lionizing traitors to our nation’s evolution into “a more perfect Union.” I never feel more fully American than when I reject the Confederacy and the 100+ years of propaganda put out to justify it.

Further, those statues were not erected to teach history. We don’t need them for that, we know the history. No, they were erected as a statement of values. That’s what statues are, statements of values. The Statue of Liberty doesn’t teach us any history, it states our values as a diverse, welcoming nation sharing a vision of individual liberty, personal dignity, and a common good. That we have not always lived up to that vision does not dim its purpose. Rather it reminds us of what we should value even when we do not. Confederate statues and monuments glorify the values of the Confederacy, but behind the “courage” is the betrayal of nation. Behind the “standing for your principles” is slavery and continued racism. I don’t buy those values; I don’t know why anyone would.

You can be a proud Southerner if you mean the kinder culture than I find elsewhere in the nation. You can honor the cuisine (dang, I love me some Southern cooking), and the dialects. I love my Southern mountain accent. But those other values, we don’t need to buy into those any longer. I embrace American values of dignity regardless of race or class, individual liberty and balancing it with the common good, and similar virtues. Nothing in the Confederacy evoke my values.

Southerners, here is our real Lost Cause—It is time to let Dixie die. Those Confederate monuments are part of the pus and debris in the open wound of racism poisoning our nation for 400 years. Let’s finally drain the wound so healing can begin. I love many things about the South, but I’m done with Dixie. Let’s write history more accurately this time and put up monuments to our real American values, independence from tyranny, the courage to stand against inhuman policies, to stand for equity, diversity, and loyalty to our highest virtues. Let’s lift every voice and sing that song. Let that healing begin.

Tikkun Olam. AB

Nature Don’t Care

In my first semester of college I had a profound religious experience. Having grown up in a family that practiced a perfunctory Christianity, I found myself surrounded by friends who took their faith quite seriously. I was intrigued. This was in the early 1970’s when the “Jesus Movement” was well under way. I was persuaded and became fully involved. It was a culture where God was found more emotionally than intellectually, and more in experience than in clear thinking. I still have friends I made in those days and I learned some perspectives I continue to value, but I also picked up something theologically problematic; a belief that God would rearrange reality on my behalf. This is not an uncommon belief.

Of course, I never stated it that way; that would smack of undo pride and arrogance. What I said was that God would hear my prayers, meaning God would protect me, heal me, arrange the world to make sure favorable things happened for me. It was a belief that made me feel protected and valued, and in an emotional sense, what is love except feeling secure and valued by someone else? It was comforting and powerful. But there was this one problem. I was a homosexual, and everyone assuring me that God had my back, also told me this was a very bad thing indeed. It would make God rethink loving me.

In the mistaken belief that I needed to undo my gay reality, I set out to provide all the conditions in which God could – and therefore of course, would – fix it. Heterosexual marriage and sex (in that order), seminary, ministry and service to others, Bible study, faithful prayer sometimes in tears, counseling both secular and spiritual, journaling, exorcism, ex-gay – for twenty-five years I did it all. Many things changed. Many great people crossed my life in meaningful ways. Many wonderful events and spiritual moments happened. A change in my sexual orientation was not one of them.

After 25 years of great difficulty and anguish, I finally realized there was a basic reality at work in my life and no amount of spirituality was going to change it. This was a valuable life lesson. When you try to live against reality, you can hurt yourself… and others. This became important for me – “Don’t try to live against reality.” Nature doesn’t care what you want or believe. So a mantra in my life is this “Nature don’t care.” I became more of an empiricist – show me the science. It is no accident that my 2^nd career was grounded in reading, understanding, summarizing, and teaching others research-based ways of dealing with life issues.

Imagine an ideology determining gravity is “just a theory.” (And by the way, that is exactly what gravity is – a theoretical understanding of how spacetime works.) Imagine then being taught that with sufficient spirituality you can “transcend gravity.” I’m not talking about flying which has scientific principles behind it. I mean the belief that, with sufficient faith, you can levitate off the ground. Some who engage in transcendental meditation have asserted exactly that. I’ll only say the evidence for this being true is lacking and as we in the research world are fond of saying: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” No such evidence has emerged. For the rest of us mere mortals, acting upon this dismissal of gravity will lead to serious physical injury or even death. Imagine breaking an arm, leg, or your neck because you jumped off a ledge, and then having someone tell you the cause of your injury was not the fall, not the gravity, but your lack of faith and you should really repent of your disbelief and try it again. That is the idea of “faith” too frequently promoted.

This may seem an obvious life lesson, but today, especially in this era of pandemic, there are literally thousands of people who fail to apply this basic understanding in the real world. Claiming to be “covered in the blood of Jesus” or some other such religious-based, magical thinking they will swear they are immune to the SARS-Cov-2 virus. They will refuse to wear a mask, practice social distancing, or take other simple measures to protect themselves and others. God, they assert, will alter reality for them. Some have become ill. Some of have died. Some have infected and killed others. I don’t mention these folks to demean or mock them. I’m sorry for them. I’m sorry for those I misled with that same bad theology. I use my story, and sadly theirs as well, to illustrate the danger of these beliefs, how widespread they are, and how they threaten everyone.

Here’s the bottom line: God is not going to alter the physical world to suit your doctrines or even your health. Neither the world nor God work that way. Viruses are not moral agents; they are natural phenomenon and will follow the laws of nature. Whatever your religion, politics, intellectual rationalizations or other barriers against reality, nature don’t care. Learn to say this with me as a basic fact of life – Nature don’t care.

Shalom. AB

He Burned Down the House

A social worker friend of mine was asked to visit a 14-year-old boy who was in jail for burning down his family’s home. The interview revealed the boy was being sexually abused by a relative and that he had reported the abuse on three occasions to three different adults with nothing being done by any of them. He had concluded no one was going to help him and it was up to him to find a way out. He did. He burned down the house. Was it destructive? Yes. Did he damage his own future? Yes. Was it effective in getting him out the abusive situation he was in? Yes, his abuser was arrested. He, of course, had already been damaged; first by the abuse. then by those who ignored it, and then by his own desperate efforts to escape that abuse. The lesson I learned from this story is this: If those with authority fail to protect the abused, the abused will sooner or later find a way to make themselves heard and it will be in an angry voice a lot of people won’t like.

In recent days riots have broken out in cities across America because African-Americans as a group feel abused by the police. Yes, I know, #notallpolice and most are likely professionals who do their job well. But the pattern is clear and persistent. In the presence of the police, unarmed black people die at an incredibly higher rate than armed white people. People who are wringing their hands and complaining about the riots should hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

I’m an old white guy. In many states, I could strap on an AR-15 and stroll into a store with small concern for my safety. I know this because multiple white men have done so with no consequences. If anyone even bothered to call the police, history suggests the odds of my getting shot are minimal even if I’m angry and shouting. The police might think I’m a jerk, but they wouldn’t shoot me for it. But tell that to the parents of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy, killed by police for holding a toy gun, moments after they arrived on the scene. The police officer who fired the killing shot, in a previous police application, had been deemed “an emotionally unstable recruit and unfit for duty.” Or tell it to unarmed social worker Charles Kinsey who was helping an autistic young man who had wandered from a group home carrying a toy truck. Someone called the police because they saw his young Latinx client with what they thought was a gun. Police arrived and found Charles Kinsey attempting to persuade his client to return to the group home. The police ordered Kinsey to lie down—which he did—and raise his hands—which he did—while begging police not to shoot his client seated nearby because there was no weapon, only a toy truck. And, by golly, it worked; the police did not shoot his client. Instead, they shot Kinsey.

Social worker Charles Kinsey seconds before being shot.
Screengrap from video by Hilton Napolean, courtesy of Miami Herald.

Another officer there with binoculars had confirmed to everyone present that no weapon was in sight, but inexplicably, another police officer then shot the unarmed and supine Kinsey in the leg. He was flipped over, handcuffed and arrested. When Kinsey asked the policeman why he shot him, the policeman answered, “I don’t know.” The policeman was later acquitted of attempted manslaughter but convicted of misdemeanor culpable negligence.

Charles Kinsey was fortunate in that he survived. Among unarmed African American citizens who did not survive their encounter with the police are Breonna Taylor, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Tony Robinson, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, and of course, George Floyd. Ahmaud Aubrey was killed by a retired policeman acting as a vigilante. It required two months and a public protest to get the former policeman and his son charged and arrested.

Let’s be clear. Violent protests, looting, torching businesses, and harassing otherwise innocent police are not acceptable, but neither is this pattern of abuse. If the rioting outrages us, we best carry the outrage back to the source of the rioting – injustice. Until that is addressed, we should hear again the words of Dr. King: “And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” I point out that these words were spoken nearly 60 years ago, and yet here we still are today.

If we want peace, we must want and demand justice, with better police training, and more legal consequences for police who fail in their duties to protect and defend. If the abuse—and the ignoring of it—continue unaddressed, the house will continue to be set on fire until someone listens. I’m not saying that is the right response, but it is the inevitable one.

In the hope for justice and peace – AB

Living as a Healer

While in Amsterdam last year I visited a Jewish museum set in an old synagogue. There was a placard noting the role of Judaism is Tikkun Olam: “repairing the world.” Being relatively new to Jewish thought, I had never heard Judaism described this way and it moved and called to me. There is so much healing our world needs. Returning home, I made an appointment with a rabbi to ask about it. She agreed that this was indeed why Judaism exists. Indeed, it’s why all of humanity exists. It led me to believe humanity is the culmination of an imperfect process and we are called upon to work in healing and perfecting it. We are in school and the curriculum is: How do we each live so that all the world may thrive with us?

I am not Jewish either by family or persuasion and although I once identified as Christian, I no longer do so. This means I do not follow the religion about Jesus. I do however have a deep respect for Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish rabbi with deep compassion for the needy. When spiritual, psychological, or physical need arose, he did what was in him to meet that need. He taught people to look deeply into their spiritual traditions. He worked to provide comfort and healing, he fed those who were hungry, he wept with those who grieved. He dined and possibly partied with friends (more wine!) He broke the law of the sabbath to feed his disciples because he understood that sabbath law was intended to serve as a restful blessing, not a constraint on compassion. “The sabbath,” Jesus said, “was made for people, not people for the sabbath.” He understood and forgave the human condition, like the adulterous woman who was hauled to him by the authorities for judgment as a theological trap. He simultaneously forgave her and called her to become her better self. As he did so, he subtly confronted her accusers who cared nothing for the woman or even her sin, he turned their focus toward their own flaws. His anger always seemed reserved for those who abused others. The moneychangers who cheated people of their hard-won income he lashed from the Temple. He confronted religious leaders who used their authority or knowledge to burden rather than help. He invited all of us into what a friend of mine calls “the beloved community,” a delightful concept; a gathering for mutual support, where the needs of the many—whatever they may be—are met by the resources of the many. It’s a group holding compassion for others in their time of need, appreciation for the gifts each brings to all, a deep gratitude for when we are the ones called upon to share from our plenty, and a place for those with the humility to recognize that sometimes the need for aid is our own. This is what the rebbe Jesus taught and practiced. This is, to me, Tikkun Olam. So, while I don’t practice the religion about Jesus Christ, I embrace and imperfectly stumble toward the teachings of the rabbi Jesus.

It’s also why I’m perplexed and appalled at Jews or Christians who endorse and support Donald Trump, a man who is the antithesis of everything Tikkun Olam means. He punches down only at the weaker with shaming and sneers. He gives nothing with his right hand he doesn’t take back double in his left. He courts and kowtows to violent, authoritarian men like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, while appearing incapable of sympathy, let alone empathy, for the injured, the decimated, the ill, or even the grieving. Time and again he has left in his wake financial ruin of his own businesses and those of others. Everything he touches dies–businesses, relationships, systems, and now America. Our economy lies in shambles and as of today nearly 80,000 additional U.S. citizens are dead while he blames everything except his own leadership. Heedless of more deaths, he wants to “restart the economy” because it serves his re-election interests. This paragraph may seem a shocking pivot from the one before, and that is the point. It is shocking. And I am unable to explain why so many people find him so attractive while also saying they intend to be a mensch or a devout follower of Jesus. I stand baffled and I plan to explore in future articles how it seems to me we came here.

Shalom. -AB

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog, a place I share some thoughts with a wider world. They are thoughts important enough to me that, beyond thinking them, I want others to consider them as well. I don’t have the final word, but I hope these thoughts provoke you to think through your own thoughts and act your actions in a way beneficial for yourself and others.

I am no one special. I am an old guy who has learned over the years that what I’m thinking is also being thought—but often left unsaid—by a great many others. I am one of billions living now with hopes and fears, dreams and strategies. I am educated in science and theology, ethics and logic, psychology and sociology. I bring that education to issues we all face. Sometimes what I write will be personal and at other times more philosophical.

Why “A View From the Sycamore”? While I am not religious, the title evokes a Biblical reference that appeals to me. The Prophet Amos described himself as a farmer of sycamore figs and “neither a prophet nor the son of prophets.” In this way, he separated himself from the “official” prophets of his day who ignored the injustices and malignancies of the religious and political leaders of his time. He addressed the powerful with truths from their own traditions, but not from within their structures. Like Amos, I don’t pretend to speak with any authority other than that of reality and the truth as I view it. I am not Jewish, Christian, nor any other recognized religion, but I am one who has studied the moral, spiritual, and ethical teachings in various religions. I believe many people in the world share my most basic values if not my views. I find compelling lessons in various traditions and perspectives consistent with my own spiritual quests. This blog is influenced by moral and ethical teachings found in my own heritage but that also transcend many religions. These common values and a shared humanity are what I want to evoke.

That’s enough for now. I am not known for brevity of thought so I must intentionally reign in my impulses to say it all. Thanks for visiting and reading this far. I look forward to sharing thoughts in the coming weeks. AB