Multiply. DOn't Divide.
“Let us then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing; Learn to labor and to wait.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My grandmother often recited this poem in its entirety by heart, and when she got to the end she always remarked that she didn't like the “wait” part. She remained baffled by the apparent incongruity between being “up and doing” and “to labor” yet also, “to wait.” It was a shortcoming in Longfellow's message that she was able to overlook, I guess, because it remained one of her favorite poems.
None of us enjoy waiting. Even in our prayers, we want God to bend the arc of time a little – or a lot – in our direction. I want that job NOW. I want that cure NOW. I want that relationship NOW. At times, our impatience is a minor flaw, one even we recognize and chuckle at. “Yes, I know my pizza will be here in 30 min or less. Relax!”
At other times, our impatience is more toxic, more deeply rooted, primarily even subconscious. Too often, our impatient response to the slow hand of God is to take matters into our own hands. To give our Father who art in heaven a little help. Nowhere is that a more dangerous exercise than when we judge or divide others. The book of Matthew early on says that God will take a winnowing fork and separate the wheat from the chaff (Matthew 3: 12), the good people from the bad people. At the end of the Book, Jesus says that all the nations will be present at God's throne and He will divide the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32).
We are not ready to wait for an “end of an age” for this dividing to occur, however. For centuries, mankind has invented tests to determine whether other human beings are on the right side or the left side of the line, the right side or the wrong side. Skin color has been such a test for hundreds of years in America. If you were white, you could receive a land grant, possess property, accumulate wealth to pass on to your heirs, have the right to vote, get a loan to live in the suburbs, benefit from the GI Bill programs, look forward to Social Security benefits, expect respectful treatment by the sales clerk as well as the police officer. If you were a Person of Color, you could not expect any of these privileges and any basic dignities that were won over the long span of history were only achieved through long struggle, through laboring and waiting. Skin color has long been a test that was used to divide us.
Religion has been used to divide us for centuries as well. My Anglo-Saxon roots have been full of conflict between Catholic and Protestant divisions. These divisions led to wars and what only the “stiff-upper-lip” British and Irish could call, “The Troubles.” Religion was often at the core of why our American ancestors rejected immigrants of Italian and Irish descent. The election of a Catholic President, John F Kennedy, sent ripples of dissatisfaction and dissent among those in America who believed religion was an uncrossable dividing line. We have to this day never had a Jewish President and many people cited Mitt Romney's Mormon faith as a reason they could not vote for him. Muslim versus Christian is a dividing test that cannot be overlooked. Dating back to the Crusades, we have made whether you worship Allah or God a test that determines whether you are righteous or an infidel. Whether you are my friend and neighbor, or my enemy. Religion has been used in the most horrible ways throughout history as a test that divides us, often with the bloodiest outcomes.
Being male or female has been a seemingly simple test that we have seen grow more complex over the years. Our stereotypes for males (at least one of the stereotypes) has called for boys and men to be tough, to be aggressive, to be unsympathetic, to be ruthless, to be protectors, and to be the breadwinners for their families. The results of this dividing test required girls and women to be soft, compliant, nurturing, domestic, and the one who would rear the children and take care of the home. Of course, we've become very uncomfortable in recent decades when the test that divides male and female has become much more complicated. No longer binary, one can find designations for 3, 5, 36, 56, even 63 gender identities. As a general rule, if we are trying to get on with the business of dividing people, we don't like it when someone comes along and changes the criteria so we can no longer figure out what side of the line you are on. Even our relatively pedestrian terms, “transgender” and “cisgender” refer to dividing lines and come from Latin roots meaning “trans” to cross the line from your assigned birth sex, to “cis” being on the same side or consistent with your birth sex. Who you love and how you most comfortably identify yourself should not be a dividing line, but too often gender and sexuality are used in that manner. Though the sexual revolution may have started decades ago, we still use sex in subtle and not-so subtle ways to divide us from each other.
In present-day America, we are experiencing the most divisive political and social environment of my lifetime. We are divided by tests of political party, by tests of alt-right versus neo-conservative right, by Bernie Left or Hilary Left, by urban versus rural, by rich versus poor. By millennial versus baby boomer. By coastal cities versus the heartland. We are further divided by the test of from what source we get our news. Are you a Fox Newsie or a follower of MSNBC? Of Breitbart or Fake News? We're divided now not just on our opinions but by the source of information upon which we form our opinions.
What effect does this division have? Like two cats with their tails tied together, we seem as a country, and especially as a government, unable to move either forward or backward, right or left, up or down. All we can do is fight with each other and tear each other apart. Moreover, when our tests of division seem to be failing and we feel we are in an ever-changing world of moving boundaries and we are not sure who is with us or against us, we look for a leader who projects strength and a nostalgia for the way things were. When a leader knows how to exploit these divisions, his power grows. In fact, the more division and chaos he can generate, the more his base will look to him as the buoy that will keep their heads above water. Furthermore, a particularly crafty manipulator can not only spur on the forces of division but can also fragment his opposition, so that even a mediocre leader can get re-elected if the rest of the country is hopelessly divided.
It all goes back to our original error. It was never our job to divide. Our impatience with God's justice and lack of faith in His righteousness has led us to take matters into our own hands. God does not call us to divide. In fact, as far back as the Book of Genesis, God called on us to go forth and . . . what? Multiply! Dividing is a sin and worse yet, it leads to a sinful community and a sinful world. Virtually every blessing that God promised included multiplication, not division. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Noah, the disciples of Jesus – all were told to multiply and were given a blessing by God that would both become and derive from this multiplication.
In my own life, I am blessed to have White and Black friends, Asian and Latino friends, male and female, American and non-American friends. My loved ones are both straight and queer. I have friends with homes and many without homes. I am blessed to have diversity in my life, a life of color and culture beyond my own. More importantly, I believe down to my essence that diversity is what God's kingdom looks like. We are told that God created human beings in His image and he looked at his Creation and pronounced, “It is good.” Unless we have a wide degree of diversity in our universe of friends and family, we will only see a partial and fragmented view of God and His Kingdom. Why would we want to limit ourselves from as full a view as possible?
My pastor often remarks that her skin is the shade of “toasted mahogany.” I honestly do not know what toasted mahogany wood looks like, but I can just accept that Pastor Lisa looks like Lisa, accepting her as an individual without categorization. As Walt Whitman wrote, “I too am untranslatable.” I have had enough of trying to translate individuals by imposing tests to determine if they are “one of us” or “one of them.” I acknowledge that I am just as guilty as anyone else of laying out lines of division and taking an adversarial stance to those on the other side. I don't believe I have accomplished one thing through that conflict. From this point forward, I pledge to resist the forces of division and to call them out whenever I see them or hear them. Further, I intend to be a multiplier, not a divider. Anytime I can open hearts and minds, open communities, open up our experiences, I intend to do it. I hope you will join me because if you do, we will multiply each others' lives. If you too want to be a multiplier, send this message to at least two persons in your circle who may be on the other side of a dividing line. Tell them we're in this together.
Be Blessed. Multiply, Don't Divide.
Still achieving, still pursuing; Learn to labor and to wait.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My grandmother often recited this poem in its entirety by heart, and when she got to the end she always remarked that she didn't like the “wait” part. She remained baffled by the apparent incongruity between being “up and doing” and “to labor” yet also, “to wait.” It was a shortcoming in Longfellow's message that she was able to overlook, I guess, because it remained one of her favorite poems.
None of us enjoy waiting. Even in our prayers, we want God to bend the arc of time a little – or a lot – in our direction. I want that job NOW. I want that cure NOW. I want that relationship NOW. At times, our impatience is a minor flaw, one even we recognize and chuckle at. “Yes, I know my pizza will be here in 30 min or less. Relax!”
At other times, our impatience is more toxic, more deeply rooted, primarily even subconscious. Too often, our impatient response to the slow hand of God is to take matters into our own hands. To give our Father who art in heaven a little help. Nowhere is that a more dangerous exercise than when we judge or divide others. The book of Matthew early on says that God will take a winnowing fork and separate the wheat from the chaff (Matthew 3: 12), the good people from the bad people. At the end of the Book, Jesus says that all the nations will be present at God's throne and He will divide the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32).
We are not ready to wait for an “end of an age” for this dividing to occur, however. For centuries, mankind has invented tests to determine whether other human beings are on the right side or the left side of the line, the right side or the wrong side. Skin color has been such a test for hundreds of years in America. If you were white, you could receive a land grant, possess property, accumulate wealth to pass on to your heirs, have the right to vote, get a loan to live in the suburbs, benefit from the GI Bill programs, look forward to Social Security benefits, expect respectful treatment by the sales clerk as well as the police officer. If you were a Person of Color, you could not expect any of these privileges and any basic dignities that were won over the long span of history were only achieved through long struggle, through laboring and waiting. Skin color has long been a test that was used to divide us.
Religion has been used to divide us for centuries as well. My Anglo-Saxon roots have been full of conflict between Catholic and Protestant divisions. These divisions led to wars and what only the “stiff-upper-lip” British and Irish could call, “The Troubles.” Religion was often at the core of why our American ancestors rejected immigrants of Italian and Irish descent. The election of a Catholic President, John F Kennedy, sent ripples of dissatisfaction and dissent among those in America who believed religion was an uncrossable dividing line. We have to this day never had a Jewish President and many people cited Mitt Romney's Mormon faith as a reason they could not vote for him. Muslim versus Christian is a dividing test that cannot be overlooked. Dating back to the Crusades, we have made whether you worship Allah or God a test that determines whether you are righteous or an infidel. Whether you are my friend and neighbor, or my enemy. Religion has been used in the most horrible ways throughout history as a test that divides us, often with the bloodiest outcomes.
Being male or female has been a seemingly simple test that we have seen grow more complex over the years. Our stereotypes for males (at least one of the stereotypes) has called for boys and men to be tough, to be aggressive, to be unsympathetic, to be ruthless, to be protectors, and to be the breadwinners for their families. The results of this dividing test required girls and women to be soft, compliant, nurturing, domestic, and the one who would rear the children and take care of the home. Of course, we've become very uncomfortable in recent decades when the test that divides male and female has become much more complicated. No longer binary, one can find designations for 3, 5, 36, 56, even 63 gender identities. As a general rule, if we are trying to get on with the business of dividing people, we don't like it when someone comes along and changes the criteria so we can no longer figure out what side of the line you are on. Even our relatively pedestrian terms, “transgender” and “cisgender” refer to dividing lines and come from Latin roots meaning “trans” to cross the line from your assigned birth sex, to “cis” being on the same side or consistent with your birth sex. Who you love and how you most comfortably identify yourself should not be a dividing line, but too often gender and sexuality are used in that manner. Though the sexual revolution may have started decades ago, we still use sex in subtle and not-so subtle ways to divide us from each other.
In present-day America, we are experiencing the most divisive political and social environment of my lifetime. We are divided by tests of political party, by tests of alt-right versus neo-conservative right, by Bernie Left or Hilary Left, by urban versus rural, by rich versus poor. By millennial versus baby boomer. By coastal cities versus the heartland. We are further divided by the test of from what source we get our news. Are you a Fox Newsie or a follower of MSNBC? Of Breitbart or Fake News? We're divided now not just on our opinions but by the source of information upon which we form our opinions.
What effect does this division have? Like two cats with their tails tied together, we seem as a country, and especially as a government, unable to move either forward or backward, right or left, up or down. All we can do is fight with each other and tear each other apart. Moreover, when our tests of division seem to be failing and we feel we are in an ever-changing world of moving boundaries and we are not sure who is with us or against us, we look for a leader who projects strength and a nostalgia for the way things were. When a leader knows how to exploit these divisions, his power grows. In fact, the more division and chaos he can generate, the more his base will look to him as the buoy that will keep their heads above water. Furthermore, a particularly crafty manipulator can not only spur on the forces of division but can also fragment his opposition, so that even a mediocre leader can get re-elected if the rest of the country is hopelessly divided.
It all goes back to our original error. It was never our job to divide. Our impatience with God's justice and lack of faith in His righteousness has led us to take matters into our own hands. God does not call us to divide. In fact, as far back as the Book of Genesis, God called on us to go forth and . . . what? Multiply! Dividing is a sin and worse yet, it leads to a sinful community and a sinful world. Virtually every blessing that God promised included multiplication, not division. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Noah, the disciples of Jesus – all were told to multiply and were given a blessing by God that would both become and derive from this multiplication.
In my own life, I am blessed to have White and Black friends, Asian and Latino friends, male and female, American and non-American friends. My loved ones are both straight and queer. I have friends with homes and many without homes. I am blessed to have diversity in my life, a life of color and culture beyond my own. More importantly, I believe down to my essence that diversity is what God's kingdom looks like. We are told that God created human beings in His image and he looked at his Creation and pronounced, “It is good.” Unless we have a wide degree of diversity in our universe of friends and family, we will only see a partial and fragmented view of God and His Kingdom. Why would we want to limit ourselves from as full a view as possible?
My pastor often remarks that her skin is the shade of “toasted mahogany.” I honestly do not know what toasted mahogany wood looks like, but I can just accept that Pastor Lisa looks like Lisa, accepting her as an individual without categorization. As Walt Whitman wrote, “I too am untranslatable.” I have had enough of trying to translate individuals by imposing tests to determine if they are “one of us” or “one of them.” I acknowledge that I am just as guilty as anyone else of laying out lines of division and taking an adversarial stance to those on the other side. I don't believe I have accomplished one thing through that conflict. From this point forward, I pledge to resist the forces of division and to call them out whenever I see them or hear them. Further, I intend to be a multiplier, not a divider. Anytime I can open hearts and minds, open communities, open up our experiences, I intend to do it. I hope you will join me because if you do, we will multiply each others' lives. If you too want to be a multiplier, send this message to at least two persons in your circle who may be on the other side of a dividing line. Tell them we're in this together.
Be Blessed. Multiply, Don't Divide.