This was an interesting week. We celebrated MLK Jr. Day this week at the same time all the headlines were breathlessly reporting about the ongoing government shutdown. There’s an interesting juxtaposition there, and also some similarities. It’s interesting to think about national movements and passions around Civil Rights then, and some of the things that we’re arguing about now. The two fights just don’t seem morally equivalent, not that anyone has suggested they are. There is certainly plenty of passion to go around these days, regardless.

I would say that the events of the last few weeks in Washington have again highlighted our brokenness as a nation and the brokenness of our elected leaders. What is most disheartening is that hundreds of thousands of federal employees and millions of contractors, and those who depend on federal employees, have become bargaining chips. This hits close to home in a community like ours, where we have many federal employees and contractors. I can’t imagine what it’s doing to a community like the one I lived in prior to St. Simons, where so many are employed by the government. This political gamesmanship has very real consequences, although it all feels somewhat academic and at a distance.  

That’s a danger for any in public servanthood; to lose track of the human consequences of action or inaction. It’s one thing to talk about a government shutdown, and it’s another when we discuss the people it affects. As the shutdown continues – if it continues for much longer – and as it affects more and more of us, the cacophony of complaints may finally get some attention. We’re not there yet.  

A lot of this would be moot if we weren’t living in a time where disagreeing is the highest good. Perhaps if giving ground, meeting in the middle, and embracing moderation weren’t all seen as an anathema in politics, we’d see real statesmanship instead of brinksmanship. As it is, we’ve devolved to the lowest form of decision-making; our systems just can’t accomplish what we need them to accomplish, if we have forgotten how they work. I think we know when they don’t work. 

I learned this week that one of my ancestors, Rutherford B. Hayes (I went to Hayes family reunions when I was a kid – my grandmother’s family on my father’s side), was at the forefront of the first government shutdown in 1879, although they didn’t call it that back then. Hayes, a Republican, was keen to continue ensuring rights for equal legal protection for blacks in the South, but the Democrats, at that time a party that was not in favor of equality for those who had been slaves just years earlier, didn’t agree. They kept adding “riders” to appropriations bills to strip protections from black voters and Hayes was forced to sign them, vetoing one after another. It eventually ground the federal government to a halt. It was seen as such a radical, inappropriate, and ineffective tactic that it really didn’t happen again for almost 100 years.  Now it’s become an unfortunately commonplace tactic. 

Somehow we managed to get through Civil Rights without shutting down the government again over protections and rights for African Americans, but we can’t get through the normal course of business in the 2000’s? There’s something deeply wrong when this is what we fall into. I don’t know what can fix it. I hope we all tell our elected representatives that we want them to work hard at finding common ground with others, to prevent things like this from happening. Yes, we’ll still hear blame emanating from one side or the other, laying that blame on them, but it takes two to tango, as my mother used to say. We can’t keep doing this, in the short term or the long term.

Martin Luther King Jr. is now widely respected for his leadership and his non-violent protests. Now it is easy for so many to laud his efforts, even when so many were quiet and rode the fence on Civil Rights, waiting to see which way the wind would blow. It also forgets how many thought the tactics that eventually made progress were inappropriate and inflammatory. Steady, careful advocacy and action is important and effective, and it doesn’t hurt to hold the moral high ground, either. I don’t think we can even see the high ground in today’s debates, let alone climb on it. But I’m hopeful we’ll get our priorities straight. We should be passionate, we should be active, and we should always work for the common good in all things. It sounds so easy…

Tom+

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world:  We commend this nation to your merciful care, that being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, Member of Congress, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.