So
on Good Friday, we tell the story of one particular crucifixion that
happened during one particular Passover. It includes the shame of those
whom fear overwhelmed into betrayal; those who traded their decency for
the illusion of more power and safety; those who abused their offices
and those who encouraged them to do so; and those left to watch it all
through their tears, feeling helpless before the military regime now
occupying their home. This is our liturgy, from the Greek leitourgia,
which means public service. We tell stories in public as a public
service. Stories that remind us just how terrible people can be when
they are anxious about their place in the power structure. Good Friday
stories are not about winning; they are about loss, division,
scapegoating, and being driven by fear. And as we tell them, the lights
go out. First those already dimmed overhead; then, one by one, the
candles; then the last pillar, the Christ candle, marched out by a
somber priest who slams the back door so hard it makes everyone jump.
But this is not a drill. It is not a rehearsal. It is happening.
I haven’t blogged since right before the election (“Dear …..”),
my 11th-hour reach across the aisle bid to consider relationships
beyond the blue and red feed. See how well that worked? After, when I
tried to write, my pen only poured out anger and pain until the ink
gathered into pools of despair. I didn’t know what to do, but I was
pretty sure we didn’t need any more of that on the interwebs. Besides, I
didn’t know what story to tell, or how to make sense of the story I
found myself in. The Friday after the election at the grocery store, I
felt like I was in a zombie movie. To each face I wondered “are you…?”
Would you hurt me for your gain? Lock me up? Betray? Exterminate?
Crucify? I was a stranger in my own country, living in occupied
territory. I stumbled through 2016, alternately cursing my naiveté and
hoping I’d wake up from the nightmare. I found little things: a
“Nevertheless, She Persisted” t-shirt; an “I Can’t Keep Quiet”
pickup choir; de rigueur FaceBook venting; my students, who give me
hope every day; putting my representatives on speed dial. I changed
grocery stores and now make a point of small talk and hugging cashiers.
Then, I threw myself into making a play (already on the schedule when
Meryl told us what to do with our broken hearts). For me, it was equal
parts research, escape, survival, therapy, and public service. The Busy Body,
a 1709 comedy by the now mostly unknown Susanna Centlivre, gave us all
some desperately needed laughs, many at the expense of Sir Francis
Gripe, a grabby, greedy, oversexed old man with big hair. Sometimes,
history falls in your lap. It was glorious.
But
sometimes, the story gets dark, and you can’t just ignore it. People
and reefs and species die and they don’t come back from the dead. This
year, for me, Easter, particularly in its commercialized, pastel,
sticky-sweet form, feels too much like what Deitrich Bonhoeffer called
cheap grace, distracting us with an empty “It’s phenomenal; you’re going
to love it.” Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis a month before
their regime fell, believed in resurrection and the power of Easter, but
I think this year he’d be on my side. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still
holding out for rebirth, spring, new life. But the darkness around us is
deep.
After
Jesus was on the cross but not yet dead, the same mob that had just
colluded with the authorities to get him up there wanted to make a
correction. They asked Pilate to change the sign above his head
(allegedly written in 3 languages) from “king of the Jews” to “He who
said he was king of the Jews.” Pilate’s reply, “what I have written, I
have written,” was both nonchalant and exactly to the point. You see,
Pilate didn’t give a shit about what they wanted because he didn’t have
to. The Romans already controlled the discourse: what got written, which
bodies lived or died, which would suffer and which would luxuriate.
They were the champions of law and order, the leaders of Western
civilization, and they made the rules. Jerusalem was their town now, and
they didn’t have to put up with some radical riling up the masses. They
could just crucify him and shut him up. It was all perfectly legal, a
trial and everything. Besides, no one will ever remember, and his
rattled, loser followers will never get their story together.
The
scale of the struggle over who tells the American story is
overwhelming, more than any one person can manage, so I’m focusing on
the stories about higher education, vouchers, and education funding. The
carefully scripted and stoked rage at government in general and public
education in particular (“broken,” “crooks,” “failing”) was crafted by
those in power who do not want people to ask too many questions. A
well-educated electorate might begin to parse their news sources and
notice how they’re being played by a system fed (for now) by low wages
and crushing personal debt; by oil executives looking at profits over
public welfare; or by powerful insurance companies whose incentive is
money, not healing. Those with less or a lesser education also tend not
to vote. Civics at the high school level, dubbed the “quiet crisis in
education” by the not-exactly-liberal Sandra Day O’Connor, has been all
but ignored; consider whose interests this neglect and cynicism serves.
Furthermore, if you twist the story of America to say that corporations
are people, and that their rights are violated by campaign finance
reform, environmental protections, or banking regulations; that American
values are only those of capital and that greed is good; that
immigrants and poor people are the problem; if you make the bottom line
sacred and self-evident, you might get people to identify with the
empire and betray themselves and their children’s futures. In this
landscape, racism, misogyny, and homophobia are easy triggers, and
scapegoats are plentiful. Who wants to be identified with weakness,
especially when the powerful mock it? By contrast, an education broadens
views, recovers disappeared histories, encourages empathy, and fosters
critical thinking in ways that are inconvenient for those in power. The
history of slavery in the U.S; the scientific reality of melting ice
caps; the alarming consolidation of wealth in the hands of the very
few—these stories may not serve the current empire, but they are true
and the fight to tell them is coming to a school board or legislature
near you. You better get down there. This is not a drill.
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