July 15, 2024 - #mondaymoment #pride #miners
Happy Monday, my friends! As we reenter the last few months of a presidential election cycle, one of the core dynamics of politics generally also reenters our life: lying. While a certain candidate this cycle is perhaps best known for their lies, the higher the stature of their position the more a candidate can and will lie if it achieves their goal of winning an election. Yes, we may not always call these “lies.” We create categories like “campaign promises” or “policy ideas.” Yet, many of them remain complete fiction spoon fed to us to elicit our support and our vote.
Americans expect their politicians to lie to them. We’ve been hearing and seeing the ads for over a year now and we know it’s only going to get worse. Candidates want our attention, and they want our votes. A candidate for county dog warden will promise more collaboration with the pit-bull rescue group at noon and promise greater enforcement against “aggressive breeds” to a parents’ group at 1:30pm. And while lies will seem out of control for the next four months, they won’t just end after the election.
Lying is attested in every part of human history. Biblically, Adam and Eve lie to God in the Garden of Eden. Sometimes lies can be cute and funny like when a little kid gets caught in a minor lie and we all giggle. Lying can save us and others from uncomfortable situations. Sometimes it can feel like a necessity or be the difference between ruin and success, even life and death. Almost always we feel bad about it later and we often call it a sin. Lies are like strings and a common image is the web of lies. As lies increase, the web grows until it becomes almost as solid as the truth. Yet, if only one thread is cut the web may unravel quickly.
We’ve all told “a little lie” to save ourselves and the people we love from embarrassment or harm. Men are trained from their youth to recognize that there are only certain answers to some questions—lie or not. Whether their wife, their best friend, or a total random stranger, when a female-bodied person asks, “Do I look fat in this?” the only answer from male-bodied people is an immediate, “Of course not.” Truth be damned. A similar truth (pun intended) is that when someone prepares a meal and asks you how it was, your answer better be “delicious” even if the meal was barely edible.
Then there are lies which hide trauma and bury the truth. Lies like the Biblical conquest narrative which became manifest destiny and American exceptionalism in our country. Lies like white supremacy, racism, queerphobia, ableism, and classism. Lies which have created one of the most powerful, detrimental, and mind-boggling realities of the American experiment; that there is greater in common between rich white people and poor white people than there is between poor people in general. The lie that poor white people living in poverty in Ohio can expect better from white aristocrats and oligarchs than they can from banning together and organizing with their poor BIPOC neighbors.
There’s a great film which speaks to this idea of overlapping solidarity and how it’s often challenged called Pride. The film tells the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), a group of Queer activists who raised money to support striking miners during the 1984 strike in the UK. Because of LGSM’s support, the National Union of Mineworkers used their collective power to force the Labour Party to incorporate LGBTQIA+ rights into their platform and accelerate Queer equality in the UK.
Just as there are lies which can be positive, even the biggest and most destructive lies can be overcome. To paraphrase a saying, whenever you think we can’t overcome these lies, remember that people overcame the idea of the divine right of kings, another destructive lie.
When have you lied? When have you felt bad about lying? When have you believed destructive lies?
Let us pray: God of all truth, whose existence knows no lies, grant us a share in a world governed by truth. We know that in your perfect Kin-dom there run rivers of truth, but that Kin-dom has yet to be made manifest in our world. So, God, make truth rain down on us and get in all the areas where it is most needed. Break the bondage of lies that oppress and lies told to get us to support one person or movement over another. We ask this all in the name of Christ, the one who liberates us. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
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