The Harried Mystic

Illustration by Dan May

As an ordained Bishop, the color of my ecclesiastical vestments is violet, or so-called episcopal purple. This is also the proper color to apply to all U.S. states and Congresspersons at so serious a time in our Nation’s history.

In political parlance and symbolism, purple is the blending of the so-called Democratic blue and Republican red. Over the last year, there has been a complete breakdown of dialogue in Congress, and exchanges  have been dominated by partisan rhetoric. Authentic dialogue would be signified by a purple disposition, suggesting dedication to preserving common ground and serving a greater good. Doing so is as much the work of mature citizenship at a time of ongoing global and National urgency as it is spiritual practice.

As a political independent, a politically purple creature, joining the swelling ranks of purple critters, I am free to make hybrid choices in elections without running afoul of either organized political party.  Of course, once in the voting booth, I can do whatever I want in any event,  but acting independently while claiming to be a member of either party would be intellectually dishonest. Involvement with the body politic is an important part of engaged spirituality. To sit on the sidelines of history is both too easy and too comfortable. Without active engagement with the issues of our day, spirituality remains an abstract and solipsistic exercise.

I confess to being something of a political junky, taking in as much of the news of the day as I can stomach, until the theater becomes too noisy or absurd. The spiritual discipline in all of this revolves around right thought and right speech. It is easy to listen to points of view with which one agrees. It’s another thing altogether to listen when in passionate disagreement. Cultivating the capacity to do so is a  matter of spiritual importance and is the true test of one’s capacity to genuinely listen, learn,  and appreciate diverse viewpoints.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

By contrast to the enlightened definition of intelligence offered by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the above quote, the political rhetoric in Washington lacks the maturity, collegiality, and insightfulness that our times demand. While both sides of the political aisle have contributed to this disappointing state of public affairs,  the Republican minority, fully commanded by the more extreme right, has injected the harshest, most unseemly, and destructive poison. The agenda on the “Right” takes the form of  ad hominem attacks, innuendo, fear mongering, and hate speech. This loud minority has the dubious distinction of having mastered the arts of pitching inflammatory talking points, demagoguery, deception, and distraction.

The poster child of these dark arts is none other than one who prides himself, it seems, on serving as the Voldemort of the opening decade: Mr. Dick Cheney. Here we have a “leader” who can do little more than hurl diatribes and accusations at a sitting president, a historically unprecedented act, accusing him of being weak on terrorism. On the contrary, the more nuanced leadership of Barack Obama is about balancing military might with diplomacy and moral suasion: a President who wishes to secure the Nation while refusing to sacrifice its values, rule of law, and moral leadership.

In acting so brazenly in consistently taking pot shots at the President, the last V.P., with the Republican machine fully in tow,  gives sustenance to enemies of freedom and radical voices, by undermining the Commander-in-Chief and his balanced, purple agenda. In spinning rhetoric that is not intended to engage informed debate but to weaken the Presidency (whether because of his dislike of the current incumbent, or to continue to prop up his own delusions about having made only correct decisions while in office himself), the behavior is repugnant, adolescent, and downright dangerous. It borders in fact on the criminal (at least figuratively, if not literally). While Mr. Cheney has every right to debate the issues, his assaults are drive-by insults with no invitation to real dialogue. They are manifestations of animus with intent to do violence to a duly elected administration.

This is a real-time morality play on the meaning of “right” vs “wrong” speech. Cheney speech and Republican intransigence and solidarity around being obstructionists is “wrong-headed” and vicious because it is doing so by stoking fires of hatred. It offers nothing of substantive consequence. Unfortunately, this has become the dominant feature of today’s Republican Party: a party that has been hijacked by extremes even to the point of undermining the political careers of moderate Republicans.  The endless soundbites are all spleen and very little cortex.

The talking points are negative deconstructions and have a quite obvious disruptive intent. All of this is intended to inflict greatest damage in an election year as the right-wing sharks enter a feeding frenzy having smelled blood in the water. Odds-takers have the Democrats, after just over a year into this new Presidency, and with fragile majorities in both Houses,  potentially losing their majority in both. This, of course, would hobble Obama’s agenda.

So, as I watch this sophomoric drama play out, and as a student of political psychology, I find myself wondering at the spiritual state of the Nation as a result of the games being played. What does it represent and what is it feeding, and what should the current majority leadership do in view of the flagrantly Machiavellian strikes by the other side of the Congressional aisle to best inoculate the change agenda from the deliberate cancer that Republicans are spreading?

As I recently opined, Mr Obama came into office promising a bipartisan spirit, transparency, rule of law, candor, justice, an end to the war in Iraq, and the restoration of inalienable rights that were eroded during the two political seasons of the Bush administration. Obama inherited a failed global economy and two wars with other hot-spots cropping up all the time (e.g., Yemen, Pakistan, South India).

He has, in his first year alone, launched many positive initiatives, and worked tirelessly to deliver what he promised in spite of the need to deal with an unprecedented economic crisis, at least in recent history, and an embittered Republican minority that is literally hell-bent. At every turn,  the other side of the aisle has worked with unrelenting passion to mischaracterize, malign, and cast aspersions on the President’s motives (and even personal history) in the interest of preserving things as they are. The deceit and fabrications have been fantastical and repeated with such ferocity that, after a time, it starts to stick especially in the minds of the worried, disenfranchised, and most fearful on which they are designed to play.

There’s nothing new from Mr. Dick Cheney. This is simply the old and thoroughly repudiated “cowboy” dogma that the neo-conservatives applied for eight years: keep up fear and you seem the stronger leader for talking up military action and being bellicose. Well, in fact, history says otherwise. We were hit on GW’s watch. The economy tanked on GW’s watch. Hatred of the United States sky-rocketed in all the places that act as nurseries for fledgling terrorists, and our Allies lost respect for their American partner.

So, into this martial picture stepped a man in search of a real middle. He has been thwarted by the other side at every step. So much so, that his determination to play it down the middle is being used as an example of weakness when, in fact, it is strength. So, what’s a President with the heart to change things to do? Spiritually, the Nation moved toward Obama to correct the excesses of the earlier eight years, and independents like me flocked to Obama to deliver that correction.

Given complexity of the issues and the “snakes in the grass” looking to deliver venom at every opportunity for their own self-interest, many independents are starting to believe the lie that things have swung too far left. They have not. If anything, things have lurched toward the center. Given the ever burgeoning vitriol, however, that this year will certainly hear from the Right, there is only one way that the President can keep the middle way. He needs to swing more decidedly left.

This is paradoxical movement but, in a psycho-spiritual sense, there is no other way to make sure that the electoral experiment in correction has at least a robust four years to play out an agenda for change without massive roadblocks. This is the wisdom of contrapuntal motion. To get to the middle when even the center looks like it’s Left, and the Right is even assailing centrist positions as examples of lost fidelity to party values, the only correction is to create a sharper contrast.

In other words, Obama might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Since the Right characterizes everything centrist as Left, it is best to go farther Left and inflame the passions among those who live there to be more motivated to work to protect incumbents in the upcoming midterms. Only from the Left can the duplicitous strategies of the Right be placed in sharp relief. The deceptions and status quo mentality of the Right have to be exposed, and staying in the middle offers insufficient contrast to get the pendulum moving again.

The pendulum now is stuck around the center-right with attention predominantly being given to voices on the more extreme Right. If the President argues more forcefully from the Left, while continuing to invite bipartisanship, the base will be behind him and moderates too are likely to want to distance themselves from the Right leaning extreme that then suddenly appears clearly irrational, and as a desire to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

On the seas, when the Navy fires at a target, they fire one long and one short to set up the range, then they split the difference and strike the target. So, in the life of a Nation, when right leaning gravity undermines the spirit of the Nation, an opposite corresponding force is necessary to get free movement back again in the collective soul. Once accomplished, governance can be unstuck long enough to effect policies that lead to lasting change and not tempests in teacups of short-term and anemic value.

At the personal level, this is the spiritual practice of being a political independent. On certain issues, I may vote liberally and on other issues I go more conservatively. In maintaining that movement, based on a reading of the issues and the needs of the moment, I am freed of a more ideological decision-making platform, see through rhetoric more clearly, and act with a longer range good in mind. I felt similarly in the past when the “shoe was on the other political foot.”

It is good to keep up  the dynamism and not allow an intellectual arthritis to poison the well for our children and grandchildren. They deserve better and they should be able to look up to our Congressional leaders as role models of courage and future-focus and not as self-serving soldiers of either the Republican or Democratic armies. How about focusing on being Americans first and party faithfuls second. Bottom line, we would not accept the verbal behavior we see today, coming mostly, I must say, from the Right, from our kindergarten students. So why do we tolerate it from those elected to guide this Nation who should know better?

I find myself, therefore, in essential agreement, in this instance, with voices on the Left. The White House should pursue a more vigorous Left-leaning agenda and call the behavior on the Right for what it is. Ironically, the only way back to a meaningful center is by restoring the other pole that initially excited the Nation. Compromise will still happen, but incumbents in threatened races this year can act with greater courage in supporting the President’s change agenda that initially swept them into office.

By way of analogy, progressive muscle relaxation is a well established process for tension release. Far superior than trying to relieve muscle tension directly, we know that having a person deliberately increase muscle tension first in the affected muscle followed by release produces a greater contrast effect. The muscle, by alternating tension and relaxation, moves back more reliably to baseline levels. Similarly, the psyche, in the throes of such a unipolar preoccupation on the political stage, can only be restored to wholesome balance by first increasing the contrast between the poles. Instead of compromising on the health care bill, for example, Congressional Democrats should hold the line and push harder for what they want.

In our private lives, the constant ticktock, back and forth of the moving pendulum is an enduring feature of our spirituality. It is precisely for this reason that the journey is best served by diverse methods to create moments of deep insight by contrast and movement.

To get to purple, a balance has to be found in the mix of red and blue. Right now, the mix has too little blue in it to get there.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.