Enemy

Two weeks ago I preached about Jesus saying, "But I say to you that listen, 'love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.'" Usually I manage to get things out of my system when I preach a sermon on them, but this one is really bugging me.  The gist of my sermon was that we don't take Jesus seriously on this point, and I was challenging the congregation to do just that.  In the name of not being a hypocrite, I have been noticing all the people I hold in those categories.
Honestly, very few of them are people I actually know.  I guess it's a good thing that I just don't have many people in my life that I consider enemies.  I can not think of too many people I actually know hate me or curse me or abuse me.  I found myself having to stretch a bit, to people I disagree with, or people I think are generally bad folks, but who haven't really hurt me personally. I mean, I can imagine all sorts of enemies and I can create them around every corner if I want, but I have a very real chance that on most days I will not encounter anyone who is seriously my enemy.
I think also, that some people may hate me, or at least the idea of me.  They may hate me because I'm American (sometimes I figure we deserve it), they may hate me because I'm a white male, because I'm educated, because I'm Christian (meaning that I bear that religious label not because of my mystical identity as one who is "in Christ," but I will get to that), because I'm a pastor, because I'm liberal, because... well you get the idea, but none of those things is really me.  I hope the number of people that I have actually hurt or offended, at least since I left my adolescence, is rather small, and so I don't think I have many enemies in any real sense.
That's a luxury that very few in the history of the world could really claim.  Which is why I think we are getting so carried away with trying to make or just imagine enemies.  Because I think we don't really understand what it's like to live in peril.  The closest we come is when some lunatic decides to commit a so called "random" act of violence, or we become the victim of a crime of some sort, then maybe we have a chance to see our enemy clearly.  Jesus had serious enemies all around him.  He had the religious authorities who really didn't smell what he was cooking, he had the Romans who would just as soon put him to a brutal death as look at him, he even had a friend who was ready to betray him.
Am I living too safe? Should I be making more people angry at me? I mean so that I can love them?
Look, we've all had people hurt us, and forgiving is hard to say the least, but what I've been thinking about for the past two weeks is why I seem to want enemies in the first place.  Yes, people irritate me, sometimes very prominent people.  I really dislike Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, I can't help it, the sight of them makes me irritated, but I don't hate them.  If they were in a ditch bleeding I would help them.  I disagree profoundly with most of the things that come out of their mouths, but I don't want to see them come to harm, I just want them to lose their jobs (I don't think Trump even wants his job anyway).
Maybe if I believed that there really was a border crisis and our actual enemies were at this moment streaming across the border to come rape and pillage our world, I would feel differently about the hawks and white nationalists (I hope not, but maybe I would) who are vainly offering to keep us safe.
But the thing is that I am growing in this awareness that I am "In Christ," not just a Christian in the sense that I go to church (that I preach in a church), but that I am a part of this creation which is made according to the pattern of Christ, the Word, who was in the beginning.  As I get more and more towards that understanding (and it's not always a slam dunk) I am becoming aware that not only must I love my enemies, I really just need to stop inventing them in the first place.  I am so very fortunate that I live in a time and a place where the Vikings, the Huns or the Visigoths are not about to appear on the horizon and kill me and enslave my children.  That lowers the stakes on loving my enemy, makes it rather easy comparably speaking.
It may seem less dramatic to say, "love people who disagree with you," or "pray for those who make you cringe," but the challenge is the same,

All Her Children

Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 7:35

This is, I guess, for my United Methodist colleagues and friends, who may not be so united for very much longer.  I have watched what you folks have been going through over the past few days and I have great sympathy for what it feels like, because Presbyterians have been there fairly recently.  In fact, most of the duration of my 18 years of training and ordained ministry have had some sort of decision about our denominational stance regarding LGBTQI+ folk on the horizon or in the background.  That our denominations came to different conclusions is not surprising.  After all Arminians and Calvinists have a long history of unresolved differences.  Theologically speaking we have always been frenemies, because we're both reformed, but from different branches of the tree.  I will always enjoy referring to you as the "Baptists who could read," and you will always get a little glint in your eye whenever you ask me, "So what is the deal with predestination anyway?" I actually don't mind arguing about that, because I've got a secret: it's called universal salvation through Christ, and I stole it from Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis and George McDonald. I have also become much more comfortable with being labeled a heretic or an apostate than I was 15 years ago.

Once upon a time, I read Chesterton's Orthodoxy, as a sort of creed for conservative types, I liked his self-assured logic and witty slams on relativism and lazy liberalism.  I hearkened to highly rationalist forms of exegesis that tried to explain how the "clear moral instructions" contained in Scripture were supposed to push back our ability to love and accept folks who were different from us.  Then I started doing this thing called pastoral work, which involves actual people and their actual problems, but more importantly puts me in constant contact with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and trying to figure out how to present that "Good News," to hurting people around 50 different ways a year.  In the beginning I was always trying to pass a test, to be orthodox, to be intellectually sound, to be convincing and winsome; sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't.

Then another thing happened, I started to encounter real suffering and evil.  I watched a drug addiction rip my brother out of our family and eventually off of this mortal coil.  I counseled a couple in an abusive relationship that ended in a triple homicide.  I served churches full of people who have all kinds of flaws.  I have been personally wounded by people who questioned my integrity because they disagree with me on various issues.  I have lost people that I dearly loved. I have been welcomed into sacred places and I have walked a very long way (not just on the Camino).

After only 15 years, I can no longer recognize that young man who wanted to be Chesterton sure of himself. I'm not that sure of much anymore, but I have come to some peace with the notion that homosexuality is not evil. Promiscuity and infidelity are; sexuality that defies the sacred bond of love between two people is, but given what I know about the actual face of evil, two women who have been together for thirty years finally getting married is not evil.  A gay man wearing a rainbow stole and being ordained to this vocation of ministry is not evil. 

Do we need to recognize our sin and repent? Absolutely, and it's important that we all learn to recognize those places where we sin.  But there isn't a whole lot of Jesus talking about how we need to judge others in the Bible, in fact, it's rather the opposite. I have come to believe that we sin more by condemning others instead of loving them.  That the crowd with the stones were the real sinners. I have come to see, in Jesus of Nazareth, a man who consistently took his place with the broken and hurting people of the world rather than with the "authorities," and the arbiters of right and wrong.

That said, I understand why the folks in the Methodist church did what they did recently.  They are a global church and thus were put in a place where they were either going to offend the LGBTQI+ community and those who affirm them, or they were going to offend the millions of folks from the parts of the world where an older and more conservative morality still carries a lot of weight. Honestly, I would not wish such a global communion to impose western standards on so many parts of the world that have already suffered much from our colonial impulses.

I see the pain and the frustration all around on my social media.  To those on the losing side, take heart, love will win this thing eventually, God is patient, even when we aren't.  To those on the "winning" side try not to be smarmy jerks, you're not as right as you think you are. Remember that God often, if not always, sides with the losers, the last and the least, be humble.

I know you didn't ask for this advice, and depending on where you are now, you may not be able to hear it very well.  I'm offering this up because I know how hurtful this particular moment feels, and how traumatic the aftermath of it is likely to be.  You are a part of this Body of Christ, just as I am, and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12: "For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body..."  Whatever part of the body you happen to be, and whatever part I happen to be, I feel your pain.

Walls

All around your island,

There's a barricade,

It keeps out the danger,

It holds in the pain.

-Tom Petty, Walls

The Lumineers recently did a cover of Tom Petty's song Walls, and it's one of those instances where I think the cover version actually resonated with me even more than the original.  It might be because I think I heard the lyrics a little more clearly, maybe it's because walls are just sort of on everyone's mind for some reason.  To be clear, the song is not about actual walls, border or otherwise, it's about emotional walls and defense mechanisms, but I have been thinking lately that maybe this border wall fiasco is actually an emotional issue rather than a geopolitical one.

It seems to me that support for this wall largely hinges on the perception of an honest emergency: dangerous people flooding across the southern border.  Some people are predisposed to believe that is the situation, facts are not actually welcome.  The facts are that most of the undocumented people in this country arrived here legally and overstayed their visas, another fact is that illegal immigration is down drastically from where it was 15 years ago, another fact is that the border patrol and people who live and represent the actual geographical area of the southern border do not want the wall, nor do landowners in the area.  On the other side the only real fact is that Trump made a promise, and he has perceived in his charlatan's heart that this is one he cannot dance away from or dodge. There is a wise adage that says you should not persist in a bad decision simply because you put a lot of effort into making it, however, wisdom seems to have gone begging recently.

The bigger question, the spiritual question for us as humans is whether or not we are going to ever be able to tear down the walls for good.  I remember Ronald Reagan's famous "tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev!" as a pivotal moment in history.  It seems to me that breaking down walls always does more for our collective commonweal than building them.  Walls do protect things, but on some level they also destroy something.  I have seen walls that are objectively useful and beautiful things, and I have seen some that are down right ugly.  Some boundaries are good and necessary, others are just a way to try and soothe uncalled for fear.

In my mind there is not much doubt which sort of wall the Orange Ayatollah wants to build, he wants to build a symbol not a boundary, he wants to keep out all others not just our enemies.  If we, a nation of immigrants, have any inkling of the vision upon which our nation was founded, we would not want this wall, and we would not allow it to be built.  Right now, the wall is still a maybe, right now the "emergency" is being challenged.  Right now, I'm hoping it ends up being another broken campaign promise rather than yet another gut punch to our moral character.

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you;

you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

-Leviticus 19: 33-34

Reaction

Last night was the Super Bowl, though honestly there wasn't much super about it.  The Patriots beat the Rams 13-3 in a game that mostly gave punters their moment in the sun. The one thing most people could find even a little compelling was drinking the hater-ade in honor of Tom Brady, Bill Bellichick and the Patriot dynasty.  Los Angeles doesn't even seem to have noticed much that they actually have two teams now and one of them was contending for a championship.  The halftime show was described as "self-erasing" by one reviewer and indeed Maroon 5 is pretty forgettable.  There was a Sponge Bob Squarepants sighting in the commercials that have become many a non-football fan's survival kit for the big game, but mostly, even the mad men ad men came out pretty flat for this one.
Once again the Patriots won, I think, at least as much as anyone won that lousy excuse for a football game.  And yet, we still watched.  I see all the tweets and facebook posts this morning that narrate a whole bunch of people sitting around feeling collectively disappointed, and I say to them, as much as to myself: "you have a choice, you don't have to watch this."  We don't really, honestly, I feel like most of us watch the Super Bowl because we want to have something to complain about.
Last year I experienced the agony and eventual delight of actually caring about the game.  My long-suffering Philadelphia Iggles finally made it to and won the big game, for the first time.  They beat Tom Terrific and Bill Bellicheat with a back up quarterback who is now known as St. Nick in the Philly area.  It was glorious and reminded me of why sports are great.  This year reminded me of why sports can be such a grand waste of time, money and devotion.
If you're like me you slogged through watching that game out of sheer habit.  Hoping that maybe there would be a play or at least a commercial that was worth talking about. And it felt pretty forgettable in the end, and it was for everyone except Patriots fans, they now have 6 championships and they will remember that, obnoxiously.
As you may have come to expect, I have a slant on this that relates to a rather more vital aspect of our lives.  Sports, for better or worse, have become a sort of de-facto secular religion.  Many of the same dynamics apply, people feel loyal to their particular sport and will despise others, even though there is no really essential conflict. At times people get fed up with the league, the officials, the commissioner and the players, just like they get frustrated with the pastor, the denomination or the idea of organized religion in general.  This Super Bowl was definitely a confluence of many of those frustrations, just as people's malaise with the church  has so many different facets.
It would be easy to say I told you so, to point out that perhaps being so devoted to a game, a form of entertainment was probably going to lead to a predictable emptiness, I'm actually challenged to say something more constructive, because I'm wrestling with how the Church can try to reverse the damage that has been done to our collective body by consistently flopping down clunkers when we have a chance to present the best of who we are.
It occurs to me that while, at our best we could provide people with the kind of connection they need, to provide a source of strength and solidarity and purpose, we so often find ourselves engaged in a defensive struggle, where we mostly end up just punting... a lot.  We have become too busy trying not to lose and we end up looking a lot like the Rams did last night... helpless and hapless.
I'm not suggesting that there isn't a place for solid, even boring, defensive play, if that's the thing that you're really good at (it worked for the Patriots last night and has worked for the Ravens and the Steelers in the not too distant past).  Nor am I suggesting that entertainment is the most important thing, but tentative and timid are not the ingredients of success at anything.  Last night showed me that even a pseudo-religion like sports can suffer the same soul-killing disconnection if it's all about the show.
Have we made it all about the show?  If so why did we do that? Our goal is not to make money, or even to get big ratings, our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and I am fairly certain that approaching that the way we approach sports is going to be counter-productive, maybe bordering on toxic. Eventually all those fans are going to lose interest and there will be a heck of a let down, like Super Bowl LIII.

A Rudder

No one wants to be that strenuous being - the single individual. But men everywhere are in the service of that deceitful substitute - a group.  Let's a few of us join together, form a group - then we can surely do something. This is the most profound demoralization of the human race. 

*** 

 The task is not, as human stupidity believes it is: to justify Christianity to men, but rather to justify oneself to Christianity.

 -Soren Kierkegaard

The task that confronts me, as a practitioner of institutional Christianity at this particular time in history, is trying to figure out how this particular institution is going to survive the postmodern world.  To some extent, I know it's a task of vanity (the biblical sort not the "how's my hair look?" sort).  I believe that the work of God's Holy Spirit in this world is not a function of church attendance or stewardship campaigns, it is a pillar of creation, it is the Word, the Breath, the Holy Fire that makes all that is and was and shall be, all that mystical stuff.  Woohoo, but I've got a mortgage to pay and kids to put through college.  For better or worse, I have hitched my wagon to this thing called the Church.

A lot of times though... it just makes me kind of sad, not because of the usual stuff though, not because of the emergent postmodern griping about the church.  I don't really begrudge all the former evangelicals who have migrated out of the "toxic" waters that spawned them and found their "true home," among the liturgies of the Episcopalians or the Orthodox.  I think it's cool when people "discover" a system that has been around for 1000 years and it seems new.  But that's the problem, it seems like they are just in it for the novelty or the contrast, or the change from what they knew.  It's essentially teenage rebellion (a lot of them are 20 somethings).  The problem is that it is cool, or trendy, or whatever.  Differentiation from  your originating system can seem "cool" at first, but ultimately it becomes hard work, and if you don't do the work you will probably end up dissociated and having a difficult time forming healthy relationships.

Sorry, that might seem a little psycho-babble-ish.  Let me provide some context.  I didn't start down this path out of the blue.  Here are two more voices from outside my bubble that I came across this morning.  The first is Bret Stephens of the New York Times talking politics and how we seem to have lost the rudder of "The West." The second is Timothy Carney writing for the American Conservative, with a longish read about how the much vaunted support of Trump by Christians may be something of an illusion created by the peculiar animal called nominal Christianity.  I will state, as I usually do, that these folks are not Liberals, nor are they "cultured despisers" of religion.  They are, in fact, making a rather crucial point about how both liberal iconoclasts and right-wing propagandists have done damage to the moral and religious structures that we took for granted, perhaps took for granted for too long.

As a laborer in the field, I know all too well that, just because folk check the "Christian," box on a census form or slap an ichthus on their bumper (that's the little fish thingy), doesn't mean they are actually a follower of Jesus, or even a genuine participant in an actual church congregation.  By the by, the more time goes by, the more I actually do believe that going to church is an important part of actually following Jesus. When I was younger, I thought that maybe the "me and Jesus" kind of faith was a thing that could bear fruit, but time and human sinfulness have convinced me otherwise.  You need a community to grow, you need other people, you need Christianity in order to be a follower of Jesus.

You don't need Christendom necessarily, that's a chimera dire, a fusion of institutional church rules and political power-grabbing.  You don't need blind obedience to an institutional expression of Christianity, but you do need community and communion.  Carney, for all the relevant points he makes, is somewhat limited by an empirical approach that can only track numbers.  He relies on things like church attendance and polling data.  I think those things are only a tentacle of something much larger and more dangerous beneath the surface.  Many forms of church that are available to people these days offer attendance opportunities with little or no connection.  Mega churches are the obvious offenders, but smaller congregations can do it too: "Just come to our church, we promise not to ask too much of you."  Churches can play the game of clubs and cliques as well as the game of thrones, we're not above it, or immune from it, in fact, it's safe to say that most churches are probably a mess in their own special little way.

So why go? Why put yourself through it?

The theological answer is that God is about relationship, in the Trinity, and through the Incarnation.  God became a human being to demonstrate that the Spirit and the body are not enemies. Reconciliation, redemption, salvation, atonement, all that church sounding stuff, what it comes back to is that God is all about relationships and community.  In community you find people who challenge you in so many different ways, and you also find people who support you in ways you can never comprehend.  Community of that sort gives you a rudder, and a sense that there is something to steer by rather than just whatever you happen to feel at the moment.

Which leads to the second, more practical answer, religion, among other things, provides a moral framework.  Even if we disagree somewhat about what morality might be, there is a certain bedrock standard in Christian (and honestly in many other religions) faith.  That bedrock is what Jesus uses to sum up the Law and the Prophets: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." You can spend a lot of time unpacking those things, but they are pretty easy to remember, and they are useful benchmarks for anything else that you might try to build on to your religion.  They are the rudder we need.

Red In Tooth and Claw

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love creation's final law

Tho nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shreik'd against his creed.

-Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H

I have been thinking a bit lately about how it is often necessary to listen to unfriendly criticism.  It starts with the present and obvious reality that we all tend to inhabit bubbles of our own creation.  We want to have our worldview and our egos affirmed as often as possible.  I know I live in a bubble every time I turn on Fox News or listen to Donald Trump give... well I guess you could call them speeches.  There is screeching dissonance between the things I hear and see and the world I want to exist.  The question I have to ask myself then is whether the dissonance is between my own opinions and thoughts about how things are, which are essentially creations of my ego, or whether there is something more real underneath.

This is where the unrelenting assault on the truth becomes critical.  This is where the idea that we cannot trust anyone to help us discern the truth becomes savage.  This is where the postmodern blitzkrieg against objectivity and meaning becomes truly destructive.

These days I truly appreciate people who have the wherewithal to poke through bubbles rather than just comfortably dwelling within those bubbles. Richard Rohr names the enemy of our common humanity as something rather different than you might expect from a Franciscan priest, it is not Satan, it is not even evil, it is Dualism.  It is our stubborn insistence on creating dichotomy: good/bad, smart/dumb, believer/apostate, orthodox/heretic, Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative.  Even as I wrote that list, I realize that I (unconsciously) put things in a certain order.  The things I consider good were first and the bad, or maybe less good were second.  Lord have mercy upon me, a wretched bubble dwelling sinner.

The problem with Dualism, from a Christian/Jewish/Muslim perspective, is that there is one God.  In fact, the Muslim mantra: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet," is a pretty important feature in their belief and practice.  Likewise, the Hebrew prayer Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord your God, is ONE."  We Christians have probably muddied this up more than our Abrahamic kinfolk with the whole Father, Son, Holy Spirit, perichoresis thing, but believe me, most of us do actually believe that God is one, just three in one, one in three, triune, God in three persons, blessed Trinity (sorry, I just started singing a hymn for no good reason).

I can't really begin to deal adequately with polytheism, pantheism, paganism, Hinduism or any of that, because while I can seek to understand them, they are too far outside my bubble for me to really feel them, so what I feel like I need to do is try to use the tools and weapons that I find within my own worldview to slay the dragons of dualism that I find here.  Helpful things that appear within my sphere, like say the opinion page of the New York Times.  Yeah, yeah, I know, liberal media, failing Times, fake news, whatever, they actually give some pretty good conservative folk a voice and even a few that probably should have their voice taken away (sorry, there I go with the Dualist hating again).  David Brooks consistently impresses me with his analysis of things.  This piece is no exception, TL;DR he talks about the rather troubling culture of the call out.  This is something I know, because in certain sub-cultures the call out has been around for a long time.  When I was in high school, my friends and I would have conversations/arguments about music groups that had either "sold out" or not sold out.  Depending on the group of people this could have been about punk bands like Green Day or metal bands like Metallica, and even the occasional rap group/artist.  In the punk scene, as the Invisibilia, episode Brooks is on about describes, there was a certain rigorous morality to the argument.  The most serious punk rockers of the 1990's were "straight-edge," which meant no drugs, no alcohol, sometimes even no sex, or at least sex within the confines of committed relationship only.  Fugazi, a very well put together band, insisted on never signing with a major label, never writing empty pop-punk songs, never charging more than $5 for a show, never giving in to the pressure/opportunity of becoming big time rock stars.

I saw Fugazi perform several times over the course of my high school/college years, and each time it became less fun.  The last time I went, Ian Mckay spent most of the night lecturing the frat boys in the mosh pit about playing nice, and getting genuinely upset when they seemed more intent on hitting the boys and groping the girls then they did about actually moshing in the good old fashioned way.

Those were the days when call outs were born.  Those were the days when a sort of fundamentalism that has overrun the interweb was hatching out of some vile egg of individualism.  They came for the pseudo-punks and I said nothing because those guys are jerks.  They came for the fans of crappy music and I said nothing because who needs more crappy music.  You get the idea, but eventually all of us get called out, and it's not any fun, especially if you kind of deserve it, like you make a racist or sexist comment, or if you forget to "check your privilege," in the wrong company.

I respect Ian McKay as an artist, and for his moral values, but man, he just flat out ruined a good concert with his call outs.  What Brooks is lamenting in his opinion piece is a very real problem for our current brutally polarized culture: no one wants to be the "victim" of a call out, and some people are willing to go to extremes to avoid it.  See sometimes Call Outs backfire.  

Example: A fairly equality minded white kid makes some comment that rubs a black kid the wrong way, a call out on racist ground ensues, and shame is introduced.  Do you think that that white kid became more or less racist on the basis of that call out?  If they are reflective and open enough, maybe they get better, but probably not.  Most likely the sting of that convinces them that they are, in fact, a victim, even though the reality may be quite different.

Example: A man makes what he considers a gesture of friendliness or politeness towards a woman at work and gets called out for sexism or even sexual harassment. Do you think he automatically becomes more conscious of gender inequality? Or does he become more hostile towards women in the workplace as a sort of defensive posture?

This is a serious problem, this is how you make majority groups who are objectively privileged feel threatened and unpredictable and likely to do something irrational that may even be contrary to their own interests.  How does everyone these days seem to think the media is biased against them and their tribe?  Why do most of the people you talk to feel like the world is just sliding into the abyss in some way, shape or form?

I think it's because they have bought the dualism at the heart of all of our worst impulses: if I'm good others are bad, if I'm going to win others have to lose, if I'm going to survive others must die.  Nature, red in tooth and claw, but that is not the ultimate truth.  There is a "more excellent way," as the Apostle Paul says.  Love is creation's final law, because God is One and God is love.  Love not only casts out fear, it casts out dualism altogether.  You can't really "call out" someone you love, at least not in the way it's being done these days. You can challenge them, you might be able to correct them, but you have to love them first, and that, friends and neighbors is sorely missing from our world.

We Need More Woody

I have intentionally and unintentionally taken a bit of a hiatus from writing this blog.  Part of the reason was because Christmas happened, and I was busy, that was the unintentional part.  The other part was a sort of pre-new years resolution that I would try and write things only when I had something good to say.  Of course, you can argue with my definition of "good," but this is, after all, my blog not yours.  At the end of November I just felt burnt out on politics, the election seemed important and I was pretty happy that my side managed to wrestle at least one hammer away from the toddler (credit Will Rogers for that imagery).  But a month after that result and pretty much daily assaults on the dignity and decorum of nation left me feeling like I had just run out of outrage, and I don't want to run out of outrage, in case I need it for something important.  Besides that point, I kind of feel like me just pouring my outrage out here on the interweb, only increases the level of general outrage, and I think that is not what we collectively need right now.
So I'm going to talk, again, about Woody Guthrie.  I have a deep admiration for Woody Guthrie as a songwriter, but honestly, if he were trying to make a go of it these days, his twangy folk style probably would sell in Nashville or any where else, no matter how clever the words were. I have come to suspect that perhaps one of the cures for what ails us politically might just be found in the ethos of Woody Guthrie.
Let me explain what I mean. Despite being exceptionally well known for a ragamuffin folk singer, despite writing This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land, despite being a primary influence on Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, Woody never got rich.  Woody died poor after suffering from the debilitating progressive horror of Huntington's disease.  Guthrie had, as a young man traveled around getting involved in various labor causes.  Living a life that was sort of like the life that John Steinbeck's fictional character Tom Joad lived, Okies and migrant workers, factory workers and coal miners, Woody didn't just write songs about them, he went among them.  Bruce Springsteen, in his recent Broadway show, admitted that while he made his living writing songs about hard work and factories and such, had never held an honest job in his life (it was his Dad that did that, and it's really a powerful and touching story, but that's for another day).
That was not the approach Woody took, his sympathy and his identity came from the blue collar and the no collar workers.  His music told their stories, but it wasn't just an act, those were his stories too.  I think that if we're going to get past this current mess of outrages, we're going to need more Woody.  I'm not just talking about a person cut from his cloth, but an actual re-discovery of the ethic of the common man and the values of hard work and honest work at that.  I know that kind of sounds Republican, and it could be if they were honest about it instead of just using it as a con to sucker the rubes while they hand money to the bankers.
Once upon a time both the Democrats were the party of Labor Unions and working people, and they still are in some essential ways, but they've also become the party of the metropolitan areas and the cultural progressives, which essentially sends the working people running to the... well to Donald Trump, who I guess is about as much of a traditional Republican as Bill Clinton.  The problem I see is that no one is really looking out for the masses of people, because the masses don't have anything to give the politicos other than their vote, and votes have been cheapened by a lot of different mechanisms and systems.  Votes are so cheap, in fact, that nearly half the eligible population just throws theirs in the garbage.
Our democracy doesn't work very well when the people who live in it don't care enough to know what's going on for real, which brings me back to Woody.  One of the things good folk music does is put you in touch with reality, it tells you a hard luck story or two, if reflects the good, the bad and the ugly of human experience, often without much window dressing.  We don't have much in the way of folk music these days other than as a sort of acoustic museum exhibit of songs that used to be about important things. Rap can do it, and has done it at moments, rock can do it, it doesn't have to just be twangy, beat up guitars and gravelly, wiry ragamuffins, but songs can relate to people about things that are true, and truth seems to be in short supply these days, so yeah, we need more Woody.