The Comma

I was listening to a recording of Martin Luther King’s 1967 speech at the Riverside Church today, as part of my MLK day observance.  The speech, called something like “Beyond Vietnam,” was articulate, poetic and powerful.  In addition to all of his other brilliant insights, he said that the United States needed a “values revolution.”  Then he listed some of the values that he was calling our nation to embrace: ecumenism (the world is too small for religious divisiveness), a prizing of people over things (attacking the rampant materialism and greed of his time- which by the way looks rather tame in light of this century’s materialism and greed), and a deep commitment to non-violence as a way of life were just a few of the values that King invited us to embrace.

I found his call ironic in light of the way the term “values” has been co-opted by right wing conservatives in the last several years.  The first time I remember hearing the phrase “Values Voter” was in the 2004 presidential election.  It seemed as if every news reporter was saying it. “The ‘values voter’ might make the difference.” It was usually made along with the observation that conservative Christians would turn out in record numbers to vote “in defense of marriage” (translate: “against expanding marriage benefits to gay couples”).  In fact the phrase was used so often that the day after the country re-elected President Bush, I put a home-made bumper sticker on my truck.   “I voted my values” I said, and put the phrase on a rainbow background.  This was my way of saying there are other values than being against offering the protection and benefits of civil union to certain committed couples, or limiting the options of pregnant women, or supporting an illegal war.

Eventually the rain washed my homemade bumper sticker off my truck and use of the phrase of the values voter seemed to die down.  But now I am hearing it again.  I noticed it about a month ago, when folks were gearing up for the beginning of the primary campaign.  And I heard it again a few weeks ago when Larry Stickney, executive director of the Family Policy Institute (affiliated with Focus on the Family, where James Dobson commented on vitality of Value Voters the day after the Iowa caucuses) was a guest on KUOW.  I actually called the radio that day to object to the appropriation of the term.

The phrase values voter is such a discouragingly long way from the values revolution that King called for.  And the use of the phrase as a shorthand for a certain narrow, anti-gay, anti-choice voting pattern seems to me a real disservice to the word and to those of us who live out our deeply held, positive and affirming values every day. 

So I intend to redeem and  reclaim the phrase.  I have developed another bumper sticker for this year’s campaigns.  It reads:

 Values  Voter

Peace    Justice    Diversity

 Compassion   Sustainability   Love

It actually looks a little neater than that- but I can’t figure out how to adjust the font on this blog.  Anyway, I’m putting it on my truck.  Because I’m a values voter too.

To begin my year, I went to a one-day retreat at the Whidbey Institute, just a mile and a half from my home. (If you have never been to the Institute, let me take a moment to recommend it before I continue my reflection.  So this is an aside, indicated by the presence of parentheses.  (Just a note: I don’t always indicate my asides with parentheses.  Sometimes I just ramble on about one thing right in the middle of making a point about something else.)  Anyway, the Whidbey Institute is a retreat and study community of about 70 acres on the south end of Whidbey Island.  They call themselves a “thin place”- that is, a place where the veil between this world and “the other world” is particularly thin, and so one can access deeper truths of the soul simply by being physically present on the land. (or something like that.)  (There is a labyrinth at the Institute that I like to walk when I want to specifically focus my attention and intention.  I walked it at the beginning of my sabbatical.  I also walked it at the retreat about which I am currently writing. (Iona, in Scotland, where I went last summer with folks from this church also calls itself a thin place.  (There is also a labyrinth there.)))) 

The focus of the retreat was “Letting Go of Fear,” and although I went more for the opportunity to reflect on the coming year than for the topic, I was nevertheless intrigued.  And most especially I was drawn in to the question with which the retreat leader introduced the retreat.  “What would you do if you were not afraid?”  She invited the fourteen or so of us gathered there in the chapel (a stunningly beautiful building constructed completely from timber taken from the Institute land) (Go there just to see that chapel if for nothing else) to spend the day with this question.  She also read some quotes about fear.  The one most interesting to me was the proverb, “Once you’ve been been bitten by a snake you are afraid of every rope.” 

By the end of the day I did not really have an answer to the retreat question, but I did feel very energized by the experience of spending the day at the Institute.  Following our closing session in the chapel, it was getting dark.  The leader told us to be careful, as there was a tree across the path we had to take to get back to our cars- it was a small tree that had been blown down in the last storm and had not yet been cleaned up.  “I’ve been worrying about that tree all day,” the leader said, “since I knew we would be leaving here in the dark.” 

Hmmm.  Since the leader had also mentioned the tree in the morning and since I had a pruning saw in my truck (left over from Christmas tree work) I had actually spent some of my free time that day removing the tree from the path. 

Some of the other participants said, “The tree is gone- someone moved it.” 

“I did,” I said quietly.  The retreat leader laughed and then turned and gave me a hug. 

I guess once you’ve tripped over something, you see trees in the path even when they’re gone.