Preacher: Otis Moss III

Maybe it’s his OM3 version of the Bible; maybe it’s the repetition of an idea over and over again until somebody—anybody—gets it; maybe it’s the stories, or the insistence that we tell each other some key principle. Whatever it is, I am right there, because, whatever else he might be, the Reverend Dr. Otis Moss III is a teacher.

When I started teaching high school chemistry, a group of my students made fun of the fact that I told them on the first day to take their texts home and hide them under their beds until they had to return them in June. The text was boring, and was good for looking things up, but they were going to learn my way. They called it McChemistry.

In my first-year-teacher arrogance, I knew I could do better than that text, and, for many of those kids, I did. I injected some imagination into my classes; some showing, rather than constant telling. Orbitals weren’t illustrations in the book, but rotating strings that formed shapes when they were spinning. Gas atoms were superballs in a jar, crashing and bumping, speeding up and slowing down to form liquids, and, at their slowest, solids. Distribution of electrons in orbitals was reduced to a schoolbus’ seats filling up. I tried to use whatever I could to get my students to identify how things worked. I was the queen of metaphor.

That is precisely what Reverend Moss does. He reaches out and, through the wonders of his imagination, creates a bible that is accessible and identifiable to his audience—the OM3 version. His Bible stories leap off the page, shaking the dust of years of interpretation from their feet. Those people look like us, sound like us, act like us—and, in a weird type of time travel miracle that only Reverend Moss truly can accomplish, they become us. The paralytic has friends who care enough to tear off a roof to bring him to Jesus, whether he wants to go or not, and each of them holds up his corner of the mat, is responsible for his part of the job. We feel Jephtha’s pain at rejection because of his origins, and savor the validation he feels when he is asked to return to a position of command. We are the Samaritan on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and somehow divine the difference between religion and faith. (Religion tells you when to sit and stand; faith tells you how to live!)

He teaches. He makes his subject real. He brings it to life with his enthusiasm and his focus and with every tool he has in his toolbox, not least of which is his delivery. His words tumble out, tripping over one another in their eagerness and excitement. Teachers are often the only people in the room who are excited and enthusiastic ; not here. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm, and he has us on our feet by the end of his lesson, his sermon, his preaching. On our feet, applauding the skill with which he has guided us to where we didn’t even know we wanted to go.

And then, there is the part, every time,  that brings me to the verge of tears. At that point, where this audience stands and applauds him , tries to show him how good he really is, and how well he has delivered his message, he turns his back on us, and drops to one knee—quietly, with no words, no fanfare, acknowledging the Word he invited into the room, reminding us that it isn’t his message, but God’s, not his triumph, but that of the Holy Spirit, teaching us by example that what we do is nothing, compared to what God can do through us. 

Amen. Hallelujah.

Bottom of the Barrel

I'm running low on outrage, and I scraped the bottom of the barrel of disbelief a long time ago. I still have a bushel basket full of disdain and disgust, and a bucket-load of it-can't-happen-here that I drag along behind me as a penance. It's 2019, and we have a full one-year-plus to go before we can legitimately send Donald Trump back to New York, or wherever one sends tin-pot dictators when they've been overthrown.

He's still here, and if anyone could give Twitter a bad name, he has proven that he's the man for the job. He has been, and continues to be a graceless, lying, self-congratulating nightmare, whose biggest fan appears to be himself. He continues to prove with each rally, each positive poll, each outrageous attack that P.T. Barnum's axiom that 'there's a sucker born every minute' is indeed true. He has an innate propensity for turning facts on their heads, for weaseling his way through life blaming everyone but himself when things go awry, for casting himself as the hero in every scenario or the victim in every plot. He is a practiced and accomplished liar and con man. This is not a president of whom we can be proud.

He styles himself as the voice of the average citizen. No. I grew up in a lower middle class family, where college was not a given, where, if you wanted something, you had to pay for it. I had a scholarship, but lived at home, and worked from the time--literally the DAY--I turned 16. I bought a car; I managed grad school. I got along. But I never felt the need to step on others in my own upward climb. I was not made to feel threatened by people who didn't look like me. They were working too, trying to make their way in the world. Good for them. Good for me.

Donald Trump was rich. He was privileged. He had every advantage that money could buy. But money couldn't buy him empathy, or kindness, or honesty, or the intelligence to value those things. All that money bought was MORE. And somehow, MORE drowned out all the common virtues, all the common sensibility, all the leadership values we require in a president. The presidency simply became the next step toward MORE. More power, more vanity, more distance from real human beings. More departures from the truth. More exercise of his toddler-like tantrums.

And yet, I think the most hurtful aspect to me (and possibly, me alone) is the number of people who line up behind him and say "Yes" to his racism, his cruelty, his disregard for women, his cronyism, his extravagant waste of taxpayer money. They say "Yes" to all the lies he tells, and the embarrassment he causes our country. They say "Yes" out of ignorance, out of fear, or, perhaps, out of what has become a permanent state of American boredom and inattention: the insatiable desire for something new, for something to capture the nanosecond attention span of an over-stimulated populace. There are women out there, I am embarrassed to say, who support and believe this man. Do they not read? Do they not listen to anyone but him? Do they truly believe that the entire country is out to get him, that he is right and true, and everyone else is wrong? It is incredible.

They believe because they want to believe. They want to have someone shout out loud all the dark and despicable thoughts they keep to themselves. He is their voice, most assuredly, but he is the voice of the devil on their shoulder who urges them to ignore conscience, to ignore what is right, and give in to what feels good, whether it be immoral or illegal or horrifyingly cruel.

He is—need I say it?—not my president.

MAGA

He has lit fires in our midst
fed the blaze on the tinder
of our hidden fears
and inadequacies:
a veritable inferno
consuming pride,
hopes, accomplishments

And, without a doubt,
when all is barren,
he will watch with satisfaction.
He will build his tin palaces
on that wasteland
and will proclaim these travesties
(lacking better words)
tremendous,
awesome,
and very, very
beautiful.

Images

When I close my eyes, the movies start:
projected inside my eyelids,
against the darkness of my room.
No trailers, no previews, no censors;
just snippets of fears and catastrophes,
of mistakes and might-have-beens,
crammed into corners,
camouflaged by the everyday
till they (almost) disappear.
Yet, like submerged balloons
popping (inevitably) to the surface
insisting on their screen time.
Tonight it's the violent smack
of body on vehicle--
shattered glass left in its wake. heart
hammering at the shock.
Tomorrow,
the screams of other horrors:
guns; shooters, unhinged,
but well-supplied with ammunition;
children, lost, maltreated, murdered,
there, in my internal movie,
there, in the daily news.