success

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Showing Up

Woody Allen is credited with the statement “80 per cent of success is showing up.” If you teach public school or engage in voter registration, you get this. Your job is to get the unwilling to be minimally willing and move on from there. If the students or voters don’t “show up,” your work is futile.

Public schooling and voting for public officials are considered the great institutions of American society. Both have fallen into disrepute because of modern inventions that confound them, standardized testing and voter suppression laws.  Both regulations rationalize against “showing up,” but rather that you must show up at the right time and meet certain qualifications. Those who advocate for such regulation believe that the processes of learning and voting need strict quality controls. As much as this makes sense, the regulations of standardized testing and voter id/ voting hours are not affecting quality, but participation.

If you are not directly involved in teaching or voter registration you may not understand that both learning and voting require engagement. Without it the rest of the process is defunct. It’s like another popular American institution, the lottery. If you don’t play, how can you win? As one who never plays the lottery, I can attest my interest in numbers chosen on TV or in the newspaper is nil. I am a nonparticipant.  I don’t even get why people throw their money away on such things.  Supposed you believed this about education or voting?  You don’t show up.

I have taught high school and listened to people explain what they vote for, and I know that people do not always show up for the right reasons. I know that there were days when I breathed a sigh of relief when Barry or Linda did not show up for class. But then Barry or Linda show up a week later and say, “What did I miss?” I’m thinking: a week of education. I’m wishing they had been there to know what was going on even if they didn’t do it.

You can say I’m suffering from low expectations, but I also know that these students can suddenly become engaged with the novel we’re reading for no particular reason and take off. Or someone will get through to them, and they will see the point of learning. And I think the same is true of voter registration.

I suspect those who disdain the “showing up” philosophy are thinking, No one begged me to show up, I just did. And why can’t everyone else do what I did? Take initiative, accept responsibility, do what’s right. But if you teach public school or attempt to get the vote out, you can see how thin the margin is between doing what’s right and doing nothing.  There is a redemptive moment in many lives that happens just because they showed up.

And if you want to get down to redemption, you have to believe, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”  If you don’t accept that grace or luck or connections have something to do with success, then you probably don’t believe in “showing up.”  You probably think it all comes of trying harder and having the right attitude. Good luck with that.

For my part, I begin this day asking for mercy not to screw up, and God takes it from there. And I will screw up, but I know that God will remember I showed up that morning. I will learn something, and I will remember to vote.

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Forgiveness and the Career Politician

Celebrating his victory in the Congressional election in South Carolina Tuesday evening (May 7) Mark Sanford, the former governor, declared,

I want to acknowledge a God, not just of second chances, but third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth chances (“Guess Who’s Back!”  New York Times, May 9, 2013)

Invoking God’s endorsement on this remarkable comeback in politics seems like a presumption and a warning sign that Congressman Sanford’s public embarrassments may not have ended.  As columnist Gail Collins quipped, “Talk about the availability of eight chances seems to suggest the newly elected Congressman is leaving daylight for additional forgiveness opportunities in the future” (“Guess Who’s Back!,”  New York Times, May 9, 2013).

Alexander Pope famously said,”To err is human; to forgive divine.” No one should question whether God has forgiven anybody, because it is, after all, God’s prerogative.  It is God’s forgiveness that draws us to worship or love or serve in the name of God.  Even service in government might originate from gratitude for God’s forgiveness.

But success in politics or business or the Super Bowl is no indicator of God’s forgiveness.  Success is relative.  Success in politics is not success in marriage or success in piety. It is winning the majority of votes by whatever strategies work at the moment, even debating cardboard cutouts of Nancy Pelosi. To say that God endorses an electoral victory is overstating the meaning of “forgiveness” and “grace.”

And success is fleeting. Grieving about the success of the “wicked,” the Psalmist prayed to understand why they were given power to rule. In a moment of revelation he says,

Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.

How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!

As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. (Psalm 73:19-20)

“Slippery ground” describes the dangers of politics perfectly.  The longest runs of political success can end precipitously. Ask former Congressmen Dan Rostenkowski (D. Illinois) or Tom Delay (R. Texas), both power brokers who resigned abruptly amid scandal. Political success is so fleeting, God would likely consider it a cheap reward for the faithful. So achieving political office can hardly be attributed to God.

But more personally, should voters forgive politicians who betray their trust? Should the governor of a state be forgiven for adultery, vanishing from the state without contact information, ethics violations, and trespassing in the home of his estranged wife? “Forgiveness” seems like the wrong word to describe whether the bond of trust can be renewed after it has been repeatedly fractured.  Congressman Sanford’s wife might well forgive him his indiscretions, but that does not mean she should consent to be his campaign manager, as he had vainly implored her.

The Apostle Paul makes a good example of the dimensions of God’s forgiveness.  After gaining a reputation for persecuting and arresting Christians for their faith, he was converted in one of the most dramatic encounters with God reported in the Bible.  Blinded by a light from heaven, he was led to a house in Damascus, where he remained for three days “without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”  Ananias received the unenviable call to go and lay hands on the zealot Paul and restore his eyesight. Of course he balked,

Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem ; and here he has the authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name (Acts 9:13-14)

In his vision, Ananias is constrained to go and heal Paul because, “he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel” (15).  It is a testament to his faith in God’s forgiveness that Ananias went to Paul and prayed for his eyesight to be restored and for him to be “filled by the Holy Spirit.”

Thus began Paul’s career as Christianity’s greatest missionary–forgiveness for the most unlikely of people. The unsung hero in this story is Ananias, who took a mortal risk to approach Paul and invoke the forgiveness of God on a known enemy.

Paul never stopped telling the story of his past persecution of Christians to keep his evangelical success in perspective.  He understood that forgiveness was not a license to do what he pleased. He understood that God would not let forgiveness become indulgence. Later he wrote to the Galatians,

Do not be deceived: God can not be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Galatians 6: 7-8)

If forgiveness is available to Paul of Tarsus, it certainly is available to Mark of South Carolina. What Paul did with this forgiveness is instructive for Congressman Sanford, however. Paul never failed to mention his dark past, if it would keep his present success in perspective.

Remember the slippery ground, Congressman, remember the slippery ground.