Our Lives Are Connected
"Belonging is the nature of things . . . " (Diana Butler Bass)
”The Cellular Nature of a Leaf” - Photo by Lukas Tennie on Unsplash
Diana Butler Bass recently wrote a Substack entitled “The Great Web of Belonging.” In it she lovingly disputes the inevitability of divisions we are currently observing in our political world. She says that “belonging is in the nature of things.” She continues,
Belonging. We belong. The kingdom of God belongs to us, especially the littlest and least powerful of us. The vocation of caring for all of creation belongs to we humans, because we humans belong to creation. And those who would insist on superiority and status instead of mutuality and shared responsibility are, frankly, just wrong.
As our regular readers know, at the end of each of our posts, there’s a section called “Connections,” in which we provide links to other sources who write, sing, draw, research, or amplify our topic of the day. Because of our deep concerns about the election, we are turning this entire newsletter into a composite “Connections” to lift up some of the Substacks, like Diana’s, that we are reading in this fraught and precarious time for the future of our democracy.
Both of us have for over forty years respected the work of Jim Wallis as founder and leader of Sojourners, the Christian social justice advocacy organization and publication, and now as leader of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. Several weeks ago the Center sponsored Test of Faith: A Summit to Defend Democracy, which brought together a diverse group of religious leaders who are public voices speaking out about the dangers of Christian nationalism to democracy. It was co-hosted by Diana Butler Bass, Jemar Tisby, Kristin Du Mez, and Robert P. Jones, each of whom writes a Substack newsletter and together share a podcast The Convocation Unscripted.
The VP debate between J.D. Vance and Mike Walz and U.S. Special Council Jack Smith’s Oct. 2 report prompted some of our favorite Substack creators-- including Bass, Tisby, Du Mez, and Jones--to comment on post-truth politics. In a recent posting “Tweets and Other Evidence,” New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly summarizes Smith’s detailed report of Donald Trump’s criminality in the Jan. 6 insurrection in which he made the case Trump “was acting ‘as office-seeker, not office-holder” when he tried to overturn the results of the election. Through her perceptive drawings Donnelly emphasizes his continued reliance upon lies to conceal his guilt. Here’s one of them.
After briefly summarizing Smith’s report, Donnelly points to the detailed account found in Heather Cox Richardson’s Oct 2 post which observes that “...Vance’s willingness to lie matters to Trump, and nowhere more than in his refusal to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.”
Richardson’s Oct. 5 newsletter begins with the story of lying about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, and the federal response to Hurricane Helene. She comments,
As in Springfield, a bipartisan group of lawmakers are begging MAGAs to stop the disinformation, which is keeping people from accessing the help they need and gumming up relief efforts as workers and local and state governments, as well as FEMA, have to waste time combating lies. Scammers and political extremists are making things worse by spreading AI-generated images and claiming that the federal government is ignoring the people and emergencies the images depict.
There’s more. Cox describes last week’s MAGA Republican launch of a huge disinformation campaign about the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent jobs report showing that the U.S. added about 254,000 jobs in Sept and an unemployment rate of 4.1%. After citing more examples, Cox writes, “The firehose of lies is designed to make it impossible for voters to figure out the truth. The technique is designed so that eventually voters give up trying to engage, conclude everyone is lying, throw up their hands, and stop voting.”
Our list of Substack newsletters that focus on MAGA lies would not be complete without Robert Hubbell’s Oct 4 post in which he writes, “ Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris was grounded in courage, honor, fealty to the Constitution, and commitment to the truth.” In her speech endorsing Harris Cheney urged,
As we meet here today, our Republic faces a threat unlike any we have faced before. A former president who attempted to stay in power by unraveling the foundations of our republic by refusing to accept the lawful results confirmed by dozens of courts of the 2020 election.
We cannot turn away from this truth in this election. Putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration. It is our duty at the very heart of our survival as a republic is the peaceful transition of power. . . . So today, I ask all of you here and everyone listening across this great country to join us. I ask you to meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump.
We are grateful for the courage of Republicans like Liz Cheney, [and others] who see that this election is less about party and policy and more about the health and continuation of democracy in the U.S. This is no ordinary election. Will we vote to make sure that the next generations will enjoy the freedom that has been ours?
Though the divisions in our country have become wider in the last eight years and the fabric of our democracy seems to be fraying, our lives are still connected. They border on each other, sometimes with kindness, sometimes with cruelty, but we still belong to each other. As Noel’s song “Facets of the Jewel” (see “Vibrations” below) proclaims in the first verse,
Our lives are connected
Like facets of a jewel
The reluctance of a wise man
The wisdom of a fool
They border on each other
Sometimes kind, sometimes cruel
Our lives are connected…
Connections:
Here is more information about the Substack writers mentioned above.
Liza Donnelly writes and draws Seeing Things. She is a writer and award-winning cartoonist with The New Yorker Magazine, where she has been drawing cartoons and writing about culture and politics for forty years. Thanks, Liza, for letting us use your drawing.
Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American reaches over 1.6 million readers around the world. She teaches history at Boston College, puts today’s news in historical context, and always lists her sources.
Attorney Robert B. Hubbell writes Today’s Edition Newsletter.
Jim Wallis—an American theologian, writer, teacher and political activist—writes God’s Politics.
Robert P. Jones writes the White Too Long Substack. He is President and Founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a leading scholar and commentator on religion, culture, and politics.
Diana Butler Bass, who writes The Cottage, is a historian, a popular speaker and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality. Diana is an award-winning author of eleven books. Her most recent book is Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.
Jemar Tisby writes the Substack Footnotes and is a New York Times bestselling author, national speaker, and public historian on a mission to deliver truths from the Black experience with depth and clarity.
Kristin Du Mez, who writes Connections, is the author of the NY Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne. She is professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University. Her research focuses on the intersection of religion, gender, and politics.
These four writers collaborate on The Convocation Substack magazine and produce the podcast The Convocation Unscripted.
Vibrations:
Listen to Noel’s At Home performance of “Facets of the Jewel.”
Resonance:
How are your connections with friends, neighbors, family, and strangers affected by a society that seems increasingly comfortable with lying in public life?
P.S.
We welcome the new followers and subscribers who have joined our Strings community during August and September. This space — like the book we are writing— is about Noel Paul Stookey . . . his life, his music, his commitment to justice, and his spiritual journey. That also means we write about music, justice, and faith in a more general way. Until about a month ago, we posted a new edition each week, but now as we are working on the last chapters of Noel’s autobiography, we are being realistic and aiming for one post a month and perhaps more if we have the energy and time. Thanks to all our readers — both new and longer-standing—for your interest and support.
Noel and Jeanne
Thank you both for reminding us that we are commanded to "Love One Another", and there are no exceptions to this directive -- no matter how difficult. God is Love -- how can we hope to be a part of His/Her kingdom, if we cannot strive to be Love, as well?
>>> "Our lives are connected " true words that for me has always conjured up a large warm,hand woven blanket ,covering my shoulders and those of the dear one I was writing to or for . Warming,soothing ,a support and a reminder that none of us are alone on the marches in our lives. when I've been in a battle ,reading those words at the end of a correspondence made me feel like my arms were being held up by others when I could no longer hold them up. We are truly connected,and I find joy in that truth .