"Yes, We Can" vs. "Hell No, You Can't"

Watching this video -- thanks to Greg Larkin for the "prompt" -- I couldn't help but see a parallel between what we're hearing in our country and what we're hearing in our church.



Yes We Can ... provide health care for all, end poverty, fight racism and sexism, give to our children a better, stronger, more inclusive nation where liberty and justice for all really means ALL

and

Yes We Can ... include all the baptized in all the sacraments, end patriarchy, fight racism and sexism and give to our children a better, stronger, more inclusive church where respecting the dignity of every human being really means EVERY human being

vs.

Hell No, You Can't ... mess with my privilege, undermine my power, extend to "the other" the rights I claim for me and mine, challenge racial, gender and orientation stereotypes that keep others "in their place" so I can give to my children the same unexamined power and privilege that my forefathers and I have used for generations to keep The American Dream and The Episcopal Church as the private preserve of the straight, the white and the male.

And what's the common denominator? Fear. Loss of power. And a deep well of anger that the rules have changed in the middle of the game for them ... that the changes they abhor are coming in spite of them and the values they have based their lives on -- life, liberty (for eveyone who agrees with them) and the pursuit of the happiness of shutting others out from the power and privilege they are ENTITLED to, dammit -- well, you start to see why it's all such a muddle.

+Barbara Harris famously said that what we are in the midst of is "the death rattle of the patriarchy -- and it is NOT going gently into the good night."

Amen, sister. Amen.