How do you get to Carnegie Hall, etc.

Our UK/IRE team started an Interfaith Council, and they asked me to record a short video for Interfaith Week, which is this week.  Here is what I said:  

Thanks very much to the team for inviting me to share a “Thought for the Day” for Interfaith Week.  I think it’s wonderful that you’ve created this forum, and in a society which so often seems to want to put up walls and emphasize the differences between faiths, it’s been such a joy to hear people talking about how many consistencies there are across different faith traditions.

So I wanted to share a thought today about the practice of faith, and how important and powerful I think faith practices are.  I think that so often when we talk about faith, we talk either about identity (like “I am a Christian, or a Muslim, or an agnostic.”) or about beliefs (like “I believe in Heaven and Hell,” or “that my God is the one true God.”)  Now, identity and beliefs have their place, but it can be problematic to talk about faith only in those terms.  Focusing on a religious identity can reduce people into camps: “these people are my people, and the rest of you are outside the tent.”  Focusing on beliefs can lead to problematic debates about which beliefs are “true,” and which aren’t.  Beliefs also have a way of evolving over time.  Most importantly, thinking about faith only through that lens of identity or beliefs keep us mired in our own subjective reality – as we focus on who we are and what do we think, we turn away from other people, and we turn away from God.

I think the practice of faith, on the other hand, is different.  When we attend a house of worship, we take time out of our weekend for quiet, and reflection, and communion.  When we pray we make ourselves humble and vulnerable before God.  When we fast, we demonstrate self-restraint, and we set our own desires aside.  Similarly, when we meditate, if we do it correctly, we intentionally turn off our monkey brains and seek a stillness which is kind of a prerequisite for experiencing the divine. 

Now, I’ve just named a few “traditional” religious practices, but I would argue that practices which bring us closer to God are not restricted to formal faith traditions, or even to people who consider themselves religious.  Doing charity work, spending time in nature, or going for a long run are all practices that help us feel a connection with something greater.  And that’s what any faith practice is about: helping us turn away from ourselves, toward God, and toward others. 

So, this week, I encourage you to think about how faith is practiced, and maybe renew your commitment to a certain practice, or try a new one.   One theme that comes through in every faith practice is one of sacrifice.  In today’s world of instant gratification, the concept of sacrifice doesn’t play so well.  But I’m reminded of a great quote from Nasim Taleb: “Love without sacrifice is theft.  Particularly the love of God.”

With apologies to Candidate Moree

I realized on Monday night that Tuesday was Election Day and that I had no idea who to vote for.  It’s not a “big” election year – in Cambridge, only city council, school council and three questions were on the ballot – but I still felt like I should vote, to do my civic duty in a country where civics seem to be on shaky footing, and to honor my inchoate belief that local politics somehow matter, perhaps moreso than national politics, which at this point are basically a circus / opportunity to reaffirm one’s sociopolitical tribal allegiances.  To wit, this morning I saw Democrats far north of the Mason-Dixon line gnashing teeth and rending garments because a Republican won the Virginia Governor’s race. 

So on Monday night I opened the laptop and began the problematic exercise of trying to evaluate around 25 candidates based on a ~60 second video clip and a few bullet points.  This being Cambridge, there were no QAnon zealots or other obvious kooks, and they all echoed many of the same themes: affordable housing, fair wages, diversityequityinclusion, etc.  So with little to go on as far as “issues,” I found myself rating candidates based on superficialities: this one seemed reasonable, that one looked uncomfortable reading from her laptop, that one was wearing a shirt I didn’t like.  I did my own “diversity” calculations, looking for a balance between incumbents (who might know what they’re doing, but who might just as easily be jaded organs of certain unsavory powers) and newcomers (who might bring fresh eyes and new ideas, but who also might have no idea how to operate in local government).  This also included complicated trade-offs around race and ethnicity, as I found myself searching for equilibrium among Black/White/Asian, younger/older, immigrant/native, activist/pragmatist.

Last year, when we were planning to move from Europe to Cambridge, I had toyed with the idea of getting involved in local politics, maybe at some point running for something.  I realize now that I wouldn’t stand a chance: Joe and Jane Cambridge are not interested in voting for a carpetbagging representative of Big Pharma when they have their choice of lifelong Cambridge residents, Harvard graduates, second-generation Haitians who grew up in public housing, etc. 

After an hour or so, I had typed my list of favored candidates into a “Note” on my phone (Cambridge does ranked-choice voting, so you need to pick more than one).  On Election Day, I managed to sneak out during a window between meetings and walk over to my voting place, conveniently located at the middle school on the next block.  I entered the gymnasium where volunteers stood behind long folding tables on the sidelines of the basketball court, and I helped the tall, young light-skinned Black guy locate my name on a printed list.  They didn’t ask for an ID, which I admit felt a little odd, even though I have read all the articles you have about how voter fraud is not really a problem and that “voter ID” laws are discriminatory and suppressive.  A fleece-vested retiree handed me a black felt-tipped pen and three papers of different lengths which kind of nested together neatly, and I made my way to midcourt, and the curtained round high-top tables where you fill out the ballots.  The tables reminded me of the portable urinals I’ve seen at running races in Europe: chest-high, yin-yang shaped fiberglass structures which demand the uncomfortable act of peeing while you’re facing another person who is also peeing.

After feeding my completed ballots into something resembling an industrial shredder (I noted the “Dominion” logo embossed on the lid), I exited the gym and started home.  At the corner I encountered a middle-aged guy in glasses and a baseball hat who was carrying a “Gregg Moree for City Council” sign, and whom I realized I had seen there most mornings this fall during school drop-off.  I thought the red, white, and blue “I voted” sticker on my left jacket breast might confer immunity from canvassing, but he approached undeterred.  He said to me, loudly and with severe indifference to the integrity of one’s personal space, “YOU LOOK LIKE A SMAHT GUY, SO WOULD YOU GIVE THIS TO ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS?”  He handed me a 4x6 “Gregg Moree for City Council” flyer, and, after a quick glance at it, I realized that I stood before Gregg Moree himself.  On the back of the flyer was a photo of Gregg Moree next to an auburn-haired woman, who smiled nervously and seemed to want to escape out of the frame of the photo.  Below the photo was a subtitle: “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY,” a fact which Gregg Moree now highlighted by saying, “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY!”  I wouldn’t know Vicky Kennedy from a hole in the ground, but I suppose that name-dropping a Kennedy is a safe bet when running for office in Massachusetts.

I wished Gregg Moree luck, put the flyer in my pocket and continued home.  At the corner, I pulled out my phone to make sure that Gregg Moree was not one of the people I had just voted for.