Ed Spivey Jr.

AFTER NEARLY 50 years moving from place to place—usually under cover of darkness to stay ahead of colleges claiming we still owed library fines—the Sojourners staff is finally moving to a place of our own.

We’ve been leasing space up to now, paying increasingly higher rents as the nation’s capital has become a hip and happening city. (Which began soon after we arrived in 1975. Coincidence? Not bragging, but vintage clothing stores didn’t become popular in D.C. until we showed up wearing clothing that, unbeknown to us, fit that category.)

Over time, the poor neighborhood that God called us to was overtaken by Starbucks and Target, and our office expenses went up accordingly. To be fair, maybe God wanted chain stores to provide low-cost merchandise to our underserved inner city. But what kind of god would also bring in a Bed, Bath, & Beyond?! In all our years working for justice and tenant rights, we didn’t once yearn for luxury sheets or French-made kitchen utensils. (Although, when you need Brita filters, they keep them just inside the front door. With Target, you have to go upstairs. I’m just sayin’.) When organic food stores started moving in, it was enough to make us nostalgic for buying milk at the corner liquor store. (You had to check carefully the date on the carton, because milk tended to hang around the store longer than did, say, Colt 45, which seemed to be much more in demand.)

SO IN AUGUST we’re moving. We’re calling it Sojexit, like Brexit, but with fewer catastrophic global consequences. After four decades under the thumb of landlords, we will finally be under our own thumbs, all 86 of them, if you count the interns. Our seventh and final move will be to a building we purchased. “We” meaning Sojourners, a Mennonite bank, and hundreds of supportive friends who share our commitment to justice, reconciliation, and having to empty our own trash.

THIS HAS BEEN a year of harsh rhetoric, vicious condemnations, and flagrant name-calling, and that was just between Apple and the FBI. It was much worse in politics, with candidates hurling invective at a pace not seen since, okay, last year. They’ve called each other every name in the book—a book that would be banned in most public libraries—and have made our political institutions the laughingstock of the world. And not in a good way.

Having frequently been a laughingstock myself, I know how much fun it can be, but this feels different. The very character of our nation seems to be turning into a bad-tempered sourpuss. And not in a good way. Having frequently been a bad-tempered ... (Editor’s note: Just get on with it!)

In this time of political rancor and unrestrained social hostility, Americans are yearning for words of kindness. They are craving that rare note of hope. Unfortunately, I cannot provide this. It pains me to do so, but I must join in the refrain of negativity.

I really don’t like our cat.

LIKE MANY CANDIDATES, this cat came without being requested, but unlike Marco Rubio, he never left. We heard his desperate mewing outside our home and took pity on this helpless newborn. We fed him from a bottle for a couple weeks, amused by his playful biting and scratching, unaware he was just practicing until his jaws strengthened and his claws grew more lethal. Now, he’s fully grown and no longer cute. (His head is angular, like John Kerry’s, but without the heavy-lidded weariness of diplomatic responsibility and enormous private wealth.)

He basically rules our small home, a place whose normal-looking outside hides a frightening secret within. It’s like that remote farmhouse where fun-loving young people seek refuge after their car breaks down. The house seems welcoming at first, but then a strange, rending sound is heard (the cat ripping the shower liner), or a crash in the near distance (the cat knocking over precious heirlooms, but not the ugly ones). Walking into a room, the young people sense they’re not alone, and then someone’s leg is suddenly grabbed from under the couch, or clawed at from behind a chair.

ONE OF OUR articles this month encourages us to more intentionally incorporate the lives and wonders of children into our worship, which is a great idea, because if all the kids are in the sanctuary you don’t have to volunteer for child care.

But seriously, tapping the natural energy of the young would create a more holistic experience and open the door to a greater connection with the divine, assuming the divine has a short attention span and a constant runny nose and tends to giggle during silent reflection. Not to mention drawing pictures on the collection envelopes in the backs of pews. (If they don’t want children’s graffiti on those envelopes, they shouldn’t put them right next to those little yellow pencils, which the child invariably drops and, with cat-like speed, goes after it before the parent can grab him. A short time later, pencil in hand, the young one looks around under the pew but sees no familiar legs or shoes. He is lost, not unlike the sheep the preacher is at that moment talking about, the difference being that the parent now pulling the child backward by his feet is less the Good Shepherd of the New Testament and more the Vengeful God of the Old Testament who doesn’t give a crap about sheep. But I digress.)

A child-centric church is something I experienced firsthand growing up in the warm embrace of the Southern Baptist church. For me, Sunday was the best day of the week. There was no school, so no gym class with humiliating taunts from peers questioning my athleticism, no condescending teachers refusing to give credit for my book report on TV Guide (so much to watch, so little time, what with homework and all that).

Church was a place of safety and support, a time for the social outcasts of weekdays to finally feel appreciated and valued, particularly by the adults, who gladly drew us into the heart of the church, just as soon as they finished their cigarettes. (In those days, all have smoked and fallen short of the glory of God, although I think God cut you some slack if it was menthol.)

WITH THE GLOBAL refugee crisis worsening every day, thank goodness we’ve put the Christmas season behind us, what with its pesky reminders about welcoming the stranger, finding room for weary travelers, and great things coming from little poor kids. It got pretty uncomfortable there for a while.

To compensate, some of us even started altering our long-held perceptions with a critical eye, like maybe Joseph and Mary should have called ahead to reserve a room, or used Uber instead of that donkey, or at the very least packed better for the baby. Swaddling clothes just don’t cut it as a lining for your standard manger, and straw is no substitute for a quilted blanket. I know for a fact that straw pokes uncomfortably through most fabrics, something I learned as a young boy who thought he could jump into some hay bales after being told not to, and then stood in front of his parents, covered in straw, and denied it. (On laundry day, mom cleared out the lint trap with a pitchfork.)

As a nation, it seems we lost some of our yuletide spirit this past season, and I’m not just referring to the palpable lack of gratitude expressed by family members when unwrapping the gifts I had lovingly purchased at the Dollar Store. With almost 4 million refugees fleeing Syria, many of our political leaders responded in ways that seemed inappropriate. Maybe not as inappropriate as giving frankincense and myrrh to a poor newborn (a month’s diaper service might have been the better choice), but surprisingly uncompassionate. The U.S. agreed to take only 10,000 of the refugees, less than 1 percent of the growing total, but even that was 100 percent too many for most Republican governors. To be fair, their reluctance does comport with the nation’s long-standing decree: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, after a two-year wait, a background check, a blood test, and a cavity search, yearning to be free of these several questionnaires which we’ll process right after lunch.” (It wouldn’t all fit on the front of the Statue of Liberty, so it continues on the back. A lot of people miss that.)

IF YOU HAVEN'T done so already, you should start planning how you’ll spend the next 11 months of your life, unless you’re traveling to Mars or someplace where the news media won’t be covering the presidential election. On Mars, for example, you’d be less interested in politics and more concerned about the weather, since an unexpected storm last summer separated Matt Damon from his crew. It also separated several million dollars from Americans who went to see The Martian, but it was totally worth it. As opposed to Matt Damon’s other space movie, Interstellar, which was interawful and had patrons screaming for their money back. (Spoiler alert: It finally ends.)

But for those of us trapped here on Earth, there are probably only three ways to separate ourselves from the incessant noise of a presidential election year:

1. Sell all your possessions and give to the poor, then follow maybe some guy named Rev. Richard or something who lives in a bunker with lots of canned goods. Wait, that’s wrong. Sorry, I spilled some coffee on the last part of Matthew 19 and I was just guessing the rest. So forget that one.

2. Join a monastery. Trappist is always a good choice, as long as you love gardening and thinking for long stretches of time (never tried it myself) and don’t mind wearing a long cassock. Although underneath you can wear whatever you want. (You could walk around in purple bike shorts, with a gaudy corporate logo, because who’s gonna know? And they don’t check.) Monasteries are good places to be in the world but not of it, or the other way around, if that works better for you.

3. Or do what I do: Obtain a granddaughter, 5-ish, who will keep you grounded, literally. You’ll spend most of the year on the floor, helping her assemble Lego’s Enchanted Mountain Ice Castle from Frozen, in various shades of Disney pink, much of that time looking for a tiny little part, like the hinge to the door of the Magic Fairy Unicorn Corral. After an hour of fruitless searching you will swear it has not been lost but was, in fact, not packed at the factory, a deliberate omission prompted by that well-known Scandinavian sense of humor. I can just picture the factory workers in Denmark, holding up the missing piece and laughing at their cleverness, then awkwardly exchanging Danish high-fives (blonde people just look silly when they do that). Meanwhile, back in the U.S., you want to shove something up their ümlaut.

AS A FORMER Baptist child who often mocked Catholic school children for their outfits—which paled against my own fashionable ensemble of striped pants, checked shirt, and flannel hat (with flaps!)—I admit that as an adult I have warmed to the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” (Did I get that right?) Catholics have better steeples, usually with bells, and cool smoke during worship, and interesting stained glass windows to look at if the homilist lacks conviction, which he often does, compared to the preachers of my youth. They would sweat right through their white suits as they paced back and forth describing the Coming Judgment which—and they were very clear on this point—will not be pretty.

We didn’t have much to do with the Catholics in our small Indiana town, except to occasionally remark on their odd rituals, their odd prayers (sometimes to a woman!), and their great fish fries, which Baptists could attend, under cover. We also noticed the lack of American flags on their altars. How was that Christian?

But as I grew older and experimented with different church traditions, I became more open to Catholicism and frequently visited on Sundays, under cover.

AS ONE OF the few white males who has not declared his candidacy for president, I’m actually enjoying the relative calm before the upcoming election season. Our television shows are still punctuated by soothingly predictable commercials about luxury cars and erectile dysfunction. In a few months they’ll be railing against job-killing gay marriage and the evils of climate science, also job-killing, followed by the reassuring voice of a man who says “I apologize for this message.” (Kidding. But wouldn’t that be great?!)

At this point, with little at stake, the legions of Republican candidates are of interest only for their entertainment value, their speeches lacking in substance but their repetitive talking points ripe with possibility for drinking games. (Caution: When listening to Ted Cruz, don’t choose the words “constitution” or “unadulterated judicial activism” if you’re the designated driver.)

We’re at that sweet spot in time when Iowa is just a state known for its agricultural products (corn, I think), and when Hillary Clinton has not yet been compared to Hitler. If we think about politics at all, it’s to come up with reasons not to support Bernie Sanders. Because, if you set aside the oddity of a Vermont senator who still sounds like the Flatbush of his youth, there’s only one reason: his age. He’s 73, six years older than Hillary Clinton and decades older than Donald Trump, who is, like, 12, right?

FOLLOWING IS a conversation between an aging, award-winning humor columnist and a young man who, in his short life, probably only earned an award for Most Tattoos On One Arm.

Me: Excuse me. What’s that metal thing in your mouth?

He: It’s an electronic cigarette.

Me: Dude, you can’t smoke in here. Even if we’re the only ones in this hotel bar, and although it harkens back to simpler times, a time when men were men, and ...

He: There’s no smoke, just steam. It’s a noncombustible cigarette.

Me: Cool phrase that, “noncombustible cigarette.” Yours?

He: Nah. I heard it on a commercial. Some people call it an e-cigarette.

WITH THE NEXT election still almost 18 months away, you’d think the media would focus on more important topics in the meantime, such as where Kim Kardashian is spending her next vacation.

But you’d be wrong. It’s officially time for the press to ignore more newsworthy subjects in favor of endless coverage of the election “horse race,” but without the legendary good sense horses bring to such occasions.

ISIS on the move, taking the Middle East back to the 7th century? Forget that. Let’s talk about Jeb Bush’s 2016 run, although the hook could be how ISIS reminds people of the disastrous policies of the last Bush in the White House. Or was it the one before that? I can’t remember. (In hindsight, the Bush parents should have named alltheir sons George, so presidential ballots could be printed in bulk, enough for several elections.)