[Introductory note: My blog today is a sermon given by my younger step-daughter, Claire Dietrich Ranna, at Christ Episcopal Church in Los Altos, CA. She delivered it Saturday night at Congregation Beth Am during an interfaith liturgy marking the end of Roe v. Wade. It has no title; I offer one which some of you may recognize as my play on Goldwyn Smith's “above all nations is humanity.”]
Many years ago, when my now husband and I were a new couple having a heated disagreement, he said, “You know, Claire, you can either choose to be right or to be kind.” You can probably guess why he said this, and it wasn’t because I’d just finished being excessively kind. Thankfully, I was able to take this feedback as he intended and not get all defensive and grouchy. I thought a lot over the next few days about how great “being right” can feel, even when what I feel “right” about is entirely subjective, a matter of my own opinion and expectations: the swell in my chest, the pride, the righteousness, the – ugh, I hated to admit it – sense of superiority. I noticed that when this less than lovely impulse came up in me, I tended to see the person I was in conflict with as slightly less human, their opinions slightly less complex and nuanced than my own. I tended to reduce them to an issue they were wrong about. When I chose to be right, I tended to see the other as wrong.
I was reminded of this recently while listening to a podcast featuring the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part. The Most. Rev. Justin Welby, while talking about the grief he felt after the death of his young daughter many years earlier, noted that in matters of human suffering, theological responses tend to be pastorally inadequate, and pastoral ones tend to be theologically inadequate. In other words, even our most cogent and well-crafted ideas about complex human experiences will generally leave people going through said difficult experiences cold. What we all need in the wake of loss, heartbreak, betrayal, or disappointment, is not someone who clings to being right but someone who is willing to empathize with our experience and respond with kindness. Someone willing to wade into the murky waters of not knowing, not having it all figured out, because sometimes when it all falls apart nothing really does make sense. Someone who is willing to meet us where we are and to ask what we need, not tell us what to do.
There’s so much about the overturning of Roe v Wade that has shocked and disturbed me: the extremity of the decision, without exceptions for incest, rape, or the safety of the pregnant individual, a position which not long ago would have been considered extreme even by most conservatives; the incredible ignorance of so many in our country around the actual experience and risks of pregnancy, the pervasiveness of sexual violence and coercion in our country, the facts of miscarriage, the inaccessibility in many places of basic sex education, adequate medical care and contraception; the threats now posed to other basic and hard-won rights, such as same-sex marriage; I could go on and on. But I suppose the thing that distresses me most is the shockingly rigidity and lack of compassion amongst those who have sought to ban abortion, and who now celebrate its restriction in many states, most of whom are conservative Christians.
This group has developed a theology not uniformly shared by Episcopalians and members of most other mainline denominations, a theology only popularized with the rise of the Moral Majority – that “life begins at conception” – and decided that being right about this is more important than anything else. More important than understanding the lived experience of people who actually seek abortion, and the vastly different reasons they do. More important than the fundamental rights of girls and women and many trans people to self-determination and bodily autonomy. This group has decided, with dogged determination, that it is better to be right than to be kind.
I can’t exactly imagine why, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because kindness costs us something. Kindness costs us that sense of pride, self-righteousness, and superiority that being right all but guarantees. Kindness requires letting go of our sense of superiority. Kindness strips us of the illusion that we are in control of our lives, and that everyone else should somehow be, too. Kindness lifts the veil of privilege and reminds us, “You may not understand this, but perhaps you don’t have to.” Kindness puts us in touch with our own suffering, and the suffering of others, and, dang, it hurts sometimes. Kindness, unlike its limp and often cowering cousin - being nice - is courageous, it is compassionate, it is creative. It is, in the words of author George Saunders, “the only non-delusional response to the human condition.” Kindness knows that abortion access is not primarily a theological issue we can be right about but a pastoral concern that touches on the most personal and sacred aspects of what it is to be human. It is by affirming the goodness of every person’s body, respecting their choices, and honoring their experience that we (in the words of the Baptismal covenant) respect the dignity of every human being.
I cannot comprehend the cruelty, ignorance, and apathy that blinds people to this. Trying to imagine it leaves me feeling cold and hollow. But it is kindness – fierce kindness – the kindness that takes risks and speaks truth and listens well, the kindness that organizes and advocates and gives and votes and shows up, the kindness that brought us together tonight, that revives me and gives me hope for the work that is now before us. I know that there are as many courageous, creative, faithfulness responses to this most daunting moment as there are people present here tonight, and I pray, as we go forth from here, that this God of ours will not only make a way where none seems now to be, but will also keep us fiercely kind as we discover it. Amen.
[Conclusory note: I offer two supplementary comments in response to Claire's sermon.
In all of the commentary which I have read on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision and its consequences, I have read almost nothing about its consequences for the woman's partner, children, extended family, or friends. Omitted are the painful and persistent consequences within the family of the woman's death or her permanent physical, emotional, or mental damage, not to mention the additional burdens--emotional, social, and economic--of an unwanted child.
In this pastoral context, I would urge that a test of a valid Christian theological position is a pastoral criterion: is it kind or loving first and foremost.
From a political point of view, the omission fails to recognize the broader circle of people adversely affected by the consequences of the Supreme Court's decision, and thus to rally them to efforts to restore abortion rights. Although Alito's opinion is egregiously wrong, it plainly presumed that it was right and cared not that it was not only unkind and unloving, but also callously dismissive of pastoral consequences.]
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