The Prayer Trade

Conflict creates content. This sounds right to me. But it might be better to say conflict generates content. Anyway, I place Jack Kirby’s portrait of Benjamin Grimm in front of you to name my mood and to offset less edifying images to come. I am pleased and content and, I think, thriving, but I’m also a little gutted and grieved and have recently felt compelled to set down publicly some of the words I keep hoping someone else will set down publicly.

So start here. Religion News Service accorded me the opportunity to name a threat facing the people of Tennessee. It’s a little uncomfortable because I name a number of people I know personally and hoped would begin to change their behavior after I asked them to. Is it cruel to keep asking people to be someone they keep showing me they aren’t?

Within hours of the publication of my Prayer Trade piece, the summons issued by Senator Marsha Blackburn and Governor Bill Lee was answered. The Proud Boys and other insurrectionists assembled at our state capitol. We’re talking yesterday. Here they are. This is Nashville.

I don’t know who that member of the Tennessee Highway Patrol is texting. Perhaps he’s telling Governor Lee that they came like he asked them too. Perhaps he’s alerting the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We only know what they tell us.

Here’s another image.

According to sources on the scene, none of the speakers remarked upon the fact of insurrectionists in their midst. I’d like to think this would pose an optics problem for Senator Blackburn among her constituents and her Senate colleagues. But then I remember her husband, a deacon at Christ Presbyterian Church, calling on Mike Pence to throw out votes.

Chuck Blackburn @chuckblackburn

Vice President Pence and Members of Congress, we will never forget what you do on January 6th so please Make Us Proud! bit.ly/2Mq4KRn #MakeUsProud @VP @realDonaldTrump @WhiteHouse @SenateGOP @freedomcaucus freeroots.com/go/make-us-pro…

Yesterday’s events suggest that she and her husband are on the same page. They are, of course, free to think and say what they want. But when Senator Blackburn speaks and behaves this way while claiming to represent the people of Tennessee, her abusive moves are my responsibility (and Taylor Swift’s and Jack White’s and Big Kenny’s). Ms. Swift, Mr. White, Mr. Big Kenny, and I share custody of Senator Blackburn. She’s our employee. Her terror is literally on us.

I’m pleased to say Senator Blackburn and the Proud Boys weren’t the only ones at large in the People’s Plaza yesterday.

That’s Lindsey Krinks (captured in a photo taken by Hamilton Matthew Masters). You can kind of tell what she’s doing, can’t you? She’s one of myriad people who give me deep hope for Nashville. Look her up and read her book.

So anyway I have a governor who refuses to face his challenger Dr. Jason Martin, release people caged over cannabis possession, watch the executions he carries out, tell armed Proud Boys they aren’t welcome on our public property, and publicly acknowledge President Biden won fairly. What bothers me more is that my past governors (Bill Haslam and Phil Bredesen) can’t bring themselves to publicly acknowledge these betrayals of the beautiful state of Tennessee. Maybe they will. We live in hope. They have a podcast.

I have a clumsy graphic intended to illustrate what four more years of Bill Lee in our governor’s office will bring us. Yes, Hillsdale appears to be backing away from the partnership Governor Lee forged on our behalf, but…if he wins re-election, I suspect the deal will be pursued again. I do not know what’s become of the $32 million Governor Lee promised Hillsdale. If they have it, I want it back. Please forgive the crudity of this model:

I leave out a number of people in the God Grift, but I’m open to suggestions for improving the graphic. I want to be specific. I also want to hold the door open. Do what you want to with it.

To be clear, it is my hope that this graphic (and the Prayer Trade piece) might function as a calling in rather than a call out. I know not everyone will take it that way. But I have no control over how people take it.

I just know that I’m not gonna take it. Anymore.

Good luck, everybody.