📧 to Rose Berger

I have CCed Liz because I know and trust her and because she had access to the abbreviated conversation from last week. I wanted to follow up with you re. last week's interactions and not allow it the luxury of ignorance. I know you and Liz best at Sojourners, and as transient as our friendship might be, it is one nonetheless, and I think Xian friendship compels us to honesty. I called and left a message yesterday, but I haven't heard back. Below are my thoughts, mostly filtered by time, which does little by itself to heal wounds.

~

You are probably very aware that I was incredibly upset when Jim neglected to mention war or national service as important moral issue for an election year. If you have read the latest cover story for Time, you might get why this is important not just as a personal thing but as a social thing. My emotions were exacerbated by the fact that I talked to him personally at Wild Goose and that there too, evangelical "leaders" consistently pointed toward sexuality as The next important issue. Worse still, I even blogged about it on God's Politics. But this is not about my frustation at being personally slighted, it is about having the eyes to see what's right in front of us. It is about recognizing what really is something that should be on our national moral compass and that, by neglecting it, Jim and Richard indirectly endorsed others' inability/refusal to see it as well.

I understand Cathleen's inability to review a proposed blog on a Friday in the midst of meetings, but to do nothing perceivable over the weekend or the week following did nothing but reinforce my dissatisfaction. A weekend seemed enough time to mention it to Jim, to invite even a private response or acknowledgment, or to at least be more compassionate in accepting a second original piece from me.

Certainly my open anger made it difficult to know how to interact with me, but I think I am fully justified therein. If women were killing themselves at the rate soldiers are, or if LGBT people were, I get the sense it would be on more people's radar. From a purely pragmatic perspective, the case can be made that there is a greater urgency and imperative based strictly on the numbers themselves. Sojourners should, if utilitarian, drop everything and focus on veterans. Or at least on Veterans Day, or the week preceding it. Imagine how incensing it is to watch people get riled up over sexuality or the election and say next to nothing about the effects of war right here at home. And in order to protect myself against criticisms of insensitivity, it is worth noting that the first thing I ever published (in Sojourners, no less) was actually in support of civil unions in Hawaii.

For Cathleen to respond so defensively (and, it seems, based on the swift reply, without reading the proposed article) seemed unprofessional (by her decision to reply from her personal gmail account) and inconsiderate, given my track record with Sojourners. Did you know that this was the first blog post of mine that has ever been rejected by y'all (and, adding insult to injury, it was in the run up to Veterans Day)? For (what, four?) years, I have contributed significantly to the conversation Jim and others at Sojourners have been trying to spark, focusing especially on veterans and war (re. Cathleen's reply, a couple basic searches turned up nothing by Jim personally in the last several years, but let me know if there are things I'm missing).

What Jim has said in those (four?) years has been supported significantly by the presence and out-spoken-ness of vets contributing to GP and the magazine. That is a necessary context within which to understand his oversight as well as Cathleen's response. Perhaps the offense that I have taken at all this is made more clear now, if it was not before.

Abraham Heschel said that words hold the power to create or destroy worlds. Jim and Richard destroyed the worlds for innumerable veterans last week by their silence. Instead of being the salt of the world, salt was rubbed in our wounds. ...and I get an unqualified rebuttal with "don't think we're going to be running your piece, at least not at the moment."

Maybe it is not a surprise, then, to learn that I have felt increasingly tokenized by the actions and inactions that have occurred. I don't even know how to express my frustration. Making it worse is the fact that to do so, I get to be dismissed as just another angry vet. My anger is not honored, an oversight that I find deeply incensing, given the overwhelming circumstances, is dismissed out-of-hand. How should I feel in that light? Our longest war. Our ultimate price. Our highest suicide rate. One sentence, one cursory remark, one single thought would have made a world of difference.

I am left feeling that I don't want your thoughts. Thoughts get forgotten, overlooked, neglected; like what happened last week. I want your solidarity. I want you to not forget about people like me when the lights fade (much less when the lights and calendar are in our favor). I want to not be swept under the rug because I don't allow people the comfort of thinking that war is some distant reality they don't have to think about. It is right in front you. Jim and Richard's mistake was not seeing it. But that doesn't mean it isnt there, it doesn't mean we arent there.

As long as I am only a voice to Sojourners, as long as I can be turned off at someone's convenience with a smug email, I am not be a person, and I will not offer my voice. I cannot see myself continuing to write for or support sojourners in the foreseeable future. I would hope that whatever friendship that you and I share would survive this incident, but I understand if it cannot. Love is being honest. I hope my words can be read honestly for all they offer as well as for what they lack. I am not angry at you per se, but I am definitely angry. What you do with that is up to you. For me that has meant refusing indifference its sanctuary in silence.

regrettably,