Systemic Change
Peter's Journal
In St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Rector David Miller’s sermon at the memorial service of Dr. John Seeley a story was shared that was indicative of the on-going focus of this thoughtful 95 year old man who always strove to make our world a better place. John, in his wheel chair and with the attendant guiding him to the minister at the door, motioned to Reverend Miller and when he brought his ear to John’s mouth John said “David, that was a wonderful sermon, but we must address the systems that cause the problem; that is the next step.”
The urgency was perhaps not felt as deeply as John would have indicated had he been sitting in his own study surrounded by the books he loved. There are systems, there are sacred cows, there are subjects and individuals deemed to be untouchable, but many of those same arenas are contributing to the collapse of creation. Who would dare speak out against apartheid, or segregation, the death penalty, discrimination in the work place, the rights of women, the church, and parents corporal punishment of their own children – John did on many occasions throughout his life, and with and for sound Biblical and moral reasons. When John grew up, well meaning, though naïve Christians justified slavery by quoting from the book of Philemon where Paul returns his slave Onesimus (meaning useful) to Philemon. Rather than using historical criticism, and placing the story in the context of the times, Christians interpreted the passages to justify their own egregious, immoral behavior. And again and again, John rose up against those who justified state sanctioned killing by saying an ‘eye for eye and tooth for a tooth’ was replaced with a higher moral standard. Also, increasingly critical of those who voted in favor of corporal punishment as a justifiable way of so-called guiding the development of the young, John was willing to take on entire systems of thought deeply entrenched in a culture.
On one occasion I was asking John how he might rule the world if he were in the position of power. “John – pretend you are Pope. You have millions at your feet listening to your infallible encyclicals – what would you say if you were Pope for a day/”? He thought, paused a bit, and then his own inimical style responded: ‘the first encyclical would be that I was to be the last Pope.’ Pure genius at work, John Seeley knew that even Popes were not infallible, and this hierarchy was not justified. John, though a devote believer, could not fathom or accept infallibility of another human – period. There is a force beyond human understanding many call God, and no human being achieves God like status, especially by vote of one’s peers.
John took many risks throughout his career because he was willing to address unjust systems. The majority of our discussions over thirty years focused on these systems, some of which we loved and admired, several unjust and inappropriate, but all needed a complete over-haul to meet the challenges of today; including, and especially the sacred cows.
I will return to this subject time and time again. Just a few months prior to his death John helped me craft two of my most provocative talks I have ever delivered – one in April of 2007 in Virginia, and the other in Orange County California in October.
More about these later, because systemic change is at the core of what John imparted to me on a regular basis.