The Wednesday After Easter: A Fifty Year Memory

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-1968)

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -MLK

LBJ had just announced that he would not run again. Stunning. But as I said in Saturday's memory post, it was but the beginning of a series of events that would stun and forever alter the American political landscape. In reality it had begun at the end of January of 1968 when the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong began the Tet Offensive. Suddenly American military might was being seriously challenged. Johnson's decision was based in that as much as on Eugene McCarthy's show of popularity and the entrance of Bobby Kennedy into the race two weeks earlier.

But no one was prepared for what was to come beginning on that Thursday evening 50 years ago today. I had been studying and took a break to go to the college radio station. I walked in and noticed that the UPI Teletype was printing something. I don't remember if there were any bells going off or if our machine even had the bells for important news. Like November 22, 1963, the news didn't seem real.



Martin Luther King was dead. Shot on his motel room balcony in Memphis, TN.


King, as much as any other American of his time was the heir of Thoreau's civil disobedience. He had written in his autobiography:

During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.
-Link

This, no doubt, may be the greatest impact of Thoreau's writings on the life and character of the United States. Which is why I have added this one last "different drummer" post to the Lenten series. It is an appropriate closing to the Lenten journey and the hope promise of resurrection included in it and Easter. The nonviolence at the heart of the Civil Rights movement was planted in Thoreau's one night stay in jail for refusing to pay a tax. The challenge to our country's greatest sin- slavery and racism- is, I believe, Thoreau's ongoing gift to us.

As I remember Martin today, I remember the hopelessness and helplessness of April 4, 1968. This can't be happening. We are a better nation than that. The riots that followed were frightening. When an icon of nonviolence like King or Gandhi is the victim of violence, it is easy to lose hope or belief in the power of the nonviolent movement. For me- and for others I am sure- it only further solidified my personal direction as a pacifist. Pacifism is not some "pie-in-the-sky" idealism, Martin Luther King, Jr. showed. It has real-world consequences. It can be victorious as many of King's actions were. It can also be dangerous.

King was aware of that. In his last speech the evening before he famously told the audience:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Thank you, Dr. King. Without your witness, work, and sacrifice, we would be a much poorer and sadder nation. May we all continue to work toward those dreams.

Words Don't Do Enough Today

When will we ever move beyond the racial issue? When will we realize that we need each other and our rich diversity to truly be the great people we like to think we are? One of the marks of what makes the United States so unique in our life is the great experiment that allows for ethnic diversity as a mark of being a citizen of the United States. It started when British and Germans and French started living side by side and began to break down barriers that separated them in Europe. Here- they were all Americans!

Then we struggled, of course. As each new wave of immigrants moved into the country they faced discrimination, prejudice, and variations of racism. Italians and Jews, Greeks and Irish were not considered part of the "white" culture, though all were as European as the British, French, and Germans. Roman Catholics were stereotyped as recently as the 1960s and their loyalty questioned because of their religion. We never faced the genocide we carried out against the native populations and kept kicking the can of slavery and racism down the road. But we did continue to evolve as a nation.

Asian immigrants joined Latinos (who had been here before some of the other immigrant groups) as the "color" of our national identity began to change. The richness of many colors and cultures added food and song, dress and language to our national psyche. So much has been assimilated, adopted, and cherished. More came from different religions, nations, and cultures. That wonderful bright beacon of freedom continued to shine, even if we periodically tarnished it or covered it up in fear. People kept wanting to come here because of who we say we are and what we have managed to accomplish. These are things that would never have been accomplished if we hadn't opened up our shores to the many immigrant groups, all of who have added new and exciting dimensions to our national character!

But there were those who disagreed and still do. The Jews and Italians would never be truly American to them. The Germans faced it again in the era of World War I. World War II saw citizens rounded up and put in detention centers because they were of Japanese descent. Even first generation American born individuals seem to want to disagree with the very openness that allowed their parents to come here in the first place. Through some incredible twisting of logic, citizenship- being a true American- is to them based on some ancestry that is not American. What crazy logic insists that someone whose family has been here for 75 years is more American than someone whose family came 175 years ago or even before the American Revolution?

Friends, that is insanity! It is also not part of the American spirit. It is not how we developed and grew into the nation we are.

And now I watch self-proclaimed "patriotic" [sic] individuals marching around Virginia waving the flag of the discredited and widely defeated enemy ideology of the Nazis!

That is where words come to a crashing halt. Emotions, deep emotions, come crashing in. Instead I have an image of my father standing somewhere in Germany or Austria at the end of World War II. As part of the victorious Allies he stands at the tail of a Nazi plane. That swastika over his shoulder is not a sign of white power. It is the sign of a defeated ideology of white supremacy- actually even more narrow than that- a specific type of white supremacy. One of the reasons the Nazis lost was specifically because of their hate-filled, racist, "Aryan"-based rhetoric. It was their inability to move beyond it in any way shape of form that led to their rerouting supplies and trains and personnel to make way for the trains taking non-Aryans to the death camps!

Dad and his fellow soldiers look satisfied. They have won. And they were about to do one of the most incredible actions by a winner in a war- they would help rebuild even those nations they had fought against! That is the American way! Not racism, revenge, and hate. The words of war had always been- "To the victor belong the spoils." We said, "No!" We didn't enter the war to gain territory, to overrun others, to take away their humanity. To us the spoils of World War II were a safer world for people to live in democratic ways!

And now, nearly 75 years later there are people waving that flag of hate and fear as if it was an American symbol.

Bullshit!

Over the past few weeks my daughter has been challenging me to be the person I have always been when it comes to this issue. Racism, based in slavery that we were unable and unwilling to truly work against in all segments of our society, remains our American Original Sin. I have been living with it, fighting it, speaking against it for most of my life. It was part of who I was in 1960 and 1963. It grew deeper as the 60s continued and I discovered my own elements of racism, bred into me by our culture. The work against racism is a deep part of who I am and what I believe.

• White people flying Nazi flags will not make America great again. It will only defeat us as it did the Nazis in World War II.
• Trying to ignore my own benefits of being white (and male!) in the midst of white supremacy makes me complicit.
• Making excuses for silence will always lead to more silence- and my being as much a part of the problem as the alt-right Nazis in Virginia.

I could rant on. And I probably will again. But for today I make my statements as another declaration of my hopes for a better way of celebrating who we are and can be as patriotic citizens of the United States. I will not allow bigots, racists, and hate-filled Nazis to destroy my country- the one my Dad and his generation helped make great!

A 70-Year Memory: When Baseball Changed!

April 15, 1947

# 42 made his Major League debut.

Baseball helped lead the way 

into a new United States.

Thanks, Jackie Robinson!

Calendar of Saints: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Periodically I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. I connect it with a picture that I have taken as a kind of poster. These are meant to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)
Civil Rights Activist and Preacher
April 4

Calendar of Saints: Jonathan Daniels (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939-1965)
Seminarian and Martyr
August 14

He and others left on Thursday for Selma, intending to stay only that weekend; but he and a friend missed the bus back, and began to reflect on how an in-and-out visit like theirs looked to those living in Selma, and decided that they must stay longer. They went home to request permission to spend the rest of the term in Selma, studying on their own and returning to take their examinations. In Selma, many proposed marches were blocked by rows of policemen.

Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of Negroes, mostly high school students, to church with him in an effort to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated but scowled at...

In May, Jon went back to ETS to take examinations and complete other requirements, and in July he returned to Alabama... On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jonathan Daniels (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939-1965)
Seminarian and Martyr
August 14

Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his studies seriously, and to consider the possibility of entering the priesthood. After high school, he enrolled at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia , where at first he seemed a misfit, but managed to stick it out, and was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class. During his sophomore year at VMI, however, he began to experience uncertainties about his religious faith and his vocation to the priesthood that continued for several years, and were probably influenced by the death of his father and the prolonged illness of his younger sister Emily. In the fall of 1961 he entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, to study English literature, and in the spring of 1962, while attending Easter services at the Church of the Advent in Boston, he underwent a conversion experience and renewal of grace. Soon after, he made a definite decision to study for the priesthood, and after a year of work to repair the family finances, he enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1963, expecting to graduate in the spring of 1966.

In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go.

-Link

An Extra Quote From The Saints

This week's Celebration of Saints was from women who were pioneers in the work of equal rights. I found an extra quote from one of them that seemed to me to more than appropriate for some of the conversations we have been seeing in the country these past months. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for rights and change and freedom for more people, she made the following powerful observation as a note to those who don't want to see things change. Heed this. Please.

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Calendar of Saints: Women Pioneers for Equal Rights (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.


Women Pioneers for Equal Rights
July 20

The Episcopal Church has added to its Calendar four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, 19-20 July 1848.

Harriet Ross Tubman was born in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed by the Bible narrative of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and it became the basis of her belief that it was God's will to deliver slaves in America out of their bondage, and that it was her duty to help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped to Canada, but returned to help others escape. Working with other Abolitionists, chiefly white Quakers, she made at least nineteen excursions into Maryland in the 1850's, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. During the War of 1861-5, she joined the Northern Army as a cook and a nurse and a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that freed over 750 slaves. After the war, she worked to shelter orphans and elderly poor persons, and to advance the status of women and blacks. She became known as "the Moses of her People."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in 1815 and reared in the Presbyterian Church. She found the Calvinist doctrine of predestination dismaying, and rebelled against it. She denounced the clergy of her day for not upholding women's rights, but as she travelled giving speeches on the subject, she found no lack of pulpits available to her. She undertook to write what she called a Women's Bible. It never got beyond a series of notes on selected Biblical passages.

-Link

The Last Miles

One more post from my recent reading and experience of Miles Davis. It was part of what molded him into the kind of artist he was- and what earned him some of the disdain of others who found him aloof and not willing to engage.

It is the issue of racism- and, as recent months have seen, it is an issue that is still very much with us.

Davis had a deep and abiding anger at the American racist foundations. He speaks of returning from Europe in the 1950s and 60s where he was accepted on a different level- as a human being. He speaks of the way white musicians took what the black musicians developed and earned more money doing the same type of thing.

He did not begrudge the great white Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain, among others. But he always was aware of the racial divide in the country.
jazz musicians, composers, etc. He welcomed them into his groups, even when black colleagues didn't like him to do that. His ongoing work with composer Gil Evans, for example, produced

He recalls the time when he was arrested outside the NYC club where he was headlining because he reacted to the white policeman who didn't think a black man should be hanging around there. He knows he was often treated as less than the whites even though he grew up in an upper-middle class life in East St. Louis, IL, the son of a successful dentist. He refused to "perform" on stage in ways that would reinforce the old stereotypes of the black musicians. He had great love for Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, but regularly took them to task for their racially stereotypical grinning. It is hard to find official pictures of him that show him smiling. He refused to give white America that satisfaction.

In many ways he refused to be anything but Miles Davis, as he understood himself. His continued openness to white musicians throughout his career was as much a part of that as his unwillingness to be a sideshow clown or black version of the black-faced expectation of many whites. He paid little attention to most white critics who he felt were judging his (and most black jazz music) on white standards that were irrelevant.

Remember- he lived the 50s and 60s and all the preceded them. His racism-radar was finely tuned. He put up with no BS, especially when racially based.

Let's be willing to admit that some of this was Miles' personality. It was what made him who he was, and what made his music so exciting, innovative and never the same from year to year. He did not suffer fools- nor was he willing to wait for what he saw he should be doing. The jazz world - and all of us even these many years later - continue to reap the benefits.

In this ongoing time of renewed racial tensions, challenges and counter-challenges in the United States, reading Miles' words reminded me that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to get inside the feelings of racism from the black person's experience. I blend in; I am white; I don't know that pain that has been deeply planted in the souls of those who have been slaves. I believe there is such a thing as "racial" or "ethnic" memory. We know much more about genetics today and we believe that the experiences of our ancestors makes "epigenetic" changes in genetic coding that can be passed on to future generations. While I have always been a strong advocate for civil rights, reading Miles' thoughts and hearing his anger from 50-60 years ago, opened new awareness and reflection.

While it may not be at the level it was in the 50s and 60s, we still face it, we still must be on guard for the subtle and not so subtle ways that racism plays out in our national American psyche. None of us is immune to it. Perhaps Miles Davis can also have something to teach us about our racial relationships that may be even more profound and important than his music.

That would be quite an accomplishment.

Calendar of Saints: Women Pioneers for Equal Rights (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.


Women Pioneers for Equal Rights
July 20

The Episcopal Church has added to its Calendar four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, 19-20 July 1848.

Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker Abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for homeless women. When she was travelling, and someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus."

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was born in New York in 1818, reared as a Presbyterian, and as a young woman became an activist for the anti-slavery, anti-alcohol, and women's votes movements. Mrs. Bloomer and her husband eventually settled in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she worked to promote churches, schools, libraries, and progressive and reform movements. On one occasion she said:

The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning.

-Link

That Which Cannot Be Named

I am thinking of the phrase used to describe Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Voldemort is, as most probably know, the evil one, the devil. He is the Dark Lord. Even to say his name is to invoke his power, hence the use of epithets. "He who cannot be named" kept a lot of people from invoking the awful name.

Over the past few days I have been feeling like we are doing the same thing in some ways in our nation- or at least parts of it. The mass killings in Charleston on Wednesday have again brought our national original sin to the forefront. Except when you don't want to admit its existence. All kinds of spin and "explanations" have been given.

• One presidential candidate called it "an accident" which the president politicized into gun control.
• Another presidential candidate said he didn't know what was going on in the shooter's head, in spite of the fact the shooter made it very clear what was going on in his head.
• Certain news outlets spun the whole thing into an attack on Christians and the church, a favorite right wing explanation. Again, the shooter was very clear about his reasons for shooting and even choosing this particular church because of its historic role in gaining civil rights.
• Others have gone so far as to "blame" one of the victims, a South Carolina State Senator, because he voted for gun control. If he hadn't, there would have been people there in the church carrying weapons and would have stopped the carnage.

And yet:

• Accident? You've got to be kidding me!! 
• When a black teen robs a store for cigarettes, he is a "thug" almost deserving of being killed. Nobody asked if he was on any psychotropic meds that could have caused him to lose his ability to make good decisions.
• When a black church was bombed in the south in the 1960s no one saw that as an attack on Christians. They would have been laughed out of the media.
• Many churches in open-carry states forbid guns in the building. It would have been the church's fault, then, if they had refused to allow open- or even hidden-carry.

That which cannot be named. Our national original sin, present since the creation of the country.

Racism. Through slavery. Through the subjugation of native people. Through Euro-centric superiority. Many groups have felt its sting. But only those who looked different- of different color most often- could never escape it. They could not blend into the white background. They could not change their names, "anglicize" them.

That which cannot be named.

And why the hell not? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that if we admit that it still exists we might have to confront it in the sometimes subtle ways it shows up? Are we afraid that if we admit its ongoing existence we will have to look at ourselves and see where we might still be impacted by it in our own actions? Are we so concerned that we look and feel "perfect" as a nation that to admit to any shortcomings or national character defects will be "unpatriotic" and blow the cover on our denial?

As I ponder this I realize that I am talking about the need for recovery at the deepest places of our national soul. Here, watch this video:



To be American is to be Euro-centric? Wrong! Forever wrong!

Denial only allows the illness of prejudice and racism to grow, just as addiction. In the Twelve-Step fellowships, not to mention the fellowship of Jesus' followers, it is only when we can admit to the presence of the problem that we can deal with it. If it cannot be named, we can't change. If we don't get down to the nitty-gritty of our national character defects we can't confess them to our higher power and ask for them to be removed. We can't because we don't believe we have it. We are cured; we are healed; we are open to people of all colors and creeds. And when we are not, well, it's their fault.

I have been challenged many times by my own ability to fall into my character defects. I can't begin to count the times when this systemic racism has reared its ugly head in my own head.

Damn, I thought I was passed that. But no, I am human, and as imperfect as the next guy. Like with my addiction, I need to be always aware of the possibility of falling back into old habits, old behaviors, old ways of thinking that I didn't even know I had.

Let's talk about this. Let's listen to each other and the pain that is still being felt in our society. Let's be honest about ourselves and what is happening. To admit to it and work on doing something about it does not undermine our national identity. It shows our strengths and willingness to care for each other!

O God,
Your children of all colors
Have been hurt by racism.
Help us heal together.
Help us do the inner work
To be open to your grace
And to the "balm in Gilead"
So our hearts are converted,
And we can join hands
To do the constructive work
Of love and justice.

Amen.
--Education for Justice

Twelve Days ~ Day 5 ~ Integrity

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day 5: 29 December: Integrity

St. Thomas Becket

Heroes: Part 2- More About My List

A month ago I posted about a list of my heroes. I wasn't talking about the individuals that touched me personally- professors, elders, etc. I have talked about some of them in other posts. Many of them (most of them?) are now passed on, my mentors are gone. But these heroes are some of the world-changers who have most motivated, inspired, challenged, and ultimately changed me. It started as an introduction to a post of pictures of Cesar Chavez that I took over 40 years ago. It is now morphing into more than just Sr. Chavez.

Here then is that original list, in alphabetical order, with one addition that I can't believe I missed.

• Louis Armstrong- perhaps the greatest, most creative and even talented of all 20th Century musicians. He inspired me as a trumpet player, but also as one who stood up and did what needed to be done to be successful.
• Dan and Phil Berrigan- The Brothers Berrigan, both originally Roman Catholic priests, although Phil left to get married. Their faith led them to some acts of civil disobedience and time in prison. Jesus, they believed, wanted His followers to speak out against war and injustice. Their witness was a challenge to my easy, comfortable, "personal" faith.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer- Deeper than even the Berrigans, Bonhoeffer may be the quintessential theologian/witness against the horrors of the 20th Century. His challenge to "cheap grace" and the "cost of discipleship, opened understandings into being a Jesus follower that he barely had a chance to live out. A man of amazing trust in God and a challenge to cultural christianity.
• Cesar Chavez- I spoke of his witness for the poor and oppressed. He was another man of faith, non-ordained, but one whose life was guided by an awareness of the ways of Jesus.
• Robert Kennedy- In my mind, the most challenging of politicians of the mid-20th Century. A complex and probably conflicted person who showed both the good and bad of politics in his short history. In the end, he was attempting, I believe, to make the changes in himself and the country that were, and still are, sorely needed. His announcement of Martin Luther King's death on the streets of Indianapolis is one of the more moving moments of a very difficult year.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.- The man I would nominate for American of the Century. Another man of faith, working at his best to make a difference. His commitment to non-violence helped move civil rights into the mainstream. He and others lost their lives to make it happen. His "I have a dream" speech still stands as a beacon and guidance for the future.
• Mahatma Gandhi- The guiding saint of non-violence. He died the year I was born, but his teachings and witness still reverberate. An amazing individual.
• Harvey Milk- A man who kind of fell into the right place at the right time. He didn't know what to do with his life so he became an activist for Gay Rights- or at least that's how it looks from the outside.He came out of the closet, won his place in the city of San Francisco, and lost his life. Yet he helped give life to that part of the civil rights movement that we are finally seeing the results from.
• Nelson Mandela- In my book, the Man of the World for the 20th Century. With every reason to be angry and vengeful, he turned toward reconciliation. Oppressed and imprisoned for his fight for equality, he didn't try to take away the equality of his prisoners or oppressors. Along with Bishop Desmond Tutu, a witness to the world of the right way to forgive- anything!
• Pope John XXIII- A quiet man of gentle faith who pulled the Catholic Church out of the middle ages and showed that the church should have a voice in the modern world. In way too short a time as Pope he accomplished hundreds of years of reform. While some of it slowed down after his death, he gave faith a hopeful name. Pope Francis appears to be trying to walk in his holy shoes.
• Archbishop Oscar Romero- El Salvadoran Bishop, he believed in liberation of the oppressed and to change a corrupt system based on wealth and prestige. He had called for Christian soldiers to put down their arms and stop oppressing the poor. A day later, as he stepped to the altar for the Eucharist, he was assassinated. The oppression of Jesus' followers can be just as powerful in Christian countries.
• Elie Wiesel- Holocaust survivor, Nobel Prize laureate, the voice for the voiceless millions of World War II genocide. The only man on the list (other than Chavez) who I personally saw and heard speak. A gentle man who in his demeanor maintains that innocence that continues to ask the awful question, "How can this happen?" while always working so that it will happen "Never again!" He is an icon for me, an image that allows me to see into the pained face of God as God looked down on our human insanity of the 20th Century.

Many of these were paradoxes- mixtures of good and bad, healthy and unhealthy habits. Just like me.

Many were men of deep faith who allowed their faith to guide their whole walk in life. As a result, most were willing to stand up to the established order so that it would be more open and receptive to more people.

All, in their own ways, were rebels, radicals, even, hoping to make a difference. Whether through music, words, or actions, these individuals have shaped my faith and my outlook on the world. They all make sense to me. I have no idea if I could ever do what they did in the face of what they lived. When I look at them, I can only repeat what the father of a boy with an evil spirit said to Jesus:

I believe; help my unbelief.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As I noted in the previous post last month, this is a list of men. They came to mind first probably because of the simple fact that I am a man and the ones who most moved me into so many challenges gave me different understanding about being male. In another upcoming post I will take a look at the women who are my heroes.

A 50-Year Memory: A Moment of Great Import

July 2, 1964:

President Lyndon Johnson signs Civil Rights Act

"Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964" by Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office (WHPO) - http://photolab.lbjlib.utexas.edu/detail.asp?id=18031. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Never in Service of Discrimination

Came across this on Facebook. With the veto of the anti-gay law in Arizona, there is still more going on. I gather there is a bill in Mississippi ready to do the same thing.

Here, in a petition is a short, impassioned plea for sanity, is a way to take a stand that does not mix religion and discrimination. As it says these arguments are far too similar to justifications for Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans from dignity and equality.

Clergy can sign the petition at this link.

Clergy Against Discrimination

As evangelicals, mainline Protestants and Catholics we are alarmed by the pending Mississippi bill that would allow virtually anyone, including businesses, to discriminate against customers in the name of religious liberty. We call on Mississippi and all states to abandon legislation that threatens democracy, civil rights and religious freedom itself.

These misguided efforts eerily echo Jim Crow laws that robbed African Americans of their basic human dignity. Businesses once barred not only blacks, but Jews and Asians from buying homes in certain neighborhoods or eating in restaurants even after Supreme Court rulings overturned segregation laws.

We must not allow faith to be used in the service of discrimination.

When we seek to codify legislation that discriminates against any class of people—no matter our diverse theological beliefs about marriage—we tarnish the treasure of religious freedom and the highest ideals of our democracy. Most of all, we are complicit in violating the Golden Rule that unites us as Christians—to love God and our neighbor as we love ourselves.
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Faith in Public Life:
Advancing faith as a powerful
force for justice, compassion
and the common good.

From The Sixties: The March

Link

On August 28, more than 2,000 buses, 21 chartered trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted cars converged on Washington. All regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity.

So Wikipedia tells us about the start of one of those moments of legend and transformation in our nation's history. The basic printed program of the day tells us nothing of its importance.

August 28, 1963. Fifty years ago today a whole new language would enter our national vocabulary. All because one man told us of his dream. All because nothing like this had ever happened before. As The Sixties were slowly smoldering beneath the surface, non-violence makes a plea for sanity and hope. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will take his place among the greatest of American history by his call in a 19-minute speech that rings in our national heart and soul.

Read these words and let them flow through you.
Read these words and let the tears of joy flow.
Read these words and allow the hope given that day be renewed in all of us today....

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

In Memoriam: 45 Years Gone

Lorraine Motel

Memphis, TN

2/17/13

A place of death, now a place to contemplate what was, and what could have been.
The balcony at the Lorraine Motel, just blocks off Beale St. in downtown Memphis.
It was 45 years ago today that a dream came to a violent end, but a dream lives in his memory.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The dream lives.

Darkness Amidst the Light: Light Beating the Darkness

Dec. 28- Liturgical Calendar date of The Slaughter of the Innocents

 It is now 14 days since the tragedy at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School. Two weeks of mourning, questions, fears, and a seemingly endless news cycle broken only momentarily by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Time to make real what President Obama said at the vigil on that Sunday evening: This has to end.

That means some sensible gun control discussions and debate. Let's forget the hysteria. You know it well. I know it well. We need assault weapons in private ownership like we need to return to using quill pens and oil lamps. NO, it is not a way to protect ourselves from the government, as I heard one legislator say. Are you freakin' insane, I wanted to ask? Having hoardes of private citizens own assault weapons to "protect from our own government" is not a constitutional right. That is NOT a "well-regulated militia." That is anarchy, which by definition is not well-regulated. Arm the principals of the schools? You may very well lose a lot of good principals who don't want to be part of a gun-culture. Put armed guards in every school? Columbine and Virgina Tech had those.

And will we put armed guards at every mall, place of worship or beauty spa in the country? Will we become an armed camp with guns in the hands of every Tom, Dick, and Harry? How scary!

Cars don't kill people, drunk drivers do. That is just insane to even post as a reasonable thought. It is why we have laws ABOUT drunken driving, what you could call "Drunken Driving Control." When Minnesota got tough on drunken driving, for example, DUI arrests shot up AND deaths from drunk driving dropped. Note that no one outlawed cars- or even drinking. Just putting the two together.

Why should it be harder to get good mental health care than to buy an assault rifle? Why are background checks for gun ownership so difficult? We do it for teachers and counselors. Is owning a gun so much of a right? Freedom of the press is just as constitutionally protected, yet we say there are times and places when there is such a thing as privacy and confidentiality limiting some of that. Why are firearms so sacred?

Perhaps in that last word is part of the problem. They have become sacred- a holy grail- inviolable- more important than human lives. They have become a god. There is the real, profound issue that no one can talk about. We have set up a false god that controls us. The power of the gun. No, not the gun lobby. The power of the gun. It is devouring our nation in its primal scream to survive.

I am not a gun owner. I don't believe I would ever own one. Protection? I wouldn't be able to use it for that. I would be so afraid of over-reacting and shooting someone I love by mistake. It happened locally here just a few weeks ago. Accidental deaths by guns may be more than were killed at Newtown.

I am not against gun ownership any more than I am against people owning cars or driving cars. Let's not over-react in either direction. But let's be sensible and reasonable about it. High-capacity weapons and clips controlled or banned; assault rifles made for the single purpose of killing people banned; background checks required. These are reasonable.

Is this politicizing the deaths on Connecticut? Yes. It was politicized the minute the shooter walked into the school. It is an issue of how resolute we can be to both protect lives and rights. We have to be able to do both. We remember the freedom of speech measurement- you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. That limits free speech just as libel laws limit it and the freedom of the press. Democracy is a delicate balance between rights and protection; freedom and life.

We can do it. We are a bright and caring nation. Let's use our ability to overcome the barriers to discussion and sane legislation. Too many ore people will die if we don't.

What an Incredible Experience

Lincoln (5 !s are not enough. This movie stands alone.)
(Tomatometer: 91%)

How can I put the experience of this movie into words? There are few that can do it justice. Steven Spielberg and crew have produced one of the masterpieces of American cinema. Let's take it from the top:

• Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. Lewis is probably one of the greatest, if not THE greatest actor in movies today. He hasn't lost an ounce of his powerful screen presence in the 24 years(!) since My Left Foot. He channels Lincoln and no one will ever look to Raymond Massey's portrayal as definitive anymore.

• Tommy Lee Jones is abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens (PA). Jones never fails to engage as he grabs the screen and won't let go, even in a supporting role and wearing a God-awful ugly wig.

• Sally Field brings new life and insight to Mary Todd Lincoln. She has always received bad press and bad history. Mental illness and deep depression are her anchor weights. But they also hold down a remarkable woman in her own right.

• David Strathairn, versatile actor that he is, becomes Secretary of State William Seward, famous otherwise for Alaska. A fine political operative, he is led by Lincoln to do the impossible.

• The three arm-twisters uh, lobbyists, strike just the right comic relief. (Obviously John Goodman wouldn't have fit into this movie!)

• Steven Spielberg is still at the top of his game. Perhaps only Schindler's List can stand above Lincoln. In all these years he manages to find the heart and soul of the important story and let us experience it.

• Tony Kushner has certainly continued to hone his art. From Angels in America to Lincoln he is amazing.

The use of light and shadow is spectacular and almost miraculous. The ambiance of the movie grabs and carries you into the story. Storyteller Abraham Lincoln has his story told in great fashion.

I cried five times during the movie, starting in the very second scene as soldiers recite the Gettysburg Address to Lincoln. I cried at the passage of the 13th Amendment and at Lincoln's words in his second inaugural address. Why did I cry?

First and foremost this is the story of my country. This is the story of what finally made us THE United States of America, a single country, not a collection of states. I am at heart a crazy patriotic, American romantic.(The Battle Hymn of the Republic still brings tears!) I continue to believe strongly in the ideals and hopes this nation represents. Without the 13th Amendment banning slavery we would not be even as far as we are today.

Which is the other reason I found myself crying. This is nearly 150 years ago now. Yet the ideals for which Lincoln worked so hard, the prejudices and hatreds are often just barely under the surface today. Sure, sometimes they are hidden and draped in words that sound sane and patriotic. But they are neither! Racism, the continuing legacy of a nation built on slavery of one group because they are different, is real. It has infused our nation. It is still a poison in our system.

Sure, it is better today. Some even believe that racism has disappeared. Don't be so sure. Evil has a way of winning souls to its side through cunning and double-talk. I am a white, Euro-American. I grew up in a middle-American mostly white, European ethnic community in the 50s and 60s. Civil rights was THE #1 issue in my youth. (The close second was war.) Perhaps I am still too ready to see racism under every tree and around every corner. I hope so.

But this movie has reminded me of what I see going on today. It has shown the power of politics to distort and manipulate. In the midst of that Lincoln himself had to do his own manipulation. He knew, HE KNEW, that passing the 13th Amendment held the key to our national future. Sadly he didn't live to make his dream a reality.

But in this magnificent portrayal, Spielberg, Day-Lewis, Jones, Field, et. al. have reminded us of the great calling that

all men are created equal!

All!

And not just men.

(Argo, Flight, and Lincoln down. Life of Pi is next.

I Am Voting "No!"

NOTE: The ads on the right sidebar are automatically generated by AdSense.
If they support either of these amendments, they do not reflect my opinions.

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Here in Minnesota we have two ballot referenda for constitutional amendments. I am voting No! on both.

First is the marriage amendment to change the Minnesota constitution to limit the idea of "marriage" as between one man and one woman. It's main purpose is to keep gay marriage from becoming a reality. All the traditional reasons for the amendment have been passed around. Marriage is under attack, they say, and this is the way to protect it.  Don't ask me how that will happen. I have no idea. This will not stop domestic violence, probably the greatest threat to healthy marriages. It will not do anything but allow people to get married. How that harms marriage is beyond me. Don't get me started on the "Biblical" definitions of marriage- they didn't exist in any way, shape, or form as we understand the idea of marriage today. The legal and social problems faced by a gay couple are daunting. This will only make it worse.

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The second referendum is to make government-issued photo IDs required for voting. It is very simple in my mind. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed (and renewed in 2006 for 25 years.) At the time, President Johnson said:

This law covers many pages, but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down.

Voting is a right, not a privilege. We have come a long way since the colonial era when only white, property-owning men could vote. Thank God for that. Let's not step back almost 50 years to find some new-fangled, higher-tech way of denying people the right to vote. Voter fraud is so rare it would probably do as much good to pass a law against extra-terrestrials voting.

I feel very strongly about the freedoms we have. Any time we begin to find ways to restrict them, we are hurting ourselves and our future. I hope my fellow voters of Minnesota can see into the heart of these two issues and step away from the exclusionary attitude.