"WHAT A WEEK!"

 “WHAT A WEEK!”

This week of May 12-19 has always been an important one in my life, even before I knew it.  On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” was the law of the land.  This ruling firmly and legally established “neo-slavery” that would be king of the USA for almost 60 years. It filled the atmosphere of my boyhood with the authority of white supremacy and racism that so captured my perceptual apparatus.  

    Catherine Meeks and I went to talk with the children of Morgan Oliver School last week about Ida B. Wells and about the racism that pervaded both of our lives growing up in rural and small town Arkansas.  I described myself as having grown up in the “belly of the beast.” Many of the kids were intrigued by that metaphor and wanted to know if I still lived in the belly of that beast.  I indicated that some courageous mentors and prophets had helped to pull me out, but that I still had residues of slime on me and in me from my time in the beast.  

    Yet, while I was not aware of it because I was only 7 years old, on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, SCOTUS reversed the Plessy decision and ruled unanimously that legal segregation was no longer lawful because it established inequality as the law of the land.  I don’t remember knowing about that decision until I was somewhere in my college years, but that decision had set off the beginning of a revolution in regard to the legality of white supremacy, declaring that it was no longer the law of the land.  This year will mark the 70th anniversary of that landmark decision.  Unfortunately, we have not decided as a nation which decision we want to affirm – the “neo-slavery” Plessy of 1896 or the “created equal” Brown decision of 1954.

    Most important to me, however, about this week is that it marks the 50th wedding anniversary for Caroline and me.  We were married in Ed Loring’s backyard on May 18, 1974,  with Ed and Sandy Winter officiating – Sandy had been a long-time mentor of Caroline’s.  Caroline was a campus minister at Georgia Tech at that time, having been ordained as a minister in 1973 (the 21st woman to be ordained in the former southern Presbyterian Church).  I was in my final year at Columbia Seminary, having transferred there from Vanderbilt Divinity School, with a two year hiatus in between while I performed as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.  We had met at the wedding of Robin and Linda Williams in Nashville, Caroline having accompanied her friend Murphy Davis, who was Robin’s cousin.

    While our 50th anniversary is May 18, we are postponing any official celebration until June 22 because our granddaughter Zoe is graduating from high school in Michigan on May 25, so we will be up there for that great occasion.  If you haven’t received an invitation to our 50th on June 22 in Decatur, please let me know, and we’ll get one to you – the mail has been kind of crazy lately!  

    It has been quite an adventure, with many milestones along the way.  Even before I graduated from Columbia, we had received a call from St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk VA, to be the co-pastors at a small church there, which also served as the base for a developing community ministry in a 5000 resident low-income housing complex.  We cut our teeth on urban ministry there, and we were fortunate enough to receive the Women of the Church Birthday Offering in 1978.  That great gift established St. Columba Ministries, which does ministry with those who are poor and especially those who are homeless.  It is still doing ministry today.  

       After our son David was born in Norfolk in 1980, we wanted to get closer to our families in Chattanooga and Arkansas, so we moved to Nashville where I worked on the staff of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons.  I also served as part-time supply pastor at Second Presbyterian while they looked for a fulltime pastor.  Our daughter Susan was born in Nashville on a Sunday morning in 1982.  My time at Second Church convinced me that I wanted to return to the pastorate full time, and in February, 1983, I gladly accepted the call to become the full-time pastor at Oakhurst Presbyterian in Decatur.  Since Susan was still an infant, Caroline stayed home for another year.  She came on staff at Oakhurst in September, 1984, and we shared ministry there until we both retired – Caroline in 2012, and me in 2017.  Whew!  Quite a journey – you’ll hear more one of these days.  We are just beginning work on a book about our pioneering and partnering ministry.  If you have any stories or insights, please share them with us.  In the meantime, raise a glass to us this Saturday!

"THE ROUGH AND RUTTED ROADS OF LIFE: LAYING DOWN THE BODY OF MURPHY DAVIS"

 “THE ROUGH AND RUTTED ROADS OF LIFE: LAYING DOWN THE BODY OF MURPHY DAVIS”

On Sunday, April 14, about 40 of us gathered at Jubilee Partners in the dining room of Jubilee Farms.  We arrived with a mixture of sadness and celebration in our hearts and minds.  We were there to lay to rest the remains of the body of Murphy Davis, whose ashes had resided in a special place at the Open Door in Baltimore, since her passing on October 22, 2020.

    We gathered at Jubilee because of its long history of serving humanity and because of its offering burial to all sorts of people – some have no other place to be buried; some, like Murphy, chose to be buried there.  The path from the dining hall to the cemetery is about half a mile, winding over rough and rutted trails and roads, and that terrain serves as metaphor for the ministry of Murphy Davis.  She chose the roads less traveled by.

Jubilee Partners was founded as a Christian service community in 1979 in rural Georgia, near Comer in Madison County.  Their primary work is to offer hospitality to immigrants who have experienced violence or persecution.  Jubilee has also served as a burial place for people executed on Georgia’s death row.  Almost all of the graves are dug by hand, using shovels, mattocks, and pickaxes. The ground in the cemetery— mostly packed clay and mud rock—is not easy to dig in, but there is meaning in the labor. 

On this day, we gathered to remember the astonishing life and witness of Murphy Davis, and we worshipped God together in order to find comfort and strength in the loss of Murphy.  We also worshipped together to find the fire of renewal, so that we too could continue to go out and proclaim the gospel of justice and mercy and peace in the rough and rutted roads of life, wherever we live.  The Reverend Nelia Kimbrough led us in the worship service, and we were blessed to have several outstanding speakers.  Elise Witt once again led us in singing in worship, and it was a powerful sound, echoing out into the world of woods, workers, and wanderers.  

    Joyce Hollyday had helped Murphy finally complete her first book “Surely Goodness and Mercy.”  Joyce spoke of Murphy’s being a powerful light, using Jesus’ metaphor from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5: “You are the light of the world….so let your light shine before all people.”  She deemed Murphy’s ministry to be an “incandescent incarnation,” and she gave thanks that Murphy did not hide her light under a bushel or in the maze of middle class life.  Murphy chose a different way to let her light shine – in solidarity with the poor, those on the streets and those in prison, especially those on death row. 

    Joyce also lifted up Murphy’s belief in the power of the Resurrection, not only for its meaning for life after death, but also for its meaning while we are living.  Murphy’s life and witness reminded us that we should not look at the Resurrection as a thing belonging to the past.  It is also an event that calls us into the future, as we too are resurrected from our many captivities to the principalities and powers of the fallen world.  Joyce read a paragraph from one of Murphy’s 1996 Hospitality columns that is featured in “Bag of Snakes:”

“A bittersweet truth about Resurrection is this: we are rarely given the privilege, or the luxury, of sitting in front of the empty tomb to bask in the glorious light of the Risen One.  “Run.” says the angel.  “Run and tell it!  Run with all your might, powered by the glorious truth of the vision!  Run with the exuberance and joy of your grief suddenly and unexpectedly healed!  Run, carrying this unbelievable news!  Run, knowing that nothing else in the world matters anymore!  The truth is the Truth that will overshadow everything else and set the course for all of life.  Run!!!”

Then it was time to take the cremains of Murphy Davis up to their resting place at the cemetery of Jubilee Partners.  Many of us who were able walked the half mile up to the cemetery, traversing the rough and rutted roads, while others were transported in a van.  It was a sunny day, and Elise Witt led us in singing as we walked, forming sort of a “second line” New Orleans style processional, with Ed leading the way.  We arrived and found the hole dug for Murphy, right next to Ralph Dukes’ grave.  Nelia led us once again in these closing moments, blessing Murphy’s life and ministry.

     Ed placed the urn with Murphy’s ashes in the burial spot.  His moans and groans resonated in all our hearts, as he laid her ashes to rest in the burial grounds, and as we sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”  For a long moment, there was  silence, with only the melody of the birds to accompany our sorrow and our gratitude for a life well lived, a life that taught all of us how to be a servant of the Lord by serving humanity.  We all lingered a long while, not wanting to leave this spot, knowing that leaving this spot would bring a finality that we did not want to have, and yet that we must have.

    We returned to the Jubilee dining hall, where we broke bread together with a meal prepared by Mary Catherine Johnson and Jubilee Partners.  As Murphy would have wanted it, we told stories of Murphy’s life and witness, many laced with the humor that was another hallmark characteristic of her life.  As we all listened and shared, we had the stuff of recognition – our eyes and our hearts were opened, and we could all hear Murphy telling us: “Run and tell it!  Run, carrying this unbelievable news! Run!!!!