"WHO IS MY MOTHER?"

 “WHO IS MY MOTHER?”

“Who Is My Mother?”  This is a question that Jesus asks in response to those who tell him that his mother and his siblings would like to see him – they are coming to take him home because they think that he has lost his mind with all of his “weird’ ministry and teachings.  He then says that whoever does the will of God is his sibling and his mother.  I’ve always thought that such a response must have hurt his mother’s heart, but she raised him to be a prophet for and to the world.

This complicated approach is appropriate for our current political moment when SCOTUS has voted to force motherhood on every woman who becomes pregnant without doing anything to enforce the “fatherhood” part.  This year’s Mother’s Day is fraught with complexity, and in that manner, I give thanks for my mother, Mary Armour Stroupe.  We had many discussions about a woman’s right to choose in regard to her body, and Mother said:  “I’m opposed to abortion, but I’m even more opposed to forcing women to have babies.”  

My mother saved my life by sticking with me and by showing me the power of love.  I give thanks for her!  Though she did not consider herself a radical, she often demonstrated radical power in her “ordinary” stands in her home of Helena, Arkansas.  One of her friends once told me that the white neighbors considered Mother a radical because she allowed a Black friend and colleague to come in her front door when she came to visit Mother – this was in the 1990’s, not the 1940’s.

Mother also took some stronger communal stands in her work as the lead instructor at the Phillips County Community College School of Cosmetology.  Most of her students were poor, and many of them were Black.  They had heard all their lives that they were not worth much.  Mother sought to teach them not only how to do hair but also to teach them that they were children of God and American citizens.  As elections drew near, she would urge her students to register to vote.  Most of the students did not believe that voting made any difference, so most of them did not heed her advice – most of them also had heard stories of the danger in which Black people put themselves when they voted.

Mother emphasized, however, that the right to vote was fundamental and that her students should not take it lightly.   In a move that would likely not be allowed now, she told her students that if they did not vote on election day, then they would not be allowed into class that day.  If they did not wear an “I have voted” sticker on election day, then they failed the class for the day.  That got their attention, and she ended up with almost 100% voting by her students.  I give thanks to Mother for her nurturing of me and of so many others.  Though she gave birth to one child, she was a mother to hundreds.  If you want to know more of her story (and mine), get my most recent book “She Made A Way: Mother and Me in A Deep South World.”

On this Mother’s Day, I also am remembering all those people who gave me mothering love, both women and men.  Mothering love is rooted in loving and in engagement, not in biology.  One of our good friends, Lorri Mills, died about this time four years go after a long struggle with many illnesses and attacks on her body.  She did not have any biological children, and she always told us that she was not any good with little kids.  But, she gave mothering love to so many people!  We heard from cousins that she was a mentor to them, that she was one of the first women in their family line to go to college.  We heard stories of her urging her women cousins to think of themselves as human beings capable of so much more than they thought.  We witnessed her sharing this approach with so many people at Oakhurst Presbyterian, where she was a member and elder and leader.  She was generous and loving and nurturing – she showed us what the answer to Jesus’ question “Who Is My Mother?’ looked like.

In this time of Mother’s Day, let us give thanks for our biological mothers and for all of those people who have given us patient and demanding, nurturing and ever present, visionary love. I give thanks also for my life partner Caroline Leach, who has offered me and so many others this kind of mothering love.  When Caroline retired in 2012, one of the most moving parts was the 75+ children, youth, and young adults who came forward to give her roses in gratitude for her mothering love for them.  Let us seek to live our lives in this way.  And, if your “mothers” are still around, take time to thank them while you can.

"BATTLE FOR LIFE"

 “BATTLE FOR LIFE”

This week marks the 51st anniversary of the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in what was then South Vietnam in 1975.  It was the final, collapsing ending of the Vietnam War, which cost 58,220 American lives over a ten-year period – two of my friends from Helena were among those lost.   The chaos of the photos associated with the fall of Saigon reminded us of the great chasm that had been opened in American society because of the Vietnam War, a chasm which still permeates our culture.  We gained very little in that war, and we lost, oh so much.  At least the war had been approved by Congress in the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August, 1964, the same month that the bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were found in shallow graves in Neshoba County, Mississippi.  

Caroline and I were pastors in St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia when Saigon fell.  We had just arrived there as the first clergy couple to serve in a local church in the former Presbyterian Church (US) in the South.  We were not aware that soon several Vietnamese families would be arriving at Robin Hood Apartments, where St. Columba Church was located.  We would get involved with several of those families as they encountered poverty and a new system of family life.  The Vietnam War was also the war which led me to seek conscientious objector status, which I received in the fall of 1970.  I did my alternative service at Opportunity House in Nashville, where I was director of a halfway house for men getting out of prison.  I participated in many protests about the Vietnam War, and I joined millions in those protests.

The Trumpster brought up the Vietnam War last week in talking about his war of choice in Iran.  When he got questions about the length of the Iran war, he noted that it had not nearly been as long as the Vietnam War.  In bringing up the Vietnam War, he also inadvertently reminded many of us that both wars are similar in that there never was any clear motive or objective or even national interest in these wars.  While we were told that the Vietnam War was being fought to protect us from communism, we are being told now that the Iran war is being fought to protect us from a nuclear Iran.  One big difference – with the new technology, we can drop bombs on people without having to use ground troops.  However, like Vietnam, if we want a “victory,” we will need troops on the ground, and if we go there, it will be Vietnam all over again – or, at least the Iraq War all over again.  The Viet Cong were not overwhelmed by our “shock and awe” demonstration of the bombing campaigns, and as we are seeing now, neither are the Iranians.  Let no one hear that I am defending the Iranian government – they are brutal and inhumane.  Yet, they play the long diplomatic game rather than the short, social media game at which we are accustomed in the West.

Like Lyndon Johnson with Vietnam, the Trumpster seems out of his depth with the war in Iran.  It is a war run by political Americans who have never been in a war, and who - because of that – seem to glorify war and the killing culture that it brings.  Like the hubris that brought us down in Vietnam, there is a similar hubris in the Trumpster and in the Secretary of Defense.  Do we have lethal power? Yes.  But will it win us this war? Using Vietnam and Iraq as guides, there is no “winning” this Iran war, and that is why the Trumpster has been so equivocal in his goals on the war.  He did not know what he was getting into, and he does not know what “winning” would look like.  The Vietnam War brought down the great presidency of LBJ, after he had ended neo-slavery in 1965 with the passing of the Voting Rights Act.  Though I am ready for the Iran war to be over, I’m also aware that it may be a turning point in the support for the Trumpster.  As Sweet Honey in the Rock put it in their song “Battle for My Life,”: “Your hunger for war is nothing new, Cowboy.”

The connecting dots are that we believe in the power of death, and we now have a president and a Congress that use this power of death to seek to deepen power and a hold on our hearts.  Let us hear a different song in our battle for life.  And, if you haven’t picked up your implement of resistance which I mentioned a few weeks ago, please do so now.

"EARTH DAY"

 “EARTH DAY”

This year marks the 56th anniversary of the official beginning of Earth Day.  I remember when Earth Day was officially recognized in 1970.  It had been semi-officially started in 1969 by Iowa native and later Californian John McConnell.  Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin got it going nationally by calling for a country-wide teach-in on the environment on April, 22, 1970, using the model of the teach-ins against the Vietnam war.  It caught on, and I remember that Caroline and I started observing it in worship in our church in Norfolk in 1976.  As we all know now, we are at a crucial point in the earth’s life, and many think that it is already too late. 

And, of course, the Trumpsters are pushing hard to retract all the scientific truths about climate change and the destruction of life on earth as we know it.  The New York Times published an article last week entitled “Climate Change Denial Is Back in Washington.”  The article noted that a conference held in DC hit hard on the idea of climate change, and the article began in this way: “Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by ‘leftist politicians.’  Fossil fuels are the greenest energy sources.  More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be harmless.”  We all know that these are deliberate lies, just like the lies told by the tobacco industry in the days before smoking was not as regulated as it is now.  Indeed, in Atlanta we were projected to hit 90 degrees last week, the earliest that we have ever hit 90 since records began to be kept in the 1870’s.  The second earliest was in 1980, that horrible, heat-filled, drought dominated summer when our son David was born.

We are at a crucial time now in the life of the earth, and no matter what the Trumpsters tell us, the climate is warming, and our abuse of the earth is the cause of it.  So, on this Earth Day, we are asked to find ways to lessen our impact on the life of the earth, so that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have a chance.  There are many steps and many options, but perhaps the best place to begin is to change our attitude towards the earth and all its inhabitants.  No one better supplies that opportunity to make the change than did Mary Oliver in her poetry.  So, here is one of her many poems about the appreciation of the earth and all its creatures.  It was first published in 1979 in her book “Twelve Moons.” It is called “Sleeping in the Forest.”

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better

Mary Oliver

"THE POWER OF RESURRECTION"

 ‘THE POWER OF RESURRECTION!”

Yesterday’s lectionary Gospel reading was from John 20:19-31, in which the Risen Jesus appears to the disciples on the day of resurrection.  He has already appeared to the disciple Mary Magdalene, and she has shared the great news that Jesus is risen from the dead.  The other disciples do not believe her, and in the reading from John, they are huddled in fear in a locked room, terrified that the religious leaders may come for them, as they did for Jesus.  The risen Jesus appears among them in that room, and they are amazed and full of joy.

Thomas the disciple, however, was not among them for that appearance.  When they tell Thomas that they have seen the Risen Jesus, he does not believe them.  Indeed, he tells them strongly and bluntly that unless he can put his fingers into the wounds on Jesus’ body, he will not believe.  He doesn’t feel the power of resurrection – he feels the power of death.

About a week later, Thomas is with the disciples when the Risen Jesus appears among them again.  Jesus seems to be appearing specifically to confront “Doubting Thomas” and to bring him along, so that he too will know the power of the Resurrection.  Thomas is convinced and responds, “My Lord and my God.”  Jesus is glad to have brought Thomas around, but he also adds some primary words for the rest of us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and who yet believe.” 

I grew up wondering about “Doubting Thomas,” but as I reached adulthood, I began to think of him as “Thank you, Thomas,” rather than “Doubting Thomas.”  I shifted because doubts have often filled my heart and my mind.  If Jesus is risen from the dead, why will 30,000 children die today of hunger around the world?  If Jesus is risen from the dead, why are the bombs still falling from the sky?  How can a mean narcissist like Trump be president of the USA?  Where is God in this crazy and scary world?  So, yes, I understand the doubts of Thomas very well, and I am grateful to the writer of John’s Gospel for including this story – it speaks to the doubts that all of us have. 

As I have written before, Caroline has helped me to understand the power of resurrection in this context of doubt and death.  When I was preparing for ordination exams in 1975, I asked her what she thought about the resurrection of Jesus.  She replied that she was not sure what happened to Jesus of Nazareth in the Resurrection, but that she understood the Resurrection as a doctrine that speaks to us not about what happens to us when we die, but rather what happens to us when we are living.  The power of Resurrection is that it calls to us to help us to find new life now, not in the afterlife.

In hearing this, I felt like the scales had fallen from my eyes, to borrow Paul’s description of his own coming to believe in the power of Resurrection.  I began to see that the power of Resurrection is not so much in our dying, as in our living.  I could begin to experience a new life in the midst of my captivity to racism, and I could begin to find some liberation in which I could see others not as enemies, but as sisters and brothers.  I could begin to experience a new life in relationship to the power of gender identity – women were daughters of God, not property of men.  The power of Resurrection is that the Risen Jesus is always appearing to us, asking us to have eyes to see and ears to hear about a new life, a new life based not in racism or sexism or materialism or militarism, but rather a life based in justice and mercy and equity.

In these Trumpian days, when we are being dragged back into the domination of the Army of the Patriarchy, we are asked to be on the lookout for the Risen Jesus appearing in our midst.  We are asked to open our hearts to the power of the Resurrection.  The Army of the Patriarchy does not define us – the Risen Jesus does.  The power to seek new life, to stand in resistance to the strong wave of white supremacy, the power of speaking up and acting out in solidarity with those on the margins  - these come from the Power of the Resurrection.  May we see it and believe and act on it in these perilous days.

"RESURRECTION AND RESISTANCE"

 “RESURRECTION AND RESISTANCE!”

We are in the season of Resurrection. Easter was yesterday, and whether or not you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead after he was given the death penalty by Rome, the power of Resurrection still speaks to all of us.  The power of the Resurrection is not so much what happens to us when we die.  The power of the Resurrection is that we are offered the opportunity to experience new life now, to see life and ourselves and others in a new way. 

In this sense, Resurrection is always contemporary, because we are always in captivity.  Those of us seeking liberation can use the power of Resurrection as a metaphor for helping us to find new life and new vision.  In this time when Trump would be king, it is sometimes hard to feel and to experience the power of Resurrection.  There is a hopeless malaise hanging over us, like an early morning fog that robs us of our ability to see clearly.  Indeed, that is what Trump wants – for us to give up and give in to his move for imperial power. 

In this kind of time, let us recall those first followers of Jesus, who felt the power and vision of Resurrection.  They lived under the oppressive power of imperial Rome, and they were so unimportant that no Roman historian recorded their names or their actions or their histories.  They could have been crushed at any time by Rome – they had very little agency in regard to political power.  When the word first began to spread about the Resurrection, Rome did not tremble or even notice – another little sect with some weird theory.  

The Empire began to notice these People of the Way when they began to resist the claim of Empire to ultimate authority.  The People of the Way began to deny that their hearts belonged to Rome – they belonged to the God they met in the Risen Jesus.  This worried Rome, and the executions began.  These executions only called forth more resistance.

The Resurrection is a form of resistance, resistance to the power of death.  Jesus proclaimed that death is not the final word in life – rather the final word is the power of love and justice and equity in the name of God.  In these times when The Army of the Patriarchy is on the march in American culture, we are called to join in resistance against that movement.  We are asked to hear God’s call to resistance - a resistance rooted in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  Such resistance takes many forms.  John Brown heard about the resistance of Jesus and picked up a sword in Kansas and a rifle in New York.  Ida B. Wells heard about the resistance and picked up a pen.  Barbara Johns heard about the resistance and picked up her shoe and rapped it on the high school podium, as she led a student boycott until Black education was dramatically improved.  MLK heard about the resistance and picked up the mantle of nonviolence.  

    Our resistance can take many forms, but whatever form we choose, it is time to resist.  The Trumpster may yet implode, but we cannot count on that.  We must be witnesses to a new and different order, a different way of living our lives as People of the Way.  Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, it is time now to pick up your implement of resistance.  This season of the Resurrection demands it – let us be finding our way on the path of Resurrection and Resistance. 

"RIDING INTO THE ARMY OF THE PATRIARCHY IN HOLY WEEK"

 “RIDING INTO THE ARMY OF THE PATRIARCHY IN HOLY WEEK”

Caroline and I received the Spring issue of Ms. Magazine late last week, and on the cover was a photo of Trump’s paramilitary, largely unregulated police.  They are often called “ICE Agents,” but they are basically Trump’s personal, national federalized police, to be used at his discretion, wherever he wants to send them.  On its cover, Ms. Magazine had the best name for them that I have seen: “The Army of the Patriarchy.”  And, indeed, that is what they are.  They are the army of the patriarchal vision as Trump wants it and sees it:  a return to the complete dominance of white, male supremacy.  The establishment of this army of the patriarchy is why Trump has so far refused to support an end to the TSA mess:  he wants no regulation of his personal patriarchal army.  It is the stuff of dictators and empire.  They will be appearing in many places for the rest of the year, especially at the polling places in November.

This week is Holy Week, Christianity’s alternative to the stuff of Empire.  Jesus rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, hoping against hope that those who uphold the Roman Empire will catch a glimpse of a different view of the world, a different view of themselves and of other human beings, a different view than the Army of the Patriarchy. It begins with a time of high hopes. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and he knows that this is the time when his vision must take hold – this is the critical week.  His followers are fired up, and why shouldn’t they be – he has healed their bodies and their spirits; he has fed the hungry; he has cured the sick; and he has given them a new vision of life and how to live their lives.  This is it – this year, Jerusalem!

Part of the fervor comes from the time of the Jewish calendar – it is the season of Passover, the commemoration of God’s defeat of Pharoah, a defeat that brought the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt and into the liberation of the wilderness.  Part of the Seder meal for Passover has the phrase “Next year, Jerusalem!”  And, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on a jackass to celebrate Passover, his followers are ecstatic – the hated Romans will be overthrown, and the corrupt religious leaders of Judaism will be replaced with compassionate and righteous leaders.  “Ride On, King Jesus!”   But, Rome is watching, the Empire is watching.  The Roman governor Pontus Pilate has brought a garrison of soldiers into Jerusalem to make certain that those who would oppose the Empire are quickly squashed.

Jesus enters Jerusalem with a sense of possibility, but the Army of the Patriarchy is waiting for him, just as it waits for us now in Trumpworld.  The powers of domination will not yield easily, and if necessary, they will kill a few “domestic terrorists” in order to keep the visions and the hearts tied down to Empire.  Jesus rides on to the Cross, to his death – he is killed because he is offering an alternative vision to that of Empire, a vision that promises justice and equity and mercy.  Holy Week is a sobering week, especially this year, because it retells our story as humanity in captive to the powers of death and destruction and violence.

    Holy Week shows us the drama of our lives – we long for love, but we believe in death.  We want to believe in this Jesus of Nazareth, but the world seems so much with us, a world dominated by corrupt and egotistical leaders, by the Army of the Patriarchy in a world that believes in the power of violence and death.  Holy Week walks us squarely into the midst of this struggle – no fading away here, no sentimentality allowed.  Holy Week looks squarely at one of the most difficult truths of our lives:  we long for love, but we believe in death.  Holy Week asks us to sit with this uncomfortable truth this week – to think about our visions lost or visions diminished, about our hopes being dashed, to think about our compromises that make us gradually lose hold of our dreams and hopes.  Holy Week asks us to stay with that process in our own lives and in the life of the world.

    There is some good news to be found somewhere in here, but for now, the Army of the Patriarchy is on the march.  Jesus faces it straight up, and his execution reminds us of the cost of such resistance, of the cost of believing in justice and equity in an Empire built on violence and death.  It’s not the end of the story, but it is part of the story:  where is the Army of the Patriarchy marching in my heart and in your heart?

"WOMEN'S HERSTORY MONTH - A DEEPER AND LONGER VISION"

 “WOMEN’S HERSTORY MONTH - A DEEPER AND LONGER VISION”

In the middle of February, Caroline and I made a long weekend trip to see Susan in Baltimore.  She was directing a play in Bethesda, and we wanted to see it.  We rented an Airbnb in Silver Spring to use as a base for the play. The first thing that we noticed was that there was snow everywhere (except the roads), and the roads had been cleared by plowing the snow and placing it in what became tall, grey piles of snow/ice.  I saw more snow on the ground there than I have in the last three winters in the ATL – one of the main reasons that we continue to live in the South.

Besides having a great visit with Susan, our main purpose for the trip was to experience the performance of the play that she was directing.  It was entitled “Silent Sky,” written by Susan’s former classmate at Decatur High, Lauren Gunderson.  Lauren is a well-known playwright, known for centering her plays on the stories of strong women. Often she is the most produced playwright of the year in the USA, and this play did not disappoint.  The play centered on early women astronomers in the USA, centering on a “computer” known as Henrietta Leavitt.  If you are familiar with the movie “Hidden Figures” (and if you are not, go find it immediately), you will recall that people who did long and tedious math work were often called “computers.”  They are tasked with difficult mathematical work, and many times women were the ones doing this work, with only pencil and paper (and later, adding machines).

Henrietta Leavitt was born in Massachusetts in 1868, and early on demonstrated a high level of both mathematical ability and mathematical insights.  Her minister father encouraged her pursuits, and she graduated from Radcliffe College ( because Harvard did not accept women at that time.)  After graduation she found a job at the Harvard College Observatory, and her job was to do math work related to the distances of the stars from Earth and from other stars.  She quickly demonstrated a profound ability to see deeper and further into methods of how to measure the distances between stars.  “Silent Sky” is a play about her struggles as an aspiring astronomer in the midst of the patriarchal demand that she be only a computer, who would just do the calculations requested and demanded by the male astronomers.  “Don’t try to give us your insights, because you don’t have any,” was the usual refrain.

But, she did have extraordinary insights, and though I understand very few of them, the play depicted her stubborn persistence to a commitment to truth and to the capabilities of women in science, especially in astronomy.  Her discovery of how to effectively measure vast astronomical distances led to a shift in the understanding of the scale and nature of the universe.  This work led her to discover the relation between brightness and the positions of the stars.  She worked with Cepheid variables (no, I don’t know what those are – go look it up), and her insight helped her to develop the first standard way to measure the distance between stars and especially between galaxies.  This came to be known as Leavitt’s Law, and it paved the way for our current understanding of an expanding universe.  This is far beyond my understanding, but I do appreciate my granddaughter Zoe’s philosophical (and theological) question on this.  “If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?”  But, at the time, her thinking was revolutionary – she posited that there were many galaxies beyond the Milky Way, and most male astronomers scoffed at her thinking.

Leavitt tragically died of stomach cancer in 1921 at age 53, a great loss to her own self and to the scientific community.  Edwin Hubble would come along a few years later and use Leavitt’s Law to begin his own calculations, leading to an acceptance of Leavitt’s insight that there are galaxies beyond the Milky Way and that the universe is expanding.  Since he was a man, his theories were accepted in the astronomy community, but he always gave Leavitt the credit that she was due, suggesting that she should have won a Nobel Prize for her work.   He remembered her and gave thanks for her, but our patriarchal mindset wiped out her memory and her work.  Kudos to Lauren Gunderson and others who have revived her memory and made it come alive.

And, of course, this is what Women’s Herstory Month is about – captured by the demonic power of patriarchy and sexism, we cannot even imagine a person like Henrietta Leavitt.  Women’s Herstory Month gives us the opportunity to recover some of the remarkable human beings who have led us and deepened our lives, and in many cases, saved us.  Let us remember them and savor them in this Women’s Herstory Month.