"HAIL TO YOU!"

 “HAIL TO YOU!”

I must admit that I was surprised with the verdict in the outcome of the Ahmaud Arbery case.  I had been hoping for some sort of conviction in the Rittenhouse case in Wisconsin, and when that verdict turned out to be “not guilty” on all charges, my hopes for the Arbery case outcome dropped.  I had slim hopes anyway – the most that I had hoped for was a hung jury, so that there would be a re-trial.  I was really surprised that a vastly white jury in south Georgia found three white men guilty of killing a Black man.  There might be some hope after all.  

And, that hope, of course, is one of the main themes of the Advent season into which we are now heading.  The turnaround in the Arbery case came because a lone woman, Wanda Cooper-Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery, kept at the case, even when the police and two county DAs had refused to prosecute the case.  She kept on proclaiming, kept on poking, kept on insisting that an injustice had been done.  Many of us knew that she was right, but the problem was to get the authorities to believe that too.

Her role is a reminder of the importance of women in the Advent story and in the civil rights movement. The Biblical story is that a young woman named Mary, engaged to be married, had a vision of an angel of God coming to her saying “Hail, Mary.”  The angel was a messenger from God, asking her to agree to a astonishing and dangerous mission – she was asked to carry the Human One, the special child of God, as a baby in her womb.   It was astonishing because she was a “nobody” from Nazareth, asked to be the Mother of God.  It was dangerous because she would be pregnant by someone other than her fiancé Joseph.  In saying “Yes,” she would risk receiving the death penalty.  We don’t know her internal processing of this request, but she said “Yes.”  After she visited with her cousin Elizabeth, she even counted herself “blessed” to be asked to do this, and her famous song about the potential turning of the world is found in Luke 1:49-56.

     This Wednesday, December 1, marks the 66th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ decision to refuse to move to the “white” section of the bus, a decision that led to the Montgomery bus boycott.  There has been a lot written about her decision and about her motivation for it.   She been prepared for it – the previous summer she had attended workshops at Highlander Folk School in Tennessee about these issues.  There she encountered Septima Clark and came under her  tutelage.  Septima Clark encouraged her  to listen for God’s voice and to find her voice in response.  As far as I can determine, she had not gotten on that bus ready for civil disobedience – no Henry Plessy moment for her.  But, her moment came – she heard the angel’s voice: “Hail, Rosa!”  And she responded.  She was not the first to do this – many others like Ida Wells and Claudette Colvin had preceded her.  But, this was the moment, and like Mary before her, when she heard “Hail to you,” and responded by saying “Yes,” the world began to turn.

    The Advent season is about these kinds of moments, about us preparing to hear God’s voice calling to us:  “Hail to you!”  There are a lot of other voices out there (and “in here”) in this season.  The products call to us to tell us to touch the hem of their garments and be healed.  The sentimentality of the “baby Jesus” asks us to leave behind all the struggles of the world - all the calls to justice, all the murders of Ahmaud Arbery – and come to rest in this “sweet little Jesus boy.”  This is a time for meditation and preparation, and even silence at times, but the goal of the story is this:  we are asked to listen for God’s voice to us in this time so that we can join in the parade to seek to turn the world around.  May we hear God’s “Hail to you” in this Advent season of 2021, and may we find the vision of Mary, the determination of Wanda Cooper-Jones, and the courage of Rosa Parks to say “Yes,” when God’s call comes to us.  

"WE MAY BE SIBLINGS AFTER ALL"

 “WE MAY BE SIBLINGS AFTER ALL”

In light of the terrible but not surprising news that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges in Wisconsin last week, I wanted to share a glimmer of good news from the heart of the South.  Last month Dekalb County approved the removal of the “Indian Wars Cannon” that had been placed in the Decatur Square in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).  It was removed on October 19.  While some of us had been working on this for a long while, we give thanks for the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights, which took up this cause and brought it to fruition.  They were also instrumental in getting the Confederate Monument removed from the Square in the summer of 2020.  

    We also give thanks for our friend, Dekalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson, who was a powerful force behind the removals of both of these symbols of white supremacy.  As she put it in a statement when the cannon was removed:  “Dekalb County and the City of Decatur are places of love, not hate.  Of inclusion, not division.  And, so any sign that is divisive or is hurtful to others, or is a sign of oppression, we shouldn’t have in the county.” We give thanks for Mereda and Ted Terry who co-sponsored the resolution for removal.  Mereda is a long-time ally of Oakhurst Presbyterian, and she is the daughter-in-law of Christine Callier, longtime Oakhurst member.  She is also the spouse of Congressperson Hank Johnson.

The Indian Wars cannon memorialized the removal of Indigenous Peoples from this area following the Creek Indian War of 1836.  The war was rooted in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, supported and backed by President Andrew Jackson.  In 1821, the state of Georgia forced the sale of Creek (and Cherokee) land in Georgia, giving it at little cost to those who were classified as “white.”  The Creek and the Cherokee did not take this well, and violence broke out.   The Native Americans sued in federal court, and SCOTUS even ruled that their land should not be stolen in this manner, but President Jackson refused to enforce the SCOTUS ruling, saying infamously that if SCOTUS wanted its decision enforced, they should send their own soldiers to do it.  Under our Constitution, however, SCOTUS can have no soldiers.  The result was the horrifying Trail of Tears, removing many Indigenous People from their ancestral lands.

The UDC placed the cannon in Decatur Square in 1906, even before they had the Confederate monument installed in 1908.  Why this connection of the “Indian Wars” cannon to the Lost Cause?  Because both are monuments to white supremacy, and they are a reminder that most of us who are classified as “white” feel threatened by the presence of anyone categorized as “non-white,” most especially those seen as Black or Indigenous.  In this sense, the verdict in the Rittenhouse case is not surprising at all – he, as a “white” boy, had put himself in the presence of Black people.  His travel there across state lines with an illegal automatic weapon was not seen as endangerment.  The dangerous people - from the view of white supremacy -are not boys like him with automatic weapons, but rather are people of color.  As the judge so infamously put it in his instructions to the jury, consider this case from Rittenhouse’s point of view.  That point of view is that all people of color are threatening in all times and in all places.

This verdict is a grim reminder of the danger in which we live, as white supremacy regains its strength.  But, we should also remember other visions.  In 1854, Chief Seattle, after whom the city is named, gave a powerful speech of lament about the taking of their lands (and ancestors) by those classified as ‘white.”  He added these words of warning and prophecy about the necessity of seeing one another as siblings rather than enemies:  “Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him, as friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny.  We may be {brothers} after all.  We shall see.”

We may be siblings after all – that is a powerful phrase and a powerful thought.  In these days of growing danger, let us be watchful, but let us always remember this vision and seek to be guided by it.  We may be siblings after all.  We are siblings after, and even before, all is said and done.  We have a common ancestry and a common destiny.  We belong to one another.

"ON SEEING WITH NEW HEARTS AND NEW EYES"

 “ON SEEING WITH NEW HEARTS AND EYES”

The Atlanta baseball team recently won the World Series, in a surprising run.  I was surprised on several levels, the main one being that I had declared that the Atlanta baseball team would never win another World Series because the team refused to change its racist name from the “B-word” to something like the “Atlantans” (my preference) or the “Hammers” (as my son David and others advocate).  Keeping “Hammers” would allow them to keep the egregious “chop” by changing it to hammer strokes, and of course the greatest Atlanta player was Hammerin’ Hank Aaron.  For more on this struggle see our friend John Blake’s fine CNN online article about this.  https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/atlanta-braves-history-racism-blake/index.html

The baseball gods were not with me, however, and the Atlantans won the World Series in convincing fashion.  There was some controversy generated by their name, but the white owners of the team responded that they would keep the “B-word” as the name.  They even brought out Chief Noc-a-Homa to defend the name and the chop.  When we first moved to the Atlanta area in 1983, we would take 

David and Susan to see the Atlanta team play in old Fulton County stadium.  In the stands behind left/center field, they had built a teepee, and they had Chief Noc-a-Homa, a Native American,  bless the field before each home game.  When the Atlantans hit a home run in those days, Chief Noc-a-Homa would run around the field and whoop and celebrate.  He is still alive at age 79, and Atlanta TV stations played a recent interview with him.  He strongly defended the “B-word” as appropriate, defending the “chop” as well.  

It reminded me of a trip that Caroline, Susan and I had made to the Eastern Shore of Maryland a couple of years ago to look for Wallace ancestors and to look at Easton, Maryland.  Easton was now claiming Frederick Douglass as an ancestor, on the approximate 200th anniversary of his birth in the area.   We went into a used bookstore in Easton to seek to find some postcards to send to our granddaughters.  The white, male proprietor of the store noticed my Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, and he asked me if we were from Baltimore.  When I replied that Susan was but I was not, he asked why anyone not from Baltimore would wear the cap of the last place baseball team.  I replied that it was a gift from my daughter, but also that I could not wear the cap of my home team, the Atlantans, until they changed their racist name and images.  He looked puzzled and asked if I meant “the Braves.”  When I replied that I did, he then launched into an explanation of why the name “Braves” and its accompanying tomahawk chop and images were not racist, but were rather honoring the fierceness and courage of Native American peoples. 

            My response was that the Atlantans had not consulted with the Native American tribes of the land (mostly Creek and Cherokee) about their opinions of the baseball traditions.  Indeed, the comments of Native American culture are that such usage is demeaning and racist, especially since those tribes do not receive any of the millions of dollars generated by the use of their images.  He replied that the Native Americans should not be insulted by it, because it was not intended as racist.  Since I did not know him, I wanted to add, but I did not, that it was arrogant but not surprising of us white men to believe that we knew better about the opinions of other cultures than those cultures themselves did.  We have pronounced it, and it must be so. 

            In this Native American Heritage Month (or American Indian Heritage Month), let those of us who are classified as “white” be reminded of our terrible history in regard to Native Americans.  Let us remember our emphasis in the system of race that our intentions are much more important to us than the outcomes of our actions.  As this Anglo man stated, if white folk didn’t express an intention of racism, then our actions couldn’t be seen as racist.  Lest this seem like ancient history, it is the current SCOTUS position.

            But, as we experience this Month, let us also consider the many positive gifts of Native American heritage, and at this time in our lives, none seems more important that their reverence for Mother Earth compared to the Anglo ravaging of the earth.  As the icecaps and glaciers melt;  as the fires of the West burn;  as the typhoons and hurricanes and tornadoes blow;  as the temperatures and sea levels rise – in light of these and so much more, nothing seems more vital to all of us than to go back and learn from these cultures who understand the powerful and complex links between all circles of life in the earth and the universe.  I’ll look at this more next week, but for now, let us hear that our ancestors and our grandchildren cry out to us to learn and live this respect.  Let us see with new hearts and new eyes.

"VETERANS' DAY"

 “VETERANS’ DAY”

I have a complex relationship with Veterans’ Day.  I honor people who have served this country, and I had two high school acquaintances killed in the Vietnam War.  My mother’s love, Bob Buford, was killed in World War II, and my father also served in World War II, but I think that it scarred him deeply mentally and emotionally – I am surmising that part;  I only met him once and did not know him at all.  

And then there is my own personal history with Veterans’ Day.  In 1970 I decided to withdraw from seminary and to challenge the automatic exemption from the draft that ministers and seminary students had.  I was among a group of people who felt that if we could challenge the draft-exempt status of church-related folks, then we could deepen resistance to the Vietnam War.  The draft board in Helena was only too glad that I had offered up my body to the sacrifice of the Vietnam War.  I was faced with three choices (other than going into the army):  become a conscientious objector, go to Canada, or go to jail.  I felt like the CO was an educated person’s draft exemption, but the other two options did not seem feasible.  

            I loved my country, but I felt that the Vietnam War was not a just or honorable cause for our country.  After several months of wrestling (and after being AWOL for the army physical), I decided to seek conscientious objector status.  I was approved for that, and I worked at Opportunity House in Nashville as my alternate service, which the CO required.  Opportunity House was a halfway house for men getting out of prison, and I learned a lot there about the injustices of the prison system in the USA.

           When I wrote my blog on Veterans’ Day  a couple of years ago, my longtime friend David Billings responded with a wonderful comment about the men in his family who had served in World War II, and with his permission, I am sharing those comments now to complete this year’s blog on Veterans’ Day.  If you have not read David’s powerful book and memoir on race and fighting its power – please find a copy.  It is entitled “Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life.”  Here are David’s fine reflections on Veterans’ Day from 2019:

“My father was awarded the purple heart during his service in WWII. He was hit by a bomb fragment in the chin and survived chin and all. I remember choking up at his funeral when the 21 gun salute was fired and when the U.S. flag was presented to my older sister before he was lowered into the ground. I have often thought, as I have grown older, about the sacrifices people like my father made that allowed me to live a much different life than he and others like him lived. I felt ashamed sometimes that my risks were so much safer than the ones he took.

           In the first two decades after WWII, the South was ablaze with racial violence. In fact my Uncle Harry (also a veteran) was murdered in McComb, Mississippi in 1962. The murderer was a young Black man. Uncle Harry was a white man from a working class but well-known white family (largely because all the Billings worked for the railroad and because there were so many of us--7 brothers and 2 sisters.) Now, 6 brothers survived at that time.  Within hours of the arrest, the representatives of the KKK came to the house. They wore no sheets or masks. Everybody knew everybody else. "What would you have us do?" was their question. 

            Those who were home were gathered in a circle, and each was given the chance to respond.  No one did until it was my Uncle James' turn to speak. James was a decorated war hero. He had seen death up close and personal. War was not yet a video game. You looked your adversaries in the face, so to speak. He replied, "We don't want you to do nothing. "We are not that kind of family."

             I credit that statement from my war hero Uncle James with giving me permission to fight white supremacy which I have attempted to do in my life -- like my father's family had fought Hitler. Free of Hitler, I was now free to fight my own battles.  Salute."

"ALL HALLOWS DAY"

 “ALL HALLOWS DAY”

For over 1200 years the Western Christian church has celebrated November 1 as All Hallows Day (“hallow” as in “Hallowed be Thy Name”), or All Saints Day.  It is a time to remember and to give thanks for those saints who have gone before us – as one writer put it, All Saints Day enables us to keep alive those who have passed on, as long as we are alive.  In some traditions, the night before All Hallows Day was a time when the mean and dangerous spirits were released. It became All Hallows Eve, or Halloween as we now know it.  In the Irish tradition, these mean spirits emerged from the ground to seek to do harm to those who had been their enemies in life.  In order to avoid these spirits on All Hallows Eve, people would disguise themselves with costumes and other ways – leading to our present day costumes of Halloween.  There are many other origin stories of Halloween, and one of the different ones is the Mexican tradition of “Dia los de Muertos” or “Day of the Dead,” which is more of a joyful celebration than the European conflicted one.

Today, however, I’m observing the All Saints Tradition and remembering the saints who have gone before me.  I am blessed that there are many in my life, but I’m remembering 5 today:  Mary Elizabeth Armour Stroupe, Bernice Green, Harold Jackson, Harmon Wray, and Azzie Preston.  They are not in order of importance, but rather in the chronological order when they came into my life.

Although I indicated that these 5 saints are not in order of importance, the first one, Mary Armour Stroupe, is by far the most important.  I am working on a memoir of her life and my life together tentatively entitled “Mother and Me: A Story of Power, Race and Gender.”  There will be much more about her in that book, but for now I will just say that she saved my life and gave me love and hope.  It took me a lot longer than it should have to recognize that all the while I was pining away for  my absent and fleeing father, she stayed with me and loved me and gave me a vision of what life could be. 

There were two primary “Bernice” people in my life.  One was my great-great aunt (my great-grandmother’s sister) with whom Mother and I lived after we moved to Helena.  I called her “Gran”, and I’ve written about her elsewhere, including the upcoming memoir.  The other was my great aunt Bernice, named after “Gran,” and while she was technically my mother’s aunt, she and Mother were more like sisters.  I called her “BB,” and I fondly remember her as a strong advocate for me in our conservative family structure.  Even as I moved to the left a bit, changing my mind on race, and growing my hair long, she remained a strong source of support.  She never agreed with me on these issues, but she always warned her husband and many other family members: “Don’t mess with that boy – besides my own sons, he is my favorite.”  

Reverend Harold Jackson was my minister in my adolescent years, and he offered a model to me of a male minister who did not have to give up his masculinity in order to be a minister.  The church was important to me in my youth, and many of the church members told me that I should go into the ministry.  I resisted that notion, with one of the main reasons being that my experience of ministers (all male at that time) was that they had to give up passion, politics, and personality – in other words, they were basically non-persons.  Harold changed that – he brought passion and politics and personality to the church and the pulpit.  Although it would be awhile before I decided that I might try the ministry, Harold gave me a vision of what that might look like.

I met Harmon Wray in college – he was a philosophy major like me, and he was an only child like me.  He was a passionate and fierce, and yet he was exceedingly gentle.  He and I were on the Honor Council at Southwestern (he was the president), and one of our records was that during our tenure on the HC, no one was convicted on an honor code offense – several put on probation but no real convictions or expulsions.  We also refused to prosecute cases of women not signing out to their actual destinations but who instead lied that they were going to their aunts overnight.  Males were not required to do this, so we refused to enforce it, thus helping to end “in loco parentis.”  I still mourn Harmon’s untimely death in 2007.

I’ve written about Azzie Preston in previous blogs – she was an African-American elder at Oakhurst when we arrived there.  She was one of the African-Americans who was not hesitant to engage me as her white pastor, and I remember well a call from her after one of our African-American members died.  Azzie wasted no time in calling me to say:  “I bet that you have never done a Black funeral before – is that right?”  When I hesitatingly said, “No, I haven’t, but…..” She jumped in and said:  “Well, I’ll need to come by and teach you a few things.”  And she did.  Later that same year she agreed to be an agent of change at Oakhurst by helping to shift the nominating committee to ensure that we would get strong Black members on the Session, the governing board of the church.  She was also strongly involved in justice issues at her place of employment, so much so that she received death threats at work.  My heart also leaned towards her because her husband was killed by a cousin in 1985, and she raised her children as a single mom.  Like Harmon, she also died way before her time – in 2010.

    On this All Saints Day, I am grateful to all these saints (and many others) who nurtured me and challenged me and gave me a vision of life and love.  As you go through your day on this All Saints Day, name some of the saints in your life too.  Lift up a prayer and give thanks for them!  And, may we live our lives so that someday, someone may lift us up also!