"EVERYBODY'S HEARD OF DAVID STROUPE!"

 “EVERYBODY’S HEARD OF DAVID STROUPE!”

This Tuesday will be our son David’s 43rd birthday – yes, can that be possible?  He was born (4 days late) in a snowstorm in Virginia, and he has said that he has been trying to get warm ever since then.  His current clime of teaching at Michigan State is not exactly the place to get warm.  We give thanks for his being in our lives and in the lives of many others.  

He got his doctorate in science education at the University of Washington in 2013 and then got his tenured position at Michigan State.  He was always interested in education, but his time of teaching in public schools in Houston in poorer neighborhoods cemented his desire to do deeper work in education.  While teaching science in these schools, he was dismayed and infuriated that there was no lab equipment in these middle schools for the students to use in order to learn science .  His mantra is that all children in this country deserve a decent public education, and he set himself out to reform public education in America.  

He has done much work in this regard, editing and writing several books, with his second one with Harvard University Press due out in May.  We give thanks for his leadership and fire on improving public education in the United States.  We operate only on the peripheries of this world, so I am grateful for a story from Dr. Greta Reed about David’s prowess and reputation.

Greta has her doctorate in philosophy and taught in the University of Tulsa before hearing a new call from God to consider pastoral ministry.  She came to Columbia Seminary to get her ministerial education, and while she was at CTS, she worshipped at Oakhurst and got involved in the life of the church.  She got to know David there when he was in his teen years.  She later got ordained as a pastor on the staff of Second Presbyterian in Ft. Lauderdale, and Caroline and I preached on the “bent-over woman” on Luke 13 for her ordination.  She has now retired and lives in Tallahassee.

A few years ago we got a call from Greta, saying that she had heard a good story about David, which she wanted to share with us.  The retirement home where she lives often has guest speakers and others who present programs.  At one of these programs, a graduate student in education at Florida State University came to make a presentation on the developments in education.  Greta indicated that the student made a fine presentation, and afterwards, Greta went up to her to thank her for her work and to ask her a question.

Greta told the student that she had enjoyed her program, and then asked her:  “ I realize that this is a big world, but sometimes it is a lot smaller than we think.  I’m wondering if you know one of the guys in education, whom I watched growing up in one the churches that I attended.  Would you happen to know David Stroupe?  Do you know who he is?”  The grad student answered right away: “Everybody knows who David Stroupe is!  I’ve read so many of his great articles and books.  Do you know him?  He’s up in the high stratosphere of education!”  Greta indicated that she had known him as a youth in the church. The student replied: “He is one of the leaders in changing teacher education and helping us all to strengthen public education.”

We so appreciate Greta calling us to share that story – yay for David and for all those who work to deepen and strengthen public education.  David has taught us so much over these 43 years, and we give thanks for his gifts to us.  As a boy, he was not a great sleeper, and in his infant years, we would lose sleep ourselves trying to get his mind and body to slow down in order for him to relax enough to get to sleep.  On those occasions when one of us would be rocking him to sleep, we often thought: “Well, at least if he goes to graduate school, this ability to live on little sleep will bring benefits to him – but, right now, David, go to sleep!”

We are grateful for David and all his gifts, especially in education, which is so vital to us all.  Michigan State is paying out all kinds of money for its errors - $500 million for its failure to stop Larry Nasser and that horrible abuse, almost $100 million for its football coach.  Because of that, MSU has crunched faculty in all departments.  David and Erin will be moving to Salt Lake City this summer to begin teaching there and developing new approaches in education at the University of Utah.  We give so many thanks for him and his leadership, and of course for his bringing Erin and daughters Emma and Zoe to us.

"1963"

 “1963”

Sixty years ago in the early fall of 1963, I started my senior year at Central High School in Helena, Arkansas.  Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington in late August had already opened the window into my soul a bit.  My growing awareness of a whole new world was beginning to open my imagination, and because of this, I felt pain at the white response to King’s speech.  That response happened on September 15, 1963, when four little Black girls (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley) were killed in their Sunday school room, when white men bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  For a powerful rendition of this horror, listen to Rhiannon Giddens cover of “Birmingham Sunday,” written by Richard Farińa, brother-in-law at the time of Joan Baez.

Caroline and I preached at Oakhurst Baptist Church this month on MLK Sunday, using King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” as the theme, intertwined with our Seven Steps for guiding those classified as “white” in engaging our addiction to race.  That Birmingham campaign had taken place in the spring of 1963, and in working on the sermon, we went back and reviewed some of the events of 1963. It was quite a year in American history and especially in civil rights history.  This year marks the 60th anniversary of those events.  I want to note some of them here, so that we all can remember them and re-commit ourselves to working for justice and equity in our time.

That year began with the inauguration of George Wallace as governor of Alabama.  Wallace had been a “moderate” on race in the South, but he pivoted to take up the mantle of overt racism with these words in his inaugural speechin Montgomery:  “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw a line in the dust and throw a gauntlet before the feet of tyranny… and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) would seek to answer Wallace’s tyranny with the Birmingham campaign in April and May of 1963, in which basic rights for Black people were sought.  There were marches and sit-ins and nonviolent protests.  Eight white liberal pastors addressed a letter to King and SCLC in the Birmingham News, asking them to stop the campaign, in order to give the white moderates a chance to produce those rights.  King’s reply to them in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” has become a classic in American history and indeed in world history of human rights movements.  I’ll look at it more closely later this year, but if you have not read it lately, especially if you are classified “white,” go read it as a letter of 2023 addressed to your congregation.  

In the spring of that year, the all-white Mississippi State men’s basketball team, which had won the Southeastern Conference basketball title, snuck out of Starkville, Mississippi, to fly to East Lansing, Michigan, to play Loyola of Chicago, a team with many Black players.  The legislature of Mississippi had passed resolutions forbidding the team to play any team with Black players. More on this later too.

On June 11 of that year, Governor Wallace again made the news, when he stood in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama, seeking to prevent James Hood and Vivian Malone from entering their state university as students who were classified as Black.  Wallace made a big splash nationally, but as often happened, he stepped aside and allowed federal marshals to accompany Mr. Hood and Ms. Malone to register and to attend classes at the University of Alabama.  Wallace’s point was made, however, and his national profile rose.  One day later in Jackson, Mississippi, a cowardly white man named Byron De La Beckwith, shot Medgar Evers in the back as Mr. Evers walked up his driveway at his home.  Beckwith was tried twice in the 1960’s for the murder of Medgar Evers, but he was not convicted.  He was finally convicted in 1994 and sentenced to prison.

MLK made his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28 before 250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, a speech that called to me in ways that I had not expected.  Again, the cowardly white folk responded by bombing a church in Birmingham, killing those four little girls, whose main offense was seeking to follow Jesus.

And, for me was the crowning event of 1963:  on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.  Although I was a Richard Nixon supporter in the presidential election of 1960, I was still shocked that an American president could be assassinated like that.  It was a life-changing moment for many of us who were teen-agers at that time.

So, wow, 1963 – what a year!  I’ll be revisiting some of these events as their 60th anniversary comes up this year.  There were clearly many other important events that year, and I invite you to think about the impact of this year on your life, if you were alive at that time. Let me know your thoughts and reflections. 

"MLK"

 “MLK”

Many years ago I had a discussion with my longtime friend Ed Loring about influences on our lives.  I asked him what historical figure had been most important in his development, and he replied “Dorothy Day.”  He asked me, and I replied “Martin Luther King, Jr.” I went on to note that my opinion of Dr. King had vacillated all over the graph of my life.  When I first came to consciousness of MLK in my early teens, I saw him as a communist who was a grave threat to American life, or perhaps a charlatan who was just trying to get money from unsuspecting supporters.

Yet, something about Dr. King was nagging at my soul.  As I have written previously, I decided to listen to Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington in August, 1963 (60 years ago!).  I listened to it by myself, because I did not want any of my friends to know that I might be interested in hearing him.  I wasn’t sure that I did, but I wanted to hear from him for myself.  I was stunned by all the people who attended that gathering, and I was impressed by his eloquence and his vision.  I wasn’t convinced yet, but Dr. King opened a window in my consciousness that day.  He seemed to be promoting the American dream by seeking to expand it to include those who had been excluded.  Far from demeaning the ideas of America, he upheld them, and he even suggested that the vision of America was far stronger than many of us thought that it was.

As I began to gain a bit of liberation from my captivity to white supremacy, I watched Dr. King more closely, and I was impressed with his vision and willingness to take action and to go to jail for his beliefs.  I began to shift dramatically in my approach and began to work in justice movements in college.  King’s emphasis on nonviolence began to ring hollow to me and my friends, who saw white supremacy as so entrenched and so violent that only the threat of violence could change it.  I worked in the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in 1968 in my senior year in college, and by that time, I had gone to the other extreme with Dr. King’s views.  Where once I had considered him to be a communist subversive, now I considered him to be irrelevant.  I wrote a column online for The Atlantic on this journey, and if you want to know more about it, here’s the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/doubting-mlk-during-a-strike-in-memphis/550118/

As we celebrate his remarkable legacy once more this weekend, it is hard to recall anyone who made such a difference in American life.  As the great organizer Bob Moses put it, Dr. King was part of an ocean of people who made such a difference in the civil rights movement.  Dr. King was a huge wave on that ocean, mainly because he had such a strong vision of the American idea of equality and because he had the courage and willingness to work so that idea would apply to everyone.  

Despite all the resistance that those of us classified as “white” gave to him, Dr. King never gave up on the idea that we are all siblings, that human life is a circle of humanity rather than a hierarchy of races.  He demanded that all of us expand and deepen our imaginations so that we could build this idea of equality, this idea that all of us are created as children of God.  We tend to sanitize him now, but in his day, he was seen as one of the most dangerous people in the country, because his vision was so clear, and his courage was so deep.  

In what I take to be his greatest published sermon, he gave his own obituary in his powerful “The Drum Major Instinct,” preached at his beloved Ebenezer Church on February 4, 1968, two months before he was assassinated.  Here’s part of what he said:

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. 

 I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.  I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.  And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.  I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.  

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.  Say that I was a drum major for peace.  I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.  I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”

"CHRISTMAS ORATORIO"

“CHRISTMAS ORATORIO” 

I know that Christmas is definitely over, but ever since I read this poem by W.H. Auden in college, it has stuck with me.  It is from his “For The Time Being,” and it provides a good transition into the new year. 

“Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,

Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --

Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,

And the children got ready for school. There are enough

Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --

Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,

Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --

To love all of our relatives, and in general

Grossly overestimated our powers.

 Once again

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

To do more than entertain it as an agreeable

Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,

The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,

And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware

Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought

Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now

Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the moderate Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry

And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen

The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.

For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly

Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be

Grew up when it opened. 

Now, recollecting that moment

We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives

Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,

We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit

Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose

Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,

We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;

"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."

They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form

That we do not expect, and certainly with a force

More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime

There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,

Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem

From insignificance. The happy morning is over,

The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:

When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing

Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure

A silence that is neither for nor against her faith

That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,

God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.”

"REVELATON"

“REVELATION”

This week marks the official end of Christmastide, with the celebration of the arrival of the Magi to visit the baby Jesus.  The traditional time for this arrival is the Day of Epiphany, or January 6 in the Western church.  After this time the church switches from Christmastide to Epiphany, until the season of Lent arrives on Ash Wednesday (this year, that is February 23).

        Epiphany signifies a revelation, an opening in the individual imagination and in the imagination of the world.  The church tradition remembers this as the coming of strangers, of Gentiles coming to worship the baby Jesus and to proclaim that they have seen God’s revelation in this baby.  It is striking in Matthew’s account of this story in chapter 2 that the first people outside the family to see the baby are Gentiles, seers from another culture.  It is also striking that Matthew contrasts this worshipful attitude of the Gentiles with the murderous impulse of the rulers of the area, most especially King Herod.

Matthew’s story tells us that the Magi show up in Jerusalem, inquiring about the new ruler of Judea.  Herod, the ruler at that time, is filled with anxiety at this news, and he develops a plan to find this baby and kill him.  The Magi, however, counter his plan and do their work without revealing to Herod where the baby is in Bethlehem.  Herod reacts to this with horrific violence, ordering all the boys of Bethlehem ages 2 and under to be murdered.  It is a chilling and horrible penultimate chapter in the Christmas story.  Joseph,  the adopted father of Jesus, takes his family and flees as refugees to Egypt – we are glad that they were a welcoming country and did not have a wall built.

Though it is galling, I have always appreciated that the Christmas story does not shrink from the violence and domination in human life.  One of Matthew’s  last comments on the birth of Jesus is the slaughter of the babies, telling us that the birth of Jesus is not a sentimental flight from the bloodiness and complexity of the world.  This story is not an escape from the world but rather an invitation to go deeper into the world.  Since the themes of the Christmas story are love and justice, they will definitely challenge the powers of the world-as-it-is.  Perhaps more than others, Herod perceives that the coming of God into the world is a dangerous occurrence for the powers that be.  Or, maybe Herod is just the first powerful person to react to Jesus’ coming among us.  Another Herod will get Jesus several decades later.  The revelation of God among us evokes awe but also provokes violence and domination.

As we begin to put the Christmas story back in the attics of our hearts, let us remember the vision of love and justice at the center of the story.  If we want to keep Christmas with us all through the year, living out of love and seeking justice is the way to do it.  Let one of our new year resolutions be this movement towards the center of the story, moving towards love and justice.