"ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED"

 “ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED”

My friend and colleague the Reverend Rachel Anderson posted these damning words on Saturday about the release of the Epstein files:  “The fact that people need a dead man’s files to believe a thousand living women tells us everything about whose voices they value and whose they don’t.”  It is a reminder of the fight that is always with us about who is valued and who is not.  I am grateful to Rachel and to many others who are fighting for all voices to be heard and valued.

It is also a reminder of the scandal of the Christmas story – one woman had a vision from God and decided to seek to live it out.  She risked her life in saying “Yes.” She was fortunate that she was not the only visionary in the family – her fiancé Joseph had visions from God also, and he decided to live out that vision also.  His decision gave Mary protective cover in a patriarchal society, where her getting pregnant by someone other than her fiancé was a crime punishable by death.  He understood that while the society did not value women, God did value women as well as men.

    I also listen to Christmas music in this season which I love to do – there are many old favorites, and I especially like newer ones like “Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne and “Nothing But a Child” by Steve Earle.  Earle’s song especially reminds us of the fragility of the story of the birth of Jesus – born to a woman who got pregnant before marriage, born on the streets, hunted by the government soldiers, a Palestinian refugee crossing borders in order to escape execution.  The “glory of a King born to rule the earth” is stunningly absent from the details of the birth story of Jesus.  

“Nothing But a Child” puts it this way:

“Once upon a time

In a far off land

Wise {men} saw a sign

And set out cross the sand

Songs of praise to sing

They travelled day and night

Precious gifts to bring

They were guided by the light

They chased a brand new star

Ever towards the West

Across the mountains far

But when it came to rest

They scarce believed their eyes

They’d come so many miles

The miracle they prized

Was nothing but a child

Nothing but a child

Could wash those tears away

Or guide a weary world

Into the light of day

Nothing but a child

Could help erase those miles

So once again we all can be children 

     For a while”

So, as we approach the new year with trembling, let us remember the fragility of this story and how radical it is.  It challenges our point of view of ourselves and the world itself.  And it asks us to remember how fragile life is, how precious life is, and how, like Mary and Joseph, we are asked to be bold and courageous and visionary in a time that looks dark and dreary.  And, indeed that’s why the church chose the holiday of the Sun to attach this Christmas story.  We are asked to be like those magi who set off on a journey, looking for a vision that will fill us and sustain us, and which will make a stunning claim about the power and force at the center of the universe.  It is powered by visionaries who are high on love.  And, most of all, we will find that vision in very surprising places.

"THE VISIONS OF ADVENT - MARY"

 “THE VISIONS OF ADVENT – MARY”

        In Luke’s Gospel, Mary is a young woman engaged to be married in Nazareth, when she has a vision from God.  She sees the angel Gabriel, who comes to her with a message from God.  “Ave, Maria,” as the Latin puts it.  Gabriel tells her that God wants her to allow herself to be the vessel for the conception and birth of the Messiah, whom she will name “Jesus,” meaning “God saves.”  This request places Mary in a precarious position – pregnant before marriage by someone other than her betrothed, she will be shamed, shunned, and perhaps even stoned to death.  It is the first of several steps where God chooses to come among us, not as a glorious king or president, but rather as one conceived in scandal, born on the streets, hunted down to be killed by government soldiers, a refugee whose family seeks political asylum in Egypt.  ICE is on the way to Nazareth.

Mary says “yes,” that she will be a “handmaiden of the Lord,” as the King James Version of the Bible puts it.  Yes, that same “handmaiden” of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She is anxious and frightened, but she finds comfort in her cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant.  The community of women gives her courage and power, and she shares her song of vision and justice, called “Mary’s Magnificat” in Luke 1:46-55.  It is not a song of “sweet, little Jesus boy,” but rather a radical vision of what God intends in the birth of this baby: “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”  In the birth and life and ministry of this baby, God intends to affirm a much different vision of what life on earth should look like.

We are in the midst of a time when the values of the Christmas story are being contested in modern culture.  God is indicating in these stories that our call is to move away from the center of capitalist culture towards the margins where so many people live.  What will guide us in these days?  On what narratives will we base our lives?  The Christmas stories point us in the direction of sharing, caring, and community rather than greed, hoarding, and individualism.  As we take some time in this season to consider who we are and whose we are, what visions will we be seeking?  These Christmas stories don’t speak of the sweet baby Jesus.  They speak of visions of God’s movement and of God’s demands on us to make tough decisions to re-orient our lives.  We all enjoy the warmth and lovely feelings surrounding the Christmas season, but we must also remember that at the center of the stories of the birth of Jesus are tough demands for tough decisions.  Joseph is asked to give up his masculine dignity and pride and take Mary her baby as his own, even though he is not the biological father – and likely is unsure who the biological father really is.  Mary is asked to totally disrupt her life – indeed, even risk her life – in order to allow the Christ to be conceived in her and to raise him.  As Simeon puts it later in the second chapter of Luke, because of her “yes” to God, Mary will know deep pain.  “A sword will pierce her heart” – that is the metaphor that Simeon uses to describe Mary’s situation after her decision.

I am not intending to be a downer here at the great season of Christmas.  Yet, I want to emphasize that at the heart of this powerful season are stories that are scandalous, demanding, scary, and life-changing.  We may not choose to have the kinds of visions that are at the heart of these Christmas stories, but God is offering them to us.  May we find ways to say “yes,” as did Mary and Joseph.

"THE VISIONS OF ADVENT - JOSEPH"

 “THE VISIONS OF ADVENT – JOSEPH”

There are two versions of the Christmas story in the New Testament.  As we saw last week, the first one is in Matthew and centers on Joseph.  The second one is in Luke and centers on Mary.  Partnering with the Holy Spirit, Mary is the driving force in the Advent stories, and I’ll look at her story next week.  This week I want to focus on Joseph, since his story follows right on the heels of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, which we reflected upon last week.

We hear from Matthew that the “birth of Jesus the Christ took place in this way.”  Then Matthew proceeds to tell us the birth story from Joseph’s point of view.  Joseph is engaged to be married to Mary, but she brings him disturbing news of a very difficult sort:  she is pregnant by someone other than him.  It was not unknown for couples who were engaged to have sex, but Matthew’s version does not address this issue.  We can only imagine Joseph’s anger and cynicism when Mary tells him that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit: “Wow, Mary, I’ve heard some twisted tales about people getting pregnant, but this one is about the worst – and, it really hurts.  How could you do this to me, to us?”

The Jewish law at this point allows for several punishments for Mary’s apparent transgressions.  Joseph can require her to be publicly humiliated in front of the elders of Nazareth, or he could ask that she be stoned to death by the elders and other males in the village.  Joseph’s heart is full of pain and anger, but he will not allow his male dominant position to express itself in a degrading way towards Mary.   Matthew tells us that Joseph is a righteous man, so he decides to divorce Mary quietly, dismissing her and sending her back to her family – let them deal with this mess.  At least he has not publicly shamed her or given her the death penalty.

But, Matthew also tells us that Joseph is a man of visions, and after he has decided how he will end the engagement to Mary, he has a vision from God telling him not to be “afraid” (the Greek word here is the root of “phobia,” meaning a deep anxiety.)  The messenger from God tells Joseph to take Mary as his wife and to take the unborn baby as his son.  The messenger also tells Joseph to name his son “Jesus,” whose root meaning is “God saves.”  Matthew does not reveal to us the wrestling that is in the heart of Joseph, but the righteousness of Joseph wins out.  He accepts the vision from God and marries Mary and fathers Jesus.  In this way, Joseph is protecting Mary and Jesus – single women with children in this time are in a very vulnerable position, as well as their children.  Joseph provides them cover in a male-dominated world – he gives them shelter, no matter the hurt in his heart or the ridicule that he will face from his male buddies.  “Oh, yeah, the Holy Spirit, huh, a likely story!”

Joseph is a man of visions.  He looks for God and finds a vision which tells him what to do in this difficult and humiliating situation.  He acts on that vision, and he gives Mary the shelter that she needs.  His visions do not stop there, however.  In the second chapter of Matthew after the birth of his son Jesus, Joseph receives another vision from God, which tells him to take the Holy Family away from Bethlehem into the land of Egypt, because ICE authorities from King Herod are coming for them, with murder in their hearts.  Joseph obeys this vision also, and they flee in the middle of the night, heading for the land where Moses was born.  The second chapter of Matthew closes with yet another vision for Joseph – he is told to take the family back to Israel, for those commanding ICE have passed on.

I’ve always wondered about these visions of Joseph – are they really true?  Or are they just stories created by the early church in response to the tremendous curiosity about the birth of Jesus.  To borrow a phrase from Marcus Borg, “these stories may not have happened in just this way, but they are true.”  I also remember that for all of her life the great freedom finder Harriet Tubman swore that she received the times and places for her freedom runs in visions from God.  So, that raises the question for us:  what visions is God sending to us in our time?  Visions for us personally like Joseph?  And visions for us communally, as with Harriet Tubman?  In this Advent season, may the Spirit give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

"ADVENT IS UPON US"

"ADVENT IS UPON US"         

        We have begun the Advent Season, with all its promise and peril and demanding qualities, and danger of being sentimentalized.  When we were preaching dialogue sermons, Caroline and I rarely ever used the lectionary passages for Advent, because the Biblical passages were so disconnected from the season itself.  We preferred to concentrate on the Biblical stories about Advent and Christmas, and there were two biblical books that used these stories - Matthew and Luke (though John has a spiritualized version.)  Not using the Biblical Christmas stories in Advent allows the culture to take them over, which we obviously have allowed.

         The first Christmas story in the Bible comes in Matthew's gospel, in which the author begins the New Testament with a genealogy of Jesus - dull reading until you notice that Matthew infuses the usual "male begetting" genealogy with 5 women - and what five women they are!  If you haven't encountered their stories, take time to do so in this Advent season:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah (also known as Bathsheba), and Mary.  Here's a brief synopsis of them.

        In the 38th chapter of Genesis - in the middle of the Joseph saga - comes the story of Judah (head of one of the 12 tribes of Israel) breaking a promise to his daughter-in-law Tamar.  Tamar has been widowed twice by Judah's sons, and he promises to let her marry a third son when he comes of age. But, wanting to keep his third son alive, Judah does not allow the son to marry Tamar.  At this time in the Bible, a woman's main value is in having children, especially sons, so Tamar takes matters into her own hands.  She disguises herself and dresses as a sex worker.  Judah takes a fancy to her and has sex with her.  She becomes pregnant, and when Judah hears about it, he wants to have her killed for being pregnant outside of marriage. Tamar shows Judah the signet ring that he exchanged for the sexual work, and Judah sees his error in not providing for her.  He gives her sanction and shelter, and she gives birth to twins named Perez and Zerah.

        Rahab's story is mentioned in Joshua, chapters 2 and 6.  After the death of Moses, Joshua leads the people into Canaan to begin the intermingling and finding a new home.  Like the Europeans who came to America, he feels that he must conquer and subdue the people who are already living in Canaan.  He sends spies into Jericho and tells them to check things out.  They stay at the home of Rahab - it has a reputation for welcoming strange men.  When the people of Jericho hear about the spies, they come to kill them, but Rahab hides and saves them.  When Joshua "fit the battle of Jericho," his fighters spare the home of Rahab, and then she joins them as they travel into Canaan.  She eventually marries Salmon, and her son Boaz will figure prominently in the story of Ruth.  Ruth is an immigrant to Israel (good thing that Trump's ICE police were not around when she entered the land).  After the death of her husband, Ruth pledges herself to her mother-in-law Naomi, and their powerful story is found in the book of Ruth.  Suffice it to say that Ruth will become the great-grandmother of King David - a foreign woman in whose line Jesus is born.

        The fourth woman mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus is not named.  She is called "the wife of Uriah," and you can find her story in Second Samuel chapters 11 and 12.  We know her as "Bathsheba," but Matthew wants us to know that King David stole her from her husband Uriah, raped her, then got her pregnant.  When these events take place, Uriah is off fighting for Israel, and David tries to cover his crimes by giving Uriah time off from war, in order to come home and have sex with his wife Bathsheba.  However, Uriah has taken a vow of celibacy during the war, so he does not have sex with Bathsheba.  Finally, David then commits an even worst crime - he arranges to have Uriah killed in battle so that he may "officially" have Bathsheba to be his wife.  The prophet Nathan comes to David to confront him on these events.

        The fifth woman mentioned in Matthew's genealogy is Mary, who will become the mother of Jesus.  We will look at her story later, but for now, we can note that as teenager pregnant before marriage, by someone other then her fiance, she joins with the litany of women in Matthew's genealogy who live their lives on the margins.  In mentioning women - and especially these five women - Matthew reminds us that the lineage of Jesus pushes him (and should push us) to the margins of life.  Most of us want to move towards the center of life, but this genealogy asks us to hear that God wants us to move towards the margins of life.  On what kind of journey will we embark in this Advent and Christmas season?

        

        

"A SONG OF MYSELF"

 “A SONG OF MYSELF”

My 79th birthday (November 27) falls on Thanksgiving Day this year – I was born on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1946 in Methodist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and though I grew up in Arkansas, the city of Memphis was always the urban area to which I related.  So, I’m celebrating myself and my life this week, and I love using the line from Walt Whitman’s poem as the title of the blog.

If you’ve read my semi-memoir “She Made a Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World,” you’ll know my story.  If you haven’t read it, get it somewhere and read it and let me know what you think.  Many people have found it profound and provocative, and have found it to be an invitation for them to enter into reflections about their own journeys.  Short summary – I was raised by a single mom in a white, male supremacist world, and while I drank in the kool-aid of racism and sexism and homophobia and militarism, my mother and others helped to shape me in a different way.  Thanks to my mother and to many others, I’ve had several conversions which have enabled me to move towards a sense of liberation from many of those captivities which I breathed in as a child (to use the Apostle Paul’s powerful image from Ephesians 2).  That captivity is so deep, however, that I am afraid that I always stand in the need of more conversions.  I give thanks for my life and for all those who have loved me, challenged me, comforted me, delighted me, and stayed with me – THANK YOU!

I want to close with a Mary Oliver poem, but before I do, in this Thanksgiving week, I must simply add a feeling of disgust and revulsion at the Trumpster’s and the Republicans’ use of SNAP and food benefits as a negotiating tool in the struggle over the government shutdown.  Though I thought he could no longer shock me, I still must register a fundamental outrage that he would allow people to go hungry in order to win political points.  These first ten months of his reign of terror make me tremble for the remaining 3 years – or at least the one year before the Democrats regain control of Congress.

And now on the poem “Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.  The poem is a familiar one to many of us, but it also reminds me of the great gift of life and the call from God to be grateful and to share that gratitude with others.

“SUMMER DAY”

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean —

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

 Mary Oliver

"A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING"

 "A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING"

For my blog this week, I am using a prayer by my colleague, the Reverend Irv Porter, pastor of the Church of The Indian Fellowship in Tacoma, Washington.  He is also PCUSA Associate for Native American Intercultural Congregational Support, and he is a descendant of the Nez Perce, Pima and T'hona O'odham tribes. He and I served together on the Presbyterian Intercultural Network Board.  May we all feel and find this sacred connection to God’s creation, including our own selves and others.

A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Creator God,

From the rising of the sun in the east to its setting in the west, you have blessed us with life, family, food from creation and spiritual ways drawing us closer to you.

You gave us this land, Turtle Island, to care for, to live in and to preserve for coming generations. Stop our ears when talk of destroying the land for temporary gain is heard. Teach us to respect the land and all her gifts of life. We are all related so what happens to any part of Creation affects us all. We are reminded that the land holds our ancestors, making it sacred.

As we work to end intolerance of people and cultures and our tolerance of historic injustice, open our hearts to reflect your image, your peace and your love to all. Open our spirits to peace and healing with those from all nations.

The wind, the sunrise, the sound of water moving forward, the songs of the bird, the beauty of the butterfly — all these things are where we find you, always. Help us to find you in this beauty and grant us lives centered upon you, Creator of the universe.

For all these blessings and more, our hearts are full of thanks. At this gathering of family and friends, this great feast of blessing, we thank you. Guide us to know your ways with respect. Hear our prayer of Thanksgiving. Let it be so.

Amen.

"WHENCE THE CHURCH?"

 “WHENCE THE CHURCH?”

In his fine 1971 song “City of New Orleans,” Steve Goodman wrote about the demise of the passenger railroad trains throughout the country.  In that song were these lines about the death of the passenger railroad trains:

“And the steel wheels still ain't heard the news

The conductor sings his songs again, the passengers will please refrain

This train's got the disappearin' railroad blues”

“The old steel rails still ain’t heard the news” is a line that reminds me of the situation of the mainline white church in America these days.  As an institution, the church is in hospice care, but some of us are in denial or are simply unaware that the era of the white church in America is ending, with God waiting to birth a new form in the decades ahead.  

In the midst of the rebirth of the church, in which directions can we look?  First, in one of the great ironies of life, just as the church is dying, we as a culture are in great need of a vital church which can speak to the powers about justice and can act in loving and welcoming ways, building community with all whom God sends.   Whatever forms the new church of God takes, it must be grounded in this guideline from the prophet Micah:  love kindness, do justice, walk humbly.  In a time of food insecurity, when the federal government and some state governors act like those passersby in Jesus’ parable of “The Good Samaritan,” the church would do well to be a source of food for the belly and food for the soul for those of us in need.

Second, we need new imaginations about what our worship services will look like.  Covid dragged us kicking and screaming into a virtual technological age, and though I am so glad that I had retired when this occurred, it forced church leadership to think and sometimes act imaginatively about worship.  It will not be possible for the church to go back to a non-hybrid age, when the incarnation of the church meant everyone physically together in one sanctuary.  In our Oakhurst days, we instituted a time of sharing joys and concerns, when people got up in worship to ask for prayers for themselves, for loved ones, for the world.  It was a powerful time of vulnerability, and in an age when we are taught to seek to be individualistic and self-sufficient and independent, it was a profound way of building community.  Though the church membership grew so much that we no longer took the time to have people stand up and share, we still retained the approach by having worshippers write down their concerns and joys and have the worship leader share them.  Those kinds of risky approaches are needed in mainline white church worship in these days.   In a time when the community is falling apart, we must find ways to rebuild authentic communities based on the values of love, justice, equity and compassion.

    In regard to church buildings, there are many options.  Some churches have already started transforming their space into something more useful to the community.  Our friend Richelle Patton has started a company that works with churches to adapt church building space to become affordable housing.  In most of these situations, Richelle’s company,  Collaborative Housing Solutions, works with congregations to convert their property into affordable housing, all the while remodeling some of the space to meet the congregation’s need for worship and educational activities.  If you or your church leaders want more info on Richelle’s work, contact me, and I’ll put you together with her.   There are all kinds of possibilities for churches to share space with other congregations, day cares, elder cares, food banks, and other non-profits.

As I indicated earlier, churches must return to the Christian tradition’s emphasis on weaving spirituality and justice together into one tapestry. In the USA, we split them apart in order for our “Christian” members to be able to hold people as slaves and to exploit others in neo-slavery.  And, notice that I did not say “spirituality and politics.”  While there is an authentic intersection between spirituality and politics, that can quickly go awry, as we see in today’s Christian Wrong movement.  Most of them would not recognize justice if it walked up and kissed them.  No, this necessity for the future of the church is much deeper and wider.  It asks those who claim as Jesus Christ as Lord to begin to witness and to work for justice in the society.  This work is the only way to meet the risen Jesus – otherwise, we are meeting a puppet of Jesus that we have made in our own image.

Where does the church go from here?  These are some of the guidelines for us to follow: building authentic community where everyone is welcomed;  imaginations to see new ways of worship and life together;  sharing our building capacity with those in need in our community;  re-weaving spirituality and justice together so that the tapestry of the church has both threads running through it. In this way, when outsiders look at the church community, they see not a mean, judgmental community but rather a community centered on the God we know in Jesus, a community whose main characteristics are love, compassion, justice, and equality.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH?"

 “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH?”

If you are of a certain age (like me), you can remember when white American churches were booming and growing.  Over the five decades since I became an adult, the church began to fade fast.  Indeed, my home church – First Presbyterian Church in Helena, Arkansas, is now closed, as is First Baptist, right across Porter Street.  Caroline’s home church in Chattanooga is closed.  Part of the reason they closed is that they had big, old buildings which the dwindling membership could not maintain.  But, this story is being repeated all around the country.  In this series, I’ll be concentrating on white churches, but much of the same can be said of Black churches – two large differences between Black and white here is that Black churches are often led by “tent-making” pastors, meaning that the pastors have full or part-time jobs in addition to pastoring.  The second difference is that only the wealthiest Black churches had large buildings, so the cost to maintain a much smaller building is easier to navigate.

And, speaking of race, that is one of the central reasons that white churches are failing and falling – those of us classified as “white” did not allow Black people to worship or become members in the congregation.  In small Southern towns like mine, that meant that at least half the population was automatically excluded from potential membership.  As MLK put it, the 11 AM worship hour is the most segregated time in the United States.  And, though some churches are notable exceptions to this, even now the vast majority of all churches are segregated.  

    This exclusivity not only applies to race – it also applies to sexual orientation.  All churches have had and continue to have LGBTQ+ members, but very few churches have allowed such members to be themselves in church.  Caroline and I have been part of church bodies ordaining LGBTQ+ people since 1978, but the Presbyterian denomination did not approve such ordination until 2011.  When they were in high school, my kids asked me why the churches were against ordaining LGBTQ+ people.  Since we ordained them at Oakhurst, I did not have an adequate answer, but David and Susan assured me that many of their young colleagues were departing the church because of this mean and oppressive policy.  The meanness and judgmental approach of the church has been – and continues to be – a huge turnoff for young adults.  Even though the Presbyterian denomination (and many others) have changed our minds on this issue, the horse is already out of the barn.  Young people know that we don’t mean it – on race, on sexual orientation, on money, on social class.

    Running all through this is the triumph of individualism in American culture.  We all believe in one form or another that the individual is the fundamental reality of human life – the idea that what is most important is the individual.  The necessity and value of community is seen as an antiquated approach to life.  Nowhere was this seen more clearly than in the Covid time, when most churches closed for extended periods of time.  Zoom/You Tube came to our rescue to stream services online, but that very service reminded us that we could get by pretty well without being in the physical presence of others, that we could do OK without the incarnated existence of the church community.  All churches were affected by this power, seen so clearly in the Covid time.  The need for community was lessened by this time in Covid, and we are still recovering from that loss, but we may never recover.

    The longtime split between spirituality and justice in the white American churches is also at the root of the demise of the church.  This split came because of the power of slavery and neo-slavery in American history.  In order to hold people as slaves, the enslavers had to lop off “justice” from the Christian faith, and though neo-slavery ended in 1965, the power of this split remains strong.  Neo-slavery is making its comeback now, and it is no surprise that Christian nationalism is one of the driving forces behind such a comeback.  Those of us classified as “white” have a long history of such a split.  The Religious Wrong (not “Right,” as they are often called) has combined spirituality and politics and is using it a powerful tool, but they have not united spirituality and justice.  (For more on this, see “The Spirituality of the Church” by Ernest Trice Thompson, or more recent books  “The False White Gospel” by Jim Wallis, “The End of Theological Education” by Ted Smith, and of course, the book that Dr. Catherine Meeks and I wrote called “Passionate for Justice.”). The moral bankruptcy of Christian nationalists shows how low we in the church world have sunk.

    This split between spirituality and justice means that most mainline churches have little community or engagement with those who are poor.  For us Presbyterians, we believe in a rigid order of worship which emphasizes our educational level and our desire not to display any vulnerability.  In that sense, we are almost saying that we are giving God a break by coming to worship Her together in a building whose history and existence have proclaimed to those who are poor that they are not welcome.  We may have many commendable church programs which seek to serve those in need, but we have rarely seen those in need as prospects for our community of faith.  For Black worshippers and for those who are poor, worship of God is life-giving because when they step out of the church sanctuary, the forces of racism and sexism and materialism await them to seek to crush them.  Those of us in mainline churches have not often been aware of this chasm, much less sought to bridge that gap.

    With these forces at work among us, it is no surprise that the white mainline American churches are in trouble – indeed, though there are notable exceptions, most of our churches are in hospice, waiting for a dignified death.  There are possible answers and signs of hope for the mainline American church, and next week, I will look briefly at those.  In the meantime, I’ll be glad to get your comments on this – what other causes for the demise of the church would you cite?

"REFORMATION SUNDAY"

 “REFORMATION SUNDAY”

This Sunday, October 26, is Reformation Sunday, and it marks the 508th anniversary of Roman Catholic monk Martin Luther posting 95 theses for debate about the nature of the church – legend has it that he posted them on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.  His actions were part of a movement to reform the church, but his actions also helped to spark a revolution in Western thinking and led to what we now know as the “Reformation.” He posted his articles for debate on All Hallows Eve,  also called  Halloween, and it led to a tidal wave of new religious organizations known as “Protestants,” or those who protested the Catholic religious order of the time.  

The Reformation, as its name implies, was a restructuring of what people believed, how people worshipped together, and how church bodies were organized and governed.  It was a re-formation that lasted over 500 years, but now that system of religious order in the West is beginning to break down.  We are currently in a time of another reformation in Western religious structures and understandings, and it will be a while before we understand how this new reformation will shake out and re-structure.  In my humble approach, I want to look at some of the causes and maybe some of the new directions that the church in the West will take for the rest of this century.  Today, I’ll share background – next week the causes, then the next week, some possible new directions.  

The mainline white churches of the West are dying – though there is some discussion about it, there is little debate about it.  Since Caroline and I have been retired, we have worshipped in many churches, including the one with which we are now affiliated – North Decatur Presbyterian (NDPC).  While NDPC is alive and dynamic, most of the others where we have worshipped are not.  Most of them are struggling to survive.  Saddled with huge and deteriorating buildings and shrinking memberships and funding, these communities of faith are holding on by their fingernails, most with old, dedicated members whose loyalty keeps the institution going.  Some have endowments that helps with budgetary issues, but there are deeper issues, like a lack of younger people and families, an unwelcoming atmosphere, and a lack of a community vision.

As I begin this discussion, I want to say that the church will never be dead.  God will call forth the communities of faith whom She wishes, and people will always be responding to that call.  So, while the current form of church in the Western world may be on life support, the church of God in Jesus will not be confined to this slow death.  Though we are not experts on this history of the church, we do have experience with it through our long ministry at Oakhurst.  Oakhurst was a dying church with a huge and deteriorating building, shrinking membership, and dwindling budget.  I will use this experience as a springboard for these thoughts.  

Right off, my mind goes to a story from former Oakhurst member Nancy Friauf, who wrote about her decision to bring herself and her young bi-racial girls to Oakhurst.  I want to share part of that story that she wrote for a Stewardship season reflection in 1998: “Since my daughter was young, I have been searching for a church home in Atlanta.  Every few weeks I would visit another congregation that I thought might fit.  Many were nice, but not what I was looking for.  I wanted a church that was racially mixed, where my family’s racial diversity would not be tolerated or ignored, but embraced. I hoped to find a place that was not so liberal they were afraid to talk about God, but not so conservative that I would have to struggle to find God in their message.”

I am grateful to Nancy for sharing this (and for her joining Oakhurst – she was a great leader there until she retired to Florida.).  Her insights point to a fundamental split in American church history – spirituality vs. justice.  Given the influence of slavery and neo-slavery in American culture, churches in America have often had to choose between the two. But, they can be combined into a wholistic pattern, and I shall look at that later.  Her insights also point to another fundamental problem for the Western church – we have been exclusive, judgmental, and mean.  Next week, I’ll look at these and other causes for the Western church’s demise – let me know your thoughts and comments on this.

"INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY"

 “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY”

Since we are currently in the overlap between the beginning phase of the Israeli ceasefire in attacking Gaza and between Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and since the Trumpster and the MAGA white supremacist movement have disavowed IPD and proclaimed it once again Columbus Day, I am reposting a blog from 2022, which touches on the same themes.

{The following are short excerpts from a much longer work of poetry and prose by Layli Long Soldier from her book “Whereas,” drawing on the official US government language of the Resolution and Apology.  She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Native Artist Fellowship, and a Whiting Award.  She lives in Santa Fe.  I was introduced to her work by one of her poems in worship at North Decatur Presbyterian Church.  As I write this, Israel and Hamas are at war, and I am thinking of the many parallels of the white treatment of Native Americans and the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people.}

“WHEREAS” BY LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

“On Saturday, December 19, 2009, US President Barack Obama signed the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans.  No tribal leaders or official representatives were invited to witness and revive the Apology on behalf of tribal nations.  President Obama never read the Apology aloud, publicly – although, for the record, Senator Sam Brownback five months later read the Apology to a gathering of five tribal leaders, though there are more than 560 federally recognized tribes in the US.  The Apology was then folded into a larger, unrelated piece of legislation called the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act.

My response is directed to the Apology’s delivery, as well as the language, crafting, and arrangement of the written document.  I am a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation – and in this dual citizenship, I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly, I must live. 

Whereas at four years old I read the first chapter of the Bible aloud I was not a Christian

Whereas my hair unbraided ran the length of my spine I sometimes sat on it

Whereas at the table my legs dangled I could not balance peas on my fork

Whereas I used my fingers carefully I pushed the bright green onto silver tines

Whereas you eat like a pig the lady said setting my plate on the floor

Whereas she instructed me to finish on my hands and knees she took another bite

Whereas I watched folds of pale curtains inhale and exhale a summer dance

Whereas in the breath of the afternoon room each tick of the clock

Whereas I rose and placed my eyes and tongue on a shelf above the table first

Whereas I kneeled to my plate I kneeled to the greatest questions

Whereas that moment I knew who I was whereas the moment before I swallowed”

"WE MUST HOLD"

 “WE MUST HOLD”

When our son David was in elementary school, he played on a local soccer team.  In his first year, most of the soccer games looked like a scrum in rugby – all the players surrounded the ball and sought to kick it free.  Somewhere in one of those years, his coach had to be away for one of the games, and since I came to every game anyway, the coach asked me to sub for him as coach for that one game.  I said “Yes,” but the problem was that I knew very little about soccer.  When I gathered the players to get ready for the game, it was obvious that they knew more than I did about soccer.  Caroline took a photo of my “coach’s” meeting with the team before the game began, and David can be seen rolling his eyes at my instructions.  And, his response was accurate – I hardly knew what I was talking about.

I felt that sense of lostness for our country this past week as I watched some of the news coverage of the Trumpster’s and Hegseth’s talks to the leadership of the world’s most powerful military, generals and admirals who had been dragged from all over the world to hear speeches from men who had never served in the military, speeches designed to tell them to do something unconstitutional – send the national military into mostly Democratic cities, ostensibly to deal with the “crime” problem.  Though they did not roll their eyes (as David did), their stony silence rang loudly – who are these guys?

And, that is the question for us as we face up to the fact that the Trumpster seems hell-bent on ending our democracy and establishing an oligarchy, an authoritarian government run by rich people.  Whether he will act decisively to reduce the government during the shutdown, as he has said so often that he will do, his intent to shrink the depth and breadth of the federal government sees clear.  In order to do this, he is eviscerating both the legislative and the judicial branches of government, a hollowing out that we must seek to prevent at all costs.  Our resistance must be deep and strong.  What can we do?  Here are several suggestions, and I would welcome more from you.

We must speak up and act out.  Wherever we encounter Trumpism, we must stand against it.  We must resist with our words and our actions.  Caroline and I have been to many protests around the metro Atlanta area, and we must continue those.  Write letters to the editors, organize your friends and acquaintances (and call them out if necessary).  There is no longer room for compromise or deals, hoping that Trump will stand down or dilute his work.  His henchmen Russell Vought and Stephen Miller are feeling the vibe, and they intend to take it as far as they can.  We must speak and act against these, wherever we are and whenever we are.

Second, none of us will survive this onslaught alone, so find like-minded friends and acquaintances and build communities of resistance.  There are many groups out there who are already working on this, so join one or more of those. We will survive only by building cohesive and active communities of solidarity and resistance.

Third, register yourself to vote and make sure that all of your acquaintances are registered to vote.  Though this seems simple, it is absolutely essential.  We mounted a huge campaign to elect Barack Obama as president in 2008, and we must repeat that energy level again – our constitutional democracy depends upon it.  This may sound dire or even trite, but Trump 2.0 has proved much more aggressive and destructive than he was in his first term.  He must be stopped, first at the mid-terms and then in 2028.

Fourth, don’t forget the power of art to move hearts, minds and souls.  Go to plays about this (or write one yourself); go to movies about this; write poetry about it (yes, we all are poets), share laments with others (as long as those laments do not paralyze you).  Use the power of language to speak the truth and to call out the Trumpsters.  It is no coincidence that Trump is seeking to curtail opposition speech and actions, because he knows how powerful speech can be as a tool of resistance.

And, finally (for now), be bold in your witness.  Now is not the time to be timid or unsure about this.  The Trumpster is on a mission to destroy us as a democratic people, whether he is alive to see the transition or not.  We will not be able to count on the unseen hand of democracy to prevail.  It is now up to us to speak out and act up.  Order your steps and get going!

"THE MESSY WEEK"

 “THE MESSY WEEK”

Trump seems to have been emboldened by the death of Charlie Kirk, so much so that at a dinner this past week, some friends and I were musing over whether Tyler Robinson had actually been the shooter, or whether something else was afoot.  I was one of the people who are skeptical that Robinson is the shooter.  When I first heard what had happened - that someone had killed Kirk with a single shot from several hundred yards at a very difficult angle – I felt then that the shooter was a trained sniper, perhaps a military person.  Some of the friends last week with hunting experience felt that Robinson could have made the shot, but that if he did, he was very lucky.  There was much speculation over what had actually happened, and I am usually not a conspiracy theorist, but on this one, there is definitely more than meets the eye.

Trump seems to have taken the killing of Kirk as an opportunity to quickly advance his and shadow-president Stephen Miller’s agenda.  Four events stand out from last week:  the canceling of the Kimmel Show, the rambling speech at the UN, the ridiculous claim that acetaminophen causes autism, and the indictment of James Comey.  All of these seem to be steps that seek to solidify Trump’s claim that he is our only Savior.  Though Brendan Carr was careful to say that he had not forced Disney to cancel Kimmel, it was clear that he was acting like a Mafia warden, as even Ted Cruz pointed out.  The Kimmel firing caused such a ruckus that ABC and Disney had to bring him back, to a huge ratings boost.  It was one of the few hopeful signs this week.

Trump’s rambling, spiteful, attacking monologue at the UN seems to be straight out of King George III’s diatribes – I half expected Lin Manuel-Miranda, Leslie Odoms, Jr., and Alicia Philippa to pop out from “Hamilton” to sing about the coming revolution.  Not only was Trump irreverent and disrespectful, he just seemed out of it, unaware of where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.  It is one thing to tell the United Nations that it is irrelevant – it is another thing to deeply disrespect the UN and seek to show them that the powerful monarch of the USA is in charge.  We don’t what the long-term ramifications of Trump’s insulting and condescending speech will be, but we can rest assured that they will be deep and long-lasting.

It was sad (and maddening) to watch the spectacle at the HHS news conference where Trump and mini-RFK made the alleged connection between acetaminophen and autism.  Trump emphasized “Tylenol” because he clearly could not pronounce “acetaminophen,” and I’m sure he has no idea what it is.  I felt like I was back in the 1800’s, as Trump emphasized over and over again that pregnant women should just bite the bullet, take the pain, endure the hardships (and dangers) of fever – as if he had ever been pregnant or had the willpower to “just take the pain.”  No evidence presented, just opinions from old white men telling women and everyone else that old white men know best.  The biggest problem, of course, is that this pronouncement comes with the back-up of what used to be one of the most respected public health agencies in the world.  Now, in Trump’s and mini-RFK’s hands, CDC is devolving into just another PAC for Trump, leaving the rest of us to wonder where we can get good public health advice.  

And, finally the indictment of James Comey.  Let me be clear that I am no fan of Comey’s.  Had he handled things correctly in 2016 in regard to Hilary Clinton’s emails, she would have won the 2016 presidential election, and Trump would have slumped back to his golden tower on Fifth Avenue.  I don’t think that you can be indicted for incompetence – if so, we would have many more indictments.  The issue is that this is the first stop on Trump’s “vengeance tour,” and that is the frightening part.  His next step is a shot at Fani Willis, who also demonstrated incompetence when she got involved with staffer Nathan Wade.  We don’t know who will be next, but they are coming.

All of this is to say that Trump is feeling his Geritol and whatever drugs they are giving him to stay awake, waiting for Stephen Miller’s next executive order to come down for him to sign.  Big events coming this week also, especially on Tuesday – the potential government shutdown and the military command gathering on the same day.  In some ways, it feels like Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” which begins with these lines:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,"

Yet, we must hold – more on that next week.

“MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA”

 “MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA”

             Last week began the month of celebrating the heritage of the diaspora of people from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean, who are now in the USA.  Some have been here for centuries, predating the Anglo arrival, some arrived as recently as today.  The month is sandwiched between famous battles for independence by LatinX or Hispanic peoples from European colonial powers, and the dates are September 15-October 15. 

             The recognition began under President Johnson and was originally called Hispanic Heritage Week.  It has expanded into a month, and in line with the arbitrary nature of the American system of race, it is ever evolving.  “Hispanic” was the earliest term because it is a word derived from the Latin word for the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal (Hispana).  

            The word “Hispanic” began to fall out of favor, however, because it does not cover all the language groups in the brown Americas.  “Latino” has begun to develop as an alternative, and it is a strange term because no one speaks Latin in the brown Americas except priests and some scholars.  Vice-Presidential candidate Dan Quayle infamously noted that he would have to learn “Latin” before he visited Latin America.  Why did a word referring to a “dead” language from Italy become the definer for people from the brown Americas?  Because Latin is the basis for what were called the “Romance” languages when I was growing up:  Spanish, Portuguese, and French, which became the dominant European languages in the brown Americas.  “Latin X” has begun to replace the masculine “Latino” as a word of choice to include all people. 

             Whether one prefers “Hispanic” or “Latino” or “Latina” or “Latinx,” all of them still define people from the brown Americas by the history of the European domination of the region in the colonial era.  This crunching of experience is further squeezed by the American system of race, which demands to know who should be classified as “white” and who should not.  This demand, born out of the struggle between slavery and equality in American history, means that everyone must be assigned their place in the system of race, obliterating cultural and language differences, so that those classified as “white” may know where to assign the goodies of American racial capitalism.  One of the great things about “MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA” is that we hope that it will lead to peoples of the Americas helping to break down the oppressive system of race.  We will be hoping and looking for more accurate and just terms and descriptions to emerge.

Currently, those hopes are being dashed on the Trumpian/MAGA plan to re-establish white supremacy as strongly as possible.  The mass deportations by the Trumpster are targeted mainly at people who are classified as “Hispanic.”  Indeed, SCOTUS recently approved racial profiling of Hispanic people by ICE agents, looking to deport more and more people classified as ”Hispanic.”  From SCOTUS’ point of view, racial profiling is out for college admissions but not for immigration issues.  Indeed, the main headline for Saturday’s AJC was a story indicating that Metropolitan Savannah Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had canceled the annual Hispanic Heritage Parade there because of a surge in anti-Hispanic rhetoric and racial profiling by law enforcement.  

The profiling of brown people is just the beginning of the Trumpian manifesto to firmly re-establish white males as superior to all others.  The mass deportations are a direct attack on people of color, but it is not the ending of the MAGA movement.  It is rather the thematic prelude to attacking and marginalizing all individuals and groups who stand for the American ideals of justice, equity, and liberty.  In these days, let us remember who we are and where we have been.  Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller put it best during the Nazi takeover of Germany in the 1940’s:  

First they came for the Communists 

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

So, let us remember this lesson in history in at least two ways this month.  Let us join our brown siblings in recognizing and celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.  And second, let us speak out against the racial profiling of people of Hispanic heritage.  It is time to both speak out and act up.  

'SEWAGE SPILLING OUT"

 “SEWAGE SPILLING OUT”

In my 30+ years as pastor at Oakhurst Presbyterian, I unfortunately encountered many episodes of sewage spilling up from stopped up pipes at the church.  It was bad enough when one toilet would get stopped up, but we often had whole pipelines stopped up.  On those occasions, the sewage would overflow from a cleanout pipe in the floor somewhere – near the clothes closet, in the nursery, and in the day care center.  Caroline and I and many other people would often spend hours mopping or vacuuming up raw sewage.  I remember Fred Kuhstoss and I spending all one day cleaning up a sewage overflow from a toilet in the Phoenix day care center.  The remarkable Dave Hess heroically pulled up some stairs and worked under them to re-pipe one place where the stoppage was developing, but the main culprit was a long drain pipe outside, going UP a hill.  Finally in 2006-2007, we raised enough money to pay a contractor to take care of the problem.  

I thought of this process as I heard of the assassination of Charlie Kirk last week.  It is a sign of my white, male privilege that I did not know who he was until he was killed. The Black people with whom I talked all knew who he was because he was a throwback to the old racist tropes.  Though he was killed with a single shot, it reminded me of the continuing sewage spill of our love of, and indeed worship of, guns.  Kirk was one of those who advocated for the necessity of guns, and in no small irony, it was that belief in guns that took his life.  Let no one hear that I am applauding his death – it was abhorrent.  Yet, as we seem to be learning, his assassin was not a radical left advocate, as the President so inelegantly and prejudicially said.  Rather his killer seemed to be an adherent of an even harder right stand.

The hurling of epithets from the President and the right-wing commentators so reminded me of the sewage spills at Oakhurst.  They just keep on coming, and only strong actions will stop the sewage spills – strong actions like the banning of assault weapons (we did it from 1994-2004, until the Republican Congress let the ban expire); strong actions like stemming white supremacy, which is definitely on the rise;  strong actions like the assertion of the fundamental dignity and equality of every person.

And, like the many sewage pipes at Oakhurst, the sewage just continues to come at us from so many directions.  President Trump, instead of seeking to calm us down, fanned the flames of violence, as Hitler did in 1933 with the Reichstag fire.  SCOTUS last week agreed to racial profiling in the ICE raids, even though they had previously made such a big to-do against using racial classification as a factor in college admissions.  

I wish I could blame Donald Trump for all of this, but he is more the voice and the face of the sewage spills in American culture.  It began centuries ago in the idea of white supremacy, but its most recent manifestation came in the reaction to the election of Barack Obama as President.  Since then, so many people classified as “white” in our country have made it their mission to push people of color back as far as possible.  It began with the Tea Party movement in 2008, which produced such astonishing victories in the 2010 mid-terms, then morphed into Trumpism in 2015-2016.  

I wish I could say that it was only “race” that is the problem – that would be hard enough to solve, but economic factors play a big part too.  The Clinton/Gingrich partnership that gave us NAFTA, shifting many jobs overseas, also gave us this resentment from white people who lost their jobs in the process.  Race and economic factors have combined to make so many sewage spills flowing out of the pipes of our individual and collective mindsets, so much so that we are killing one another with our beloved guns.

I remember those dreary days of cleaning up sewage spills at Oakhurst.  It always helped to have others step in to assist, and I think that is a clue to our finding ways out of the current cultural mess.  As Pastor David Lewicki put it in his fine sermon yesterday at North Decatur Presbyterian, God is speaking to us just as She spoke to Abraham and Sarah.  God’s first word to them was not who She was but was rather: “Go.”  Go on a journey to help people find a new definition.  Let us do that too – let us take the first step, to reach out on a journey to proclaim dignity, equity, and justice.  It’s the only way to stop the sewage spills.

"SUSAN STROUPE!"

 “SUSAN STROUPE!”

Susan’s 43rd birthday is this Friday, September 12.  She was born in Nashville but lived there only 5 months before we accepted the call to Oakhurst Presbyterian Church and moved to Decatur.  She grew up in the multicultural church there, having many aunts and grandmas who helped to raise her.  We are grateful to the community of Oakhurst, which gave her such nourishment and gifts.

Today I’m remembering her sophomore/junior year of high school.  When she turned 16 and was just beginning her sophomore year, she got her learner’s permit to start learning to drive.  She indicated that Caroline did too much front seat driving, so I was elected to teach her to drive.  David had not yet gotten his driver’s license.  We practiced in the old DeVry parking lot not far from Dekalb hospital (that lot is now the VA), because it was usually deserted in the evenings and on weekends.  I also taught her how to parallel park in the lower parking lot of Oakhurst Presbyterian.  We would put two large garbage cans some feet apart, to simulate cars.  Susan was a fast learner, and it only took her a few lessons to get the parallel parking down.  

    In August of 1999, right before the start of her junior year in high school, she took the driver’s test.  Those were the days when the state of Georgia did not require applicants to drive on an actual road.  They had set up a driving course in the middle of the parking lot, where applicants took their driving tests.  We had an old Camry at that point, and it had many eccentricities.  One of them was that if you were using the air conditioning and cut the front wheels sharply to the left, the motor would shut off.  We knew that would not be acceptable to the driver’s license officials, so I advised her to roll down all the windows and tell the tester that the ac was broken.  It was one of those hot August days, and I watched as Susan began to take the test.  She did fine on it, and indeed she aced the parallel parking.  We had watched other youth take the test before it was Susan’s turn, and after the parallel parking part, there were still several parts of the test.  After Susan aced the parallel parking, the instructor told her to take the car back to the beginning.  When I saw that, I thought that Susan had failed miserably, and so did Susan.  When they got back to the beginning, the instructor told her:  “You’ve shown me enough – you made a 93 on the test, but I’ve just got to get out of this car.  I am just so damned hot in here.”

    I used the Camry as my ministerial car, and after Susan got her driver’s license, we worked out a deal on sharing the car.  She would take the Camry to school and leave it in the parking lot.  I would walk over in the morning, or Caroline would bring me over, to get the car for the day, and then bring it back to the school parking lot for Susan.  When she first started driving to school, she had a minor fender bumper accident, while she was creeping up in morning traffic on South Candler Street.  She looked down to get something and barely tapped the car ahead of her.  There was no visible damage to the other person’s car, but the other driver wanted to call the police to get an official report because it was her husband’s car.  The Decatur police came and ascertained no damage to the cars and no injuries to either driver.  The good part about this accident is that it was a relatively harmless lesson for Susan to learn that she must always keep her eyes on the road.  She also got another lesson in human relations on the road.  Later that week, the husband called to say that his wife was injured in the wreck, and that we should personally pay for her medical care so that our car insurance would not go up.  We were having none of it, and we called our insurance company to let them know what was going on.  They asked for a copy of the accident report from the police, so we went and got it and faxed (remember that ancient activity?) it to the insurance company.  We never heard anymore from anyone, but Susan had learned some good lessons early on.

    Ever since then, Susan has been an excellent driver, driving in all kinds of places – Minneapolis, Albuquerque, upstate New York, across the country when she was a puppeteer intern, and in crazy Baltimore. She also gave David some good advice on taking the driver’s test.  He was anxious about the test and put it off until he was a college student.  He saw that Susan had passed her driving test well, and I had also taught him how to drive.  Susan gave him a big and humorous boost.  She said: “David, think of the stupidest person you know who has a driver’s license.  They passed the test!”  That convinced him, and he went and passed the test, using some of the same strategy with the Camry that Susan had used.  

    We are so grateful for both of our children, but in this birthday week of Susan’s, we give thanks for her and for all her gifts to us and to so many others.  Thank you, Susan!!!!  Raise a glass to her on Friday!

"COMBAHEE RIVER RAID"

 COMBAHEE RIVER RAID”

Last week during our time at Tybee Island, we took time to visit the historical marker at the Combahee River, riding over the Harriet Tubman Memorial Bridge, to cross the River.  I posted photos and a short narrative about Harriet Tubman’s leading Union soldiers to make a raid on Confederate rice plantations and to free as many enslaved people as possible.  After that posting, several people thanked me for it and also expressed surprise about this raid.  In the raid, Tubman actually freed more enslaved people than she had in all her trips down South during the 1850’s.

In light of that surprise, I want to go into a bit more detail and encourage you to read more about it on your own.  It is one of the many sagas of Tubman’s life, a life filled with courage, risk, danger, and liberation.  The best version of the River Raid is Edda L. Fields-Black’s “Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War.”  It won the Pulitzer Prize last year.

After a decade of leading people to freedom in the decade of the 1850’s, Tubman signed up to work for the Union after the Civil War began.  She worked as a spy, scout, nurse, and cook, and then she was assigned to Port Royal, South Carolina in 1862 to work with people who had formerly been enslaved.  Port Royal was part of the Beaufort, South Carolina area, and it had been captured by Union troops in 1861.  The white planters had fled, leaving behind 10,000 newly freed people.  Tubman was assigned to work with them and begin to help them acclimate to life as free people.  All of this work was called the Port Royal Experiment, in which the Union wanted to see how easily formerly enslaved people could transfer into freedom.

The Union Army leaders quickly saw Tubman’s extraordinary abilities, even though she was illiterate.  They asked her if she would be willing to continue her role as a spy in enemy territory.  She agreed to do it, and she left the relative safe territory of Port Royal and went to islands and even inland to make contact with people still held in slavery, as well as to pick up information on the movements of the Confederate army.  Though she had some trouble understanding the language of the Gullah based people held in slavery there, her innate intelligence and skills soon helped her relate to those still held in slavery.

During this time, she came up with a plan that had several purposes:  a guerilla raid on the mainland to free enslaved people and to destroy the crops of the white planters, to give the Black Union soldiers experience in facing off with the Confederate army, and to be used as a weapon of terror for the Confederacy:  the Black Union soldiers were invading white territory and freeing enslaved people, while destroying crops and plantations.  The Union commanders were skeptical at first, but Tubman and Union colonel James Montgomery, who was trained in guerilla warfare, convinced the leaders to try it.  Montgomery would lead the 300 Black troops, while Tubman would provide the intelligence and guide the boats up the Combahee River.  Tubman then spent time as a spy in the area around the river, alerting the enslaved people that a possible escape was on the way – they should be ready to go on a moment’s notice.  The notice that it was time to go:  the steam whistles of the Union boats blowing several times.

On June 2, 1863, three Union boats went up the Combahee River and landed near the place where the ferry crossed the river.  The steam whistles blew, and in short order, enslaved people poured out of the woods, acting like the Hebrews leaving quickly from Egypt.  Tubman’s friend and first biographer Sarah Bradford recorded Tubman’s narrative in 1869, and here is part of it:

“I nebber see such a sight. We laughed, an' laughed, an' laughed. Here you'd see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin' in it jus' as she'd taken it from de fire, young one hangin' on behind, one han' roun' her forehead to hold on, t'other han' diggin' into de rice-pot, eatin' wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag with a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an' a black one; we took 'em all on board; named de white pig named Beauregard and the black pig named Jeff Davis.  Sometimes de women would come wid twins hangin' roun' der necks; 'appears like I never see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin' behin', all loaded; pigs squealin', chickens screamin', young ones squallin'.”  Tubman later told another interviewer that it reminded her of the story of the children of Israel fleeing Egypt.

Tubman and the Union army freed at least 735 people that day – it was chaotic and dangerous and stunning.  Tubman had led a raid that stabbed at the heart of the Confederacy – freeing their enslaved people and destroying the rice plantations (which the Africans had taught the white people to grow).  Less than a month later, the Union Army drove the Confederates back at Gettysburg, and Grant captured Vicksburg (and my hometown of Helena), giving the Union control of most of the Mississippi River.  Tubman also put the idea of guerilla warfare into the minds of the Union generals.  Two years later General Sherman would employ much of the same tactics as he led the March to the Sea in Georgia.

Tubman was extraordinary in all that she did, and we should honor her and give thanks for her magnificent witness.  Yet, we dishonor her if we lift her so high that we lose sight of her ordinary beginnings as an illiterate, enslaved woman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  She had cunning and courage for sure, but her story reminds us that we can do some of that too.  In these days of the sewage of the Trumpster flowing over the land, we will need to find ways to tap into that cunning and courage of Harriet Tubman.  May she be our North Star in these troubled days

"MORE HOPEFUL WORK"

 “MORE HOPEFUL WORK”

In these days when there are so many terrible and dispiriting events around us, I want to focus this week on some great work in a terrible place.  One of the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act and the end of neo-slavery was the mass incarceration that followed, including the huge uptick in the arrest, incarceration and conviction of Black people, especially Black men.  If we could not keep Black men down by preventing them from voting, we decided to keep them down by using the criminal legal system as a way to do it.  In 1965, the USA incarcerated 109 people per 100,000 population.  In 2024, that had increased to an astounding 580 per 100,000 – by far the highest rate in the world.  

When I was doing prison reform work for the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons in the early 1980’s, we operated on the premise that if we could demonstrate how much it cost to keep people incarcerated, then perhaps some of the conservative people who defended the incarceration system so strongly would change their minds and join us in seeking reform.  What we learned in that work, however, was that the white supremacy that undergirded the incarceration system was so deep that the cost of incarceration was not relevant to the issue.  That was a hard lesson, but it helped us to understand better how mass incarceration developed.

One of the people whom I met in that work in the 1980’s was John Cole Vodicka, who was then the Louisiana director for the Southern Coalition.  He remains one of the best organizers on incarceration issues whom I have ever met.  He and spouse Dee and Caroline and I became friends in those days, and we have remained friends ever since.  John and Dee have lived in Athens, Georgia, since 2018 to be near their children and grandchildren.  Since he has been in Athens, John and Steve Williams have started a Courtwatch and Bail Fund, in which they and other volunteers attend court in Athens to observe how defendants are treated.  In this work, they have helped their church to found the Oconee Street United Methodist (OSUMC) Bail Initiative, which seeks to help people to get out of jail while awaiting adjudication of their charges.  In his fine occasional blog called “Bearing Witness,” John shared this info about their bail program:  

“Typically, the OSUMC Community Bail Initiative tries to keep an eye out for pretrial prisoners who remain in our jail because they are without any monetary resources. Twenty-seven times now we've posted bonds as low as $1.  The highest bonds we've posted thus far were when I handed over $670 to the ACC sheriff's office to first spring Antonio C. from pretrial captivity in August 2022, then another $670 in January 2024 to get Louis P. out of jail.  In October 26, 2024, we posted $670 on behalf of Latif A., who until his bond was reduced to $500 spent 271 days of pretrial confinement in our jail. Since June 2021, we've gotten 157 men and women out of jail or off probation. We’ve also purchased 11 one-way bus tickets for people we’ve bailed out so they can leave Athens and return to family or friends elsewhere. Far more than half of those we’ve bailed out were homeless.  Many were essentially living hand-to-mouth, some with mental health diagnoses, others hounded by alcohol and/or drug-related issues.  Most were locked up after allegedly committing misdemeanor nuisance crimes or drug-related felony offenses.  As a result of their marginalization in our community, and their poverty, these women and men spent a combined 5,437 days in our jail before their cash bonds were posted or bus tickets purchased.”  

    John and his colleagues do such great work that the state of Georgia passed a law in 2024 that severely limited the ability of non-profit organizations to bail people out of jail.  SB 63 was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May 2024, and the law took effect on July 1, 2024.  Among other things, SB 63 prohibited charitable organizations—including faith communities—from posting bonds for more than three persons per year.   John and Steve joined forces with Barred Business to sue in federal court to stop the law from being enforced in Georgia. They were able to obtain a preliminary injunction on July 12, 2024 from U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert.  The state appealed that decision to the Eleventh Circuit, and last week, a three-judge panel heard the case.  They should decide the case in the next few months, and if there is any justice at all, the Eleventh Circuit will strike down this unconstitutional law.

    So, I give thanks for John and Steve and their colleagues who do such fine and fundamental work.  If you would like to know more, contact John at johncvodicka@gmail.com. And, if you’d like to make a contribution towards their work, send it to John at 92 Brooklyn Rd., Athens, GA 30306, made out to “OSUMC Bail Fund.”  You’ll be glad that you did.  

"IS NEO-SLAVERY DEAD?"

 “IS NEO-SLAVERY DEAD?”

Last week I wrote about the Voting Rights Bill of 1965 finally bringing an end to neo-slavery, which had replaced slavery after 1880.  And, for 40 years, that end of neo-slavery looked to be the holding.  The Voting Rights Act (VRA) had strong support on both sides of the political aisle.  The “preclearance” clause of the VRA had to be renewed every five years, just in case the racism of the white South had suddenly disappeared.  It was renewed every 5 years, and indeed, in 2006 under a Republican-led Congress with Republican President George W. Bush, the VRA was extended for 25 years.  It looked good for the advancement of voting rights for all citizens.

In 2005, however, President George W. Bush appointed John Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the retiring William Rehnquist.  One of Roberts’ specific goals was to strike down the VRA, because he felt that it was unconstitutional, especially the “preclearance” clause of  VRA.  This goal of Roberts’ came despite the fact that SCOTUS had ruled in favor of the VRA.  I’m grateful to my friend and colleague Joe Ingle for pointing out Jamelle Bouie’s excellent column on Roberts and his history with VRA in the August 6 New York Times.  I won’t repeat that column here, but it was very helpful background on this issue.  If you haven’t read it, check it out.  If you can’t find it and want access, let me know, and I’ll get it to you.

The election of Barack Obama as President in 2008 scared the clothes off of many white people in the country.  As valuable and powerful as it was to many of us, to many people classified as “white,” it was an abomination.  Remember Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time saying that the main goal of Republicans  was to deny Barack Obama a second term as President?  That was not just a political statement.  It also welled up from that deep reservoir of white supremacy that courses through American history.  Then, in 2010, the Tea Party emerged in opposition to Obama and racial equity, and by the middle of the decade, it had morphed into MAGA, with Donald Trump as its standard bearer.  

In 2012, the perfect case for Roberts came along.  Shelby County, Alabama (not far from Birmingham), sued in federal court to strike the preclearance clause of the VRA, indicating that with the election of a Black president, that clause was no longer needed.  The federal judge who heard the case upheld the VRA, as did the federal appellate court, but then Shelby County appealed to SCOTUS.  In 2012, SCOTUS agreed to hear the case.  Roberts and his buddies on the court (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Anthony Kennedy) argued against the 2006 action of Congress to renew the VRA for 25 years.  They railed against the “preclearance” clause, especially because it was aimed only at particular states that had demonstrated racial bias in the past in their suppression of voting rights.  To no one’s surprise but to the chagrin of many of us, SCOTUS overturned the preclearance clause of VRA but left the rest of the VRA intact.  

That decision has caused many problems for voting rights in the country.  The current shenanigans of the Texas legislature would be virtually impossible with the “preclearance” clause still intact.  All of the voter purges in Georgia and other states would not be possible.  The strict laws on who can vote when and even on voter IDs would not be possible.

So, let’s be clear here – the purpose of MAGA and SCOTUS at this point is to get back as closely as possible to the pre-1965 days, when white supremacy had enough strength to make neo-slavery viable again.  As Bouie points out in his NYT column, SCOTUS has agreed to take another case for its next term:  Louisiana v. Callais, in which redistricting most Black voters into just one district (out of 6 districts) is in dispute.  Since SCOTUS ruled in 2019 that gerrymandering and redistricting is a legitimate political process, it seems clear that another pillar of the VRA will likely be struck down.  If that happens, the VRA is dead, and neo-slavery may be on the way back.  

How can we prevent this?  Well, the answer is both simple and complex:  register to vote, get others registered to vote, and then VOTE while we still can.  In the 2024 Presidential election won by Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, TEN MILLION people who voted Democratic in the 2020 election did not vote.  Two million of those may have voted for Trump in 2024, but there were eight million other voters who stayed home.  That staying home clearly cost Harris the Presidency and gave us the disaster that is the Trumpster.  If we do that again in 2026, democracy is lost and neo-slavery is back.  So, you know the answer.

"THE END OF NEO-SLAVERY"

 “THE END OF NEO-SLAVERY”

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the end of neo-slavery in the United States.  On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, which effectively ended neo-slavery in the USA.  This law ratified the right to vote expressed in the 14th and 15th amendments, and it provided for federal oversight of all elections, and required federal preclearance for all changes in voting rights laws, especially in the South.  The political gymnastics being performed currently in the Texas legislature gerrymandering would have been greatly slowed down by the original wording of the Voting Rights Act, but some of its provisions were struck down by the current SCOTUS in 2012 and 2021 (more on that next week).

And, yes, the most litigated amendment to the Constitution is the 14th Amendment, which basically does four things:  guarantees citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the US (Trump is litigating that now); forbids states from interfering with the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution; provides for due process under the law; and provides for equal protection of all citizens under the law.  With all of this work accomplished in the 14th Amendment, it is easy to see why it is the most litigated amendment of all in the Constitution. In one of those July blessings that I mentioned last week, it was ratified on July 9, 1868.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 grew out of the 14th Amendment, and it sought to protect the voting rights of all citizens.  In that sense, it ended neo-slavery in the USA, especially in the South.  I say “neo-slavery” because that it is a much more accurate description of life in the South from 1875-1965 than “Jim Crow.”  The term “Jim Crow” mitigates the horror that Black people experienced growing up in the white-dominated South, and “neo-slavery” should replace it in the history books as a description of race history in that period. To use the term “Jim Crow” as a description of this period is to diminish the reality of the horrible repression and oppression of those years.

     I learned this term from Doug Blackmon’s fine book “Slavery by Another Name,” (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009), in which he argues that neo-slavery ended in 1946 at the end of World War II.  I remember Doug coming to Oakhurst to talk with our Supper Club about his book, and he made a very powerful presentation about his thesis that the years 1875-1945 were just “slavery by another name,” hence the title of his book. Although I learned a lot from his book, I do have one disagreement with his timetable on “neo-slavery.” From my experience growing up in the neo-slavery South from 1946-1964, the power of neo-slavery was still so strong in those years that “neo-slavery” should remain as the description for the years up to 1965, not 1946.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had a profound effect on life in the South, as evidenced by the rapid increase of Black people elected to office.  It had a long and difficult history, and its importance was shown in the deep resistance of Southern white Democrats leading up to its passage.  Perhaps only a skilled white Southern politician like President Lyndon Johnson could get it passed, and even he was reluctant to bring it to the floor of the Senate, where it originated.  The civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery changed the directory of that arc bending towards justice.  The march on March 7, 1965, that ended in police violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge exploded into the national consciousness (see Ava Duvernay’s movie “Selma” for more background on this).  A second march on March 21 drew great participation, and President Johnson scheduled it for a vote in the Senate, where his arm-twisting overcame a filibuster. There is a great photo of Johnson corralling his longtime friend Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, seeking to get his vote for the bill. Johnson was not successful with Russell, but he was successful with enough Senators that the bill passed and was sent to the House, where it passed overwhelmingly.  As Johnson noted, his embrace of the Voting Rights Act meant one other great change in the South – a switch of Southern white voters moving from the Democratic party to the Republican party.

The Voting Rights Act was one of the signal achievements of the Civil Rights movement and of American history.  Its effect was so deep and powerful that the resistance has been great since its passage, and indeed, SCOTUS has significantly weakened it over the last decade, seeking to allow white people to limit voting rights by people of color as severely as possible.  The Trumpster movement is built on this white resistance to the idea that “all people are created equal,” and his push to get Texas to gerrymander even further before the 2026 midterm elections is an indication that he wants to hold the white majority in the House in order to further return us to a time of white supremacy and maybe even neo-slavery.  As the history on the Voting Rights Act shows us, this repressive and oppressive stream runs deeply in us and through us.  We’ll look more closely at this history and its present status next week, but in the meantime, please re-train yourself to talk about “neo-slavery” rather than “Jim Crow.” And, take it out into the streets.

"THE STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE"

 “THE STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE”

As July comes to an end, it is emblematic of the struggle that is at the heart of the American experience.  The month begins with the July 4th celebrations, with the idea of independence lifted up.  But in the second paragraph is the emphasis on equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people {men} are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Most of American history is the story of the struggle over this idea of  equality:  do we really mean “all people,” or just white men?  Two lynchings in my adopted home state of Georgia in 1946 (my birth year) remind all of us of this continuing struggle over the idea of equality.  I’m grateful to the Equal Justice Institute in Alabama for their daily reminders of this kind of history.

          On July 18, 1946, a white mob shot a 37-year-old Black veteran named Maceo Snipes at his home in Taylor County in southwest Georgia in Butler. A day earlier, Mr. Snipes had exercised his constitutional right to vote in the Georgia Democratic Primary, becoming the only Black man to vote in the election in Taylor County. For this he was targeted and lynched.  Mr. Snipes had served in the U.S. Army for two and a half years during World War II and, after receiving an honorable discharge, had returned home to Taylor County, Georgia, to work as a sharecropper with his mother. He had received threats from the Ku Klux Klan in the days leading up to the election, but he still bravely went to vote in the gubernatorial primary on July 17, 1946.

        White gubernatorial candidate Eugene Talmadge had campaigned on a promise to restore white primaries in the state. A staunch white supremacist, Mr. Talmadge had been previously elected governor of Georgia on three occasions with a segregationist platform and the open support of white terrorism groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. “The South loves the Negro in his place,” Mr. Talmadge had said in a 1942 campaign speech, “but his place is at the back door.”

        When the primary concluded, Mr. Talmadge had won the party’s nomination and received the most support in rural areas. When Taylor County votes were tallied, Mr. Talmadge had won all but one vote—and white community members believed that Mr. Snipes, known to be the only Black voter in the county, had cast that lone vote of opposition.  A day after the primary, a mob of white men, including a white veteran named Edward Williamson, arrived at Mr. Snipes’s grandfather’s house in a pickup truck and called out Mr. Snipes’s, who got up from the table where he was eating dinner with his mother and went outside to see who was there, only to be shot multiple times at his own front door. The truck of men then drove away. Two days later, on July 20, 1946, Mr. Snipes died.

     When local authorities investigated Mr. Snipes’s shooting, Edward Williamson admitted to killing him but claimed Mr. Snipes had pulled a knife on him when he went to the Snipes home to collect a debt. The coroner's jury ultimately ruled that the shooting had been in “self-defense,” and no one was ever held accountable for Mr. Snipes’s death.  I am grateful to my longtime friend John Cole Vodicka for his hard work in helping to revisit this case and helping to develop a memorial for Maceo Snipes.

A week later - after Maceo Snipes was shot down - on July 25, 1946, 100 miles northeast (near Athens), a white mob lynched two Black couples near Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton County. The couples killed were George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey and Dorothy and Roger Malcolm. Mrs. Malcolm was seven months pregnant. Mr. Dorsey, a World War II veteran who had served in the Pacific for five years, had been home for only nine months.

     On July 11, Roger Malcom was arrested after allegedly stabbing a white farmer named Barnette Hester during a fight. Two weeks later, J. Loy Harrison, the white landowner for whom the Malcoms and the Dorseys sharecropped, drove Mrs. Malcom and the Dorseys to the jail to post a $600 bond. On their way back to the farm, the car was stopped by a mob of 30 armed, unmasked white men who seized Mr. Malcom and Mr. Dorsey and tied them to a large oak tree. Mrs. Malcom recognized members of the mob, and when she called on them by name to spare her husband, the mob seized her and Mrs. Dorsey. Mr. Harrison watched as the white men shot all four people 60 times at close range. He later claimed he could not identify any members of the mob.  The Moore’s Ford Bridge lynchings drew national attention, leading President Harry Truman to order a federal investigation and offer $12,500 for information leading to a conviction. A grand jury returned no indictments, and the perpetrators have never held accountable. 

These two stories remind us of the continuing struggle in American history over the idea of equality for all people.  These two lynchings in Georgia almost 80 years ago have never been legally solved – their intent was to intimidate Black people and to make them get back into their place “at the back door.” We are grateful to all those people who have fought and suffered and been witnesses to the truth of the July 4th ideal that all people are created equal, and to bring all people to the front door.  We are, of course, now engaged in another struggle with white supremacy as perpetrated by the Trump administration, and it is up to all of us who believe in the idea of equality to speak up and act out.  Next week, we’ll look at the anniversary of one of the constitutional amendments that is at the heart of this struggle.  It is the most litigated amendment in American history – if you know which amendment it is, let me know.