"COLD SNAKES AND WARM HEARTS"

 “COLD SNAKES AND WARM HEARTS”

Today is our son David’s 42nd birthday – we give thanks for him and for all his gifts to us and to so many others.  It snowed in Norfolk, Virginia this past weekend, and I will always remember that on the night that when we went to the hospital for David’s birth in Norfolk in 1980, it snowed six inches there.  I had a VW bug, so I drove Caroline to the hospital in the VW, and we made it just fine.  She dilated quicky to eight centimeters in her labor, and we thought that David would come out in short order.  However, as he always has, he had his own timetable, and he would wait another nine hours to emerge just after 9 AM on January 31.  

    David has always said that he is constantly looking for warm weather because he was born in the midst of a cold, snowy time.  Indeed, his arrival brought about 35 more inches of snow to Norfolk in the month of February.  Caroline’s parents drove from Chattanooga to help us after his birth, and they were one of the last cars to make it over the bridge from Williamsburg before it was closed because of the huge snowstorm.  There was snow on the ground in Norfolk for a long while after David was born.  We were so glad that her parents made it in for many reasons, but one main reason was that David never slept!  We hoped that it would pay off for him some day, and it has – he got his PhD with a spouse and two small children.  

    David has always had a kind and compassionate heart, and we sometimes ended up with various creatures in our house that he had found or brought home from his class at school.  He also has always had a strong moral sense, growing up at Oakhurst Presbyterian where we emphasized that love and justice had to be woven together.  We also taught that God was at the center of life.  When we took him to the Atlantans baseball games in the summer, we would stand for the national anthem, but we would not put our hands over our hearts, as most other fans did.  When David asked why we did not put our hands over our hearts, we would reply that our hearts belonged to God, not to our country or anything else.

     In his final year of elementary school, he was named as captain of the safety patrol, and he brought home a dilemma.  As captain of the safety patrol, he was required to lead the school in the pledge of allegiance to the flag.  And, in so doing, he would be expected to put his hand over his heart.  He wanted to be true to our heritage, but he also wanted to meet the expectations of the school and the safety patrol.  I suggested that he think about passing that duty along to the next officer of the safety patrol, but he indicated that leading the pledge was part of his duties, and he wanted to fulfill his duties.  He came up with a compromise – he would only put his hand near his heart – he would not put his hand over his heart.  In that way, he would try to fulfill both his heritage and his duties.  We appreciated his struggle over this, so we indicated that this approach would work for us.  He ended up winning the DAR Good Citizenship Award, and on the day that he received it, he wore a statement T-shirt in 1992 saying “How could Columbus have discovered America when people were already living here?”

    He later became a snake guy.  I’m not sure when exactly he crossed over to the world of herpetology, but he learned a lot of it in the creek in front of our house on Kirk Road in Decatur.  He went to Davidson College and was a biology major there.  He was an assistant in herpetology there, and I remember him calling me early in his snake career saying:  “Dad, I caught a snake today, and it bit me 5 times, but don’t tell Mom!”  I replied:  “Well, I hope that it wasn’t a poisonous snake,” and his retort was:  “Dad, I’d never pick up a poisonous snake.”  But, of course he did, as I found out later.

    He became known there as ‘The Snake Guy” because he was often the “go to” guy in what was then a small town – if you had snakes in your house, he would remove them for you.  He also did demonstrations on reptiles and amphibians with church and school groups.  In those demonstrations, it was clear that he was a natural teacher, and that is what he ended up doing.  After teaching in middle school for several years, he decided that public education needed reforming, in order for  all children to be served equally well.  He got his PhD in science education and now is an associate professor at Michigan State.  He has won many awards for his teaching and his revolutionary view that public education schools must pay attention to the needs of each of its students.  He’s now working on his second book on education for Harvard Press.

    I could say many other things about David, but most important is to give thanks for his being in our lives and giving us so much over these 42 years, especially his spouse Erin Graham and daughters Emma and Zoe.   And, from my personal point of view, he taught me a lot about fathering.  I made many mistakes in my fathering of him, but his hard work, his loving heart, and his vision of equity and justice prove to Caroline and me that we did some good stuff in parenting after all!

"VOTING RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS"

 “VOTING RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS”

In June, 1890, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts introduced the “Federal Elections Bill,” which was designed to oversee elections in the South.  Many voting rights had been stripped away from Black citizens since Reconstruction had been abruptly ended in 1877 as a result of a tortured Presidential election outcome of 1876.  Rutherford B. Hayes had lost the popular vote to George Tilden, but the Electoral College count was reversed in a very close race.  President Grant and Congress appointed a special commission to determine the winner of the Presidential election.  Hayes made a deal with Southern legislators to receive their votes, in exchange for his promise to withdraw federal troops from the South, once he took office as President,  The deal was made and kept, and in 1877, federal troops withdrew from the South.  The repression of Black rights, especially Black voting rights, deepened and hardened.

Lodge’s bill in 1890 was an attempt to restore Black voting rights in the South.  White supremacists immediately dubbed the bill the “Lodge Force Bill,” echoing language of our day.  The Federal Elections bill passed by 6 votes in the House, but it languished in the Senate under the filibuster rule.  After 33 days of filibustering in the Senate, the bill was pronounced dead, and Black voting rights were effectively dead in the South for the next 75 years.  Emboldened by the defeat of the Lodge bill, the state of Mississippi in 1890 approved a new state constitution which stripped Black people of their voting rights and also denied them the right to have firearms.  This “Mississippi Plan” was adopted by many states in the South, and neo-slavery was re-established until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

The events of this past week echo those of the 1890’s and remind us how captive we remain to the power of racism in our nation.  The refusal of all Republicans and two Democrats to break the filibuster on voting rights speaks to us of how important this issue is and of how deeply those of us classified as “white” are resistant to ameliorating it.   Those of us classified as “white” see the demographic numbers, and we are fearful of a future where people of color are able to vote for candidates who have the interest of all people at heart, not just the interest of “white” people.

The fact of this resistance is reinforced by the introduction of “Election Police” laws in several states, including Georgia’s own David Perdue (though I am loathe to claim him).  The Election Police would be a special group, created by state legislatures, empowered to investigate election results and to overturn those results if any fraudulent activity is found,  This is reminiscent of the patrols that formerly went to election places in the South in the 1880-90’s to intimidate Black voters.  Even if these fail, the Trumpians are already fielding candidates for offices like Secretary of State, who are pledged to the “Big Lie” and will seek to enforce it in 2024.  

With the rise of overt racism through the Trumpians, it is hard not to be discouraged and fearful of what the future holds.  One mitigating factor is to remember that our democracy is really only 57 years old.  Up until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, we were a nation who allowed only certain citizens to vote.  The Nineteenth Amendment of 1920 changed that to add “white” women to the rolls, but it would be 1965 before people of color were added to the voting rolls.  

    Thus, as in many other battles of the present day, we are still in a fight for the legacy of the 1960’s – civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, right to abortion.  These are still in contention, as we as a nation seek to decide whether we want to open up the process of becoming human beings, or to seek to close the door once again.  Our democracy is young, and the forces against it are strong and deep.  Yet, we have made significant progress, and the battles over voting rights and human rights are still raging.

I’m also finding hope in the candidacy of Stacey Abrams for governor of Georgia.  As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I am impressed by her refusal to run a campaign of doom and gloom.  She is running a campaign of possibility and hope. I’m feeling gloomy and doomy these days, but she is not.  I don’t know whether she can win the governorship or not, but I think that she has a very good chance.  And I do know that Georgia’s 2022 elections will be a key to the 2024 elections.  So, for many if us, it is back to the mundane but essential work of 2020:  register to vote and make a pledge to get 10 unregistered people to register to vote.  As goes voting rights, so goes human rights.  As the old philosophy saying goes, voting may not be sufficient to sustain all human rights, but voting is necessary to establish the possibility to of such work for human rights.  So, whether you are feeling gloomy an doomy like me, or whether you are hopeful like Stacey Abrams, get out and get people registered to vote, including yourself.

MLK DAY - 2022

 “MLK DAY - 2022"

On this cold MLK Day, I’m going to repeat a post from several years ago, simply because it is such a great reading on the life and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is written by poet and essayist June Jordan.  

            For my blog this week, I am going to share part of an essay on Dr. King by the poet and essayist June Jordan – it is the best essay that I have ever read on King.  If you don’t know her work, please look her up – many of her poems transformed into songs by Sweet Honey in the Rock.  She died of breast cancer in 2002.  This sharing is from her essay on Dr. King “The Mountain and the Man Who Was Not God,” given as an address at Stanford on King Day in 1987.  It is from her 1993 book of essays “Technical Difficulties: African-American Notes on the State of the Union.”

            “He made big mistakes.  He was not a wonderful administrator.  He did not abstain from whiskey, tobacco, or sex.  He was not a fabulous husband, or father.  He committed adultery.  His apparent attitude towards women was conventional, at best, or strikingly narrow, or mean.  He loved to party: dancing, horsing around, heavyweight southern cuisine, and pretty women.  He did like him a little sugar in his bowl,  He was not a god.

            And I remember listening to WBAI-FM radio in 1963 the way my parents long ago used to listen to AM radio broadcasts of the Joe Louis fights, only I was following the evolution of the Civil Rights Revolution.  I was following the liberation of my life according to the Very Reverend Dr. King.  And when, one afternoon, that fast-talking, panic-stricken newscaster in Birmingham reported the lunging killer police dogs and the atrocious hose water and I could hear my people screaming while the newscaster shouted out the story of my people, there, in Birmingham, who would not quit the streets – when he described how none of that horror of nightsticks or torrential water pressure or mad dogs on the attack could stop the children of Birmingham from coming out again and again to suffer whatever they must from freedom, I remember the positively stunned sensation that engulfed me:  I knew that we winning;  I knew that we would win.

            And before those demonstrations and underneath the melee and after the bleeding and the lockups and the singing and the prayers, there was this magical calm voice leading us, unarmed, into the violence of White America.  And that voice was not the voice of God.  But did it not seem to be the very voice of righteousness?  That voice was not the voice of God.  But does it not, even now, amazingly penetrate/reverberate/illuminate:  a sound, a summoning, somehow divine? That was the voice of a Black man who had himself been clubbed and stabbed and shoved and shot at and jailed and spat upon, and who, repeatedly and repeatedly, dared the utmost power of racist violence to silence him.  That was the voice of a leader who did not tell others to do what he would or could not do:  bodily he gave witness to his faith that the righteous cause of his activity would constitute his safety………

            Almost twenty years ago, Dr. King, standing alone, publicly demanded that England and the United states both act to isolate South Africa through unequivocal severing of financial or any other connection with that heinous regime.  In that same year, Dr. King stood forth, opposed to the war in Vietnam, and thereby suffered the calumny and castigation of his erstwhile peers as well as the hysterical censure of his outright foes. 

             Evaluating America as “the greatest purveyor of violence in our time,” in 1967 Dr. King, with a breadth of determination and rectitude unimaginable even now, undertook the launching of a revolution aimed against that violence, a revolution pitted against America’s inequities, a revolution riveted against an American poverty of the spirit that allowed us to uproot , and decimate, a host of strangers while denying basic necessities to the homeless here at home.”

 

"JANUARY 6 - THE DAY OF EPIPHANY"

 “JANUARY 6 -THE DAY OF EPIPHANY”

Last week was the end of the 12 days of Christmas, beginning with January 6, Epiphany Day.  Epiphany remembers and commemorates the visit of the Magi with the baby Jesus, an account found only in Matthew’s Gospel in Chapter 2.  And now, in American history, January 6 will be associated with the Trumpian riot at the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the presidential election of 2020.

Matthew’s gospel does not present a sweet, little Jesus boy narrative.  From its beginning in Matthew 2, the author wants us to know that the birth of this baby brings a dangerous situation because it takes us into the heart of political power in Jerusalem.  The Magi follow a star that they believe will lead them to a new political constellation, and they arrive in Jerusalem seeking prophetic counsel on where this baby will be born.  When they come to the court of King Herod, the gospel writer tells us that Herod is troubled when he hears inquiries about the birthplace of the new ruler.  But, Matthew adds an intriguing comment, saying “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”  It is not just the political powers who are disturbed – everyone in the city is troubled.  They are troubled because it means that everyone will be asked to make a decision about the meaning the birth of this baby.  Herod’s response is treachery and slaughter – he has all the baby boys of Bethlehem killed in order to seek to snuff out this new possibility.  This Day of Epiphany knows both promise and peril.

We are all feeling that peril these days – the continuing deadly power of Covid has us cowering;  the continuing deadly power of Trumpism has us fearful of the future;  the upcoming mid-term elections makes us anxious.  I also noted that ABC TV started its “Women of the Movement” series on January 6, centering on the lynching of Emmet Till and the powerful response of his mother Mattie Till Mobley - another boy slaughtered to the throne of racism.  Those events echoed the bloodbath in response to the visit of the Magi.  

The story of the Visit in Matthew 2 combines the wonder of the gift of Christmas with the gloom of the world’s response to that gift of love and joy and  justice.  We are grateful for the Vision of Christmas.  It is a vision of hope and joy and possibility, where we can have some moments to consider the claim that at the heart of life is the idea and power of love and justice – “another chance allowed” as songwriter Steve Earle put it in “Nothing But a Child.”  I hope that all of us received the opportunity to consider that Vision in this Christmas season that has just passed.

    But, there is the other side of that story, the story that includes “Rachel, weeping for her children,” as the boys of Bethlehem are slaughtered.  We are now living in a time when the powers of race and domination and oppression are seeking to make an overt comeback.  It is reminiscent of the 1880’s and 1890’s when white supremacy staged a comeback through violence and legislation, especially in the South.  The Trumpster continues to ride this wave of regathering strength of white supremacy in response to the election of Barack Obama as President and in response to the changing demographics in our nation.  The elections in 2022 will tell us a lot about our future. At this point it is looking gloomy because the party of Trump, sometimes called the Republicans, seems poised to take over the House and maybe even the Senate.

    Such a scenario is a depressing start to 2022, but I’m hoping that the January 6 Congressional Committee (there’s that date again) will be able to point us in the right direction.  I am also struck with how Stacey Abrams has started her campaign for governor of Georgia.  She had a meeting of supporters on January 5 to celebrate that as the date that Georgia elected two Democratic senators to bring the Senate under slender Democratic control.  At that meeting she indicated that she was not going to run a campaign of impending disaster but rather a campaign of hope and possibility.  She had looked at the Magi story and had seen hope, not disaster.  As she put it: “I’m not running a doom and gloom campaign because I don’t feel gloomy.”  Perhaps it is her minister parents, perhaps it is her Black woman legacy and perspective, perhaps it is her organic constitution – whatever it is, she brings a fresh vision of hope to our weariness.  Like those Magi who visited the newborn Jesus, they took another way home, rather than going back to the treacherous Herod.

    Keep your eyes (and pocketbooks) on Stacey Abrams in this year.  Because Georgia is so central to Trumpism, her race for governor will go a long way in telling us how the future is going to look.  So goes Georgia, so goes the USA.  And, on our own struggles to come back into “regular” time, let us be guided by Epiphany, by the vision of the Magi.  They waded into dangerous political waters, but guided by the light, they found another way home, a way different from the racism and sexism and homophobia of our usual path.  May we find ours also.

"AND JOSEPH FLEW IN ANGER"

 “AND JOSEPH FLEW IN ANGER”

When Mary says “yes,” to Gabriel the angel, says “yes” to allowing herself to be the vessel for the birth of Jesus, she puts herself at great risk.  Engaged to Joseph and soon to be pregnant by someone else, she would be subject to humiliation, exile, and even the death penalty.  Her path was made much easier by her fiancé Joseph, who decided to stay with her and claim the child as his own.  He was not without his struggles, however.   Whereas Luke’s gospel gives us Mary’s version of the events,  Matthew’s gospel gives us Joseph’s approach.  He seems to be a decent guy, so when he finds out that Mary is pregnant by someone else, he decides not to take her to the elders for punishment.  He decides to divorce her quietly.

Matthew tells us that an angel also comes to Joseph in a dream to tell him to claim the baby in Mary’s womb as his own, to hear that this baby will bring a sense of God’s presence with humanity in a new way.  Joseph decides to stay with Mary and to claim the child as his own.  He decides to stay with her and to give her and the baby male protection, bringing them just a bit closer to the center of the power of patriarchy.  This story has been sentimentalized in a thousand different ways, so we must be very careful with it.  On Mary’s end, author Margaret Atwood captured the danger and terror of the story in her chilling novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,’ drawing on the earlier English translations of Mary’s response to Gabriel when she says “Yes”:   “I am the handmaid of the Lord.”

Joseph’s simmering anger at being forced and cajoled into accepting Mary and the baby did not make it into the New Testament, but it has been portrayed in other stories and songs.  “The Pseudo Gospel of Matthew” was written about 650 CE and obviously did not make it into the canonical Bible, but it became part of the readings of the church for a long while.  It is the basis for a Christmas song “The Cherry Tree Carol,” whose lyrics were first known around 1500 CE.  The song portrays Joseph and a pregnant Mary on a trip (some lyrics have Bethlehem as a destination, another the flight to Egypt, others just a stroll in a garden).  

In the song, the couple passes a grove of cherry trees, and Mary asks Joseph to get some cherries for her, since she is pregnant and cannot reach them.  Joseph feels the anger and resentment swell up in him, and he responds to Mary:  “Let the father of your baby gather cherries for you.”  As that anger simmers, the baby Jesus speaks out from Mary’s womb to command the world to change:  “Then up spoke baby Jesus from out of Mary’s womb: ‘Bow down you tallest cherry that my mother might have some.”  The cherry trees bow down, and Mary is delighted and lets Joseph further know his place:  “Oh, look now, Joseph, I have cherries at command.”  

In a song whose verses are constantly being altered and adjusted, there is a sense of the power and the complexity of what seems to be a sweet and sentimental story:  the vulnerability of Mary as a teenage pregnant before marriage, the lingering anger and resentment of Joseph, and yet the power of God moving even in these complicated story lines.  There are many versions of “Cherry Tree Carol,” but one of the loveliest is Peter, Paul, and Mary’s cover of it . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ClJpQDRRA   The song traveled through Appalachia to modern times, and Jean Ritchie’s version of it is powerful  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7FeXU7PlWc

Whichever version you prefer (or another one, which I’d be glad to learn from you), please hear the great news of this last week of Advent:  “For unto us a child is born, and they shall be called Bringer of Peace, Wonderful Counselor.”  In the midst of all the craziness and terror and anxiety of our present age, may each of us and all of us know the power and grace of this message and this event, complicated as it is. Complex as our lives are, may we find its peace and love.  

"THREE WISE WOMEN: MARY, IDA WELLS, STACEY ABRAMS"

 “ THREE WISE WOMEN: MARY, IDA WELLS, STACEY ABRAMS”

      Battered by the Roman Empire, crushed by a heavy system of corruption and taxation, dominated by a patriarchy that sought to make her a baby-factory only – in this highly charged and oppressive air, a young teen-age engaged to be married, hears a stunning voice that asks her to see a different vision and to proclaim that vision to others.  Not only is he asked to proclaim that vision – she is also asked to embody it by becoming pregnant with the Human One.  To say “yes” is to risk the death penalty, since she will be pregnant by someone other than her husband.  Fortunately for all of us, Mary said “Yes,” and a new vision of hope and possibility was conceived and born into a world of despair and crushing domination.

    In our time of Advent and Christmas two millennia later, we are experiencing some of that same hopelessness and despair.  Many of us were heartened last week when Stacey Abrams officially announced her run for governor of Georgia in 2022. Though she is not the savior, she is an unusually gifted politician, and we sorely need her leadership and vision in Georgia and in the nation.  With the Herod-like Trumpster still looming over us, Stacey’s vision is a powerful opportunity to help us all move past the petty, narcissistic politics which seem to dominate us so much in these days.  If you can support her in any way in these next 11 months, please do so.

    Stacey preached at Oakhurst several times, and she also spoke at my retirement, so I have a special affection for her.  She also agreed to write the Foreword to the book on Ida Wells that Catherine Meeks and I wrote.  Stacey joins Mary as one of the three wise women whom I’m highlighting this week.  The third is Ida B. Wells, and I’ll gratefully borrow from Stacey’s words of part of the Foreword to highlight Ida Wells:

“Because of the witness and work of Ida Wells and those she girded for the fight, we as a nation have made critical progress.  Yet, we find ourselves at a crucial turning point in our history, when the forces that sought to silence her and to re-establish oppression seem to gain strength each day.  From the tragedy of family separations to the glib invocation of nativism, those charged with maintaining our progress have instead reignited the most infernal instincts of past.  In these moments, Passionate for Justice serves as a welcome and timely reminder of  power of witness in our nation’s history. I am grateful to Nibs Stroupe and Catherine Meeks for bringing forth this testimony to the life and ministry of Ida Wells. In this work, they reflect upon the power of Wells’ life, as well as the dynamic of race and gender that sought to limit her and continues to constrict access into the present age. 

I have been awed by Rev. Stroupe during his long and effective ministry at multicultural Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, where he met scripture with action. Together, with the scholarship and insight of Dr. Meeks, they have produced this critical work to help revive the heroism of Ida Wells, not only restoring our understanding of her unflinching example but reminding each of us to find our place in the perennial fight for justice. Through their exposition, we rediscover a model for diminishing those forces of repression and oppression in our individual and communal lives. In her honor, we are called to acknowledge the depth of those oppressive powers in our time, and to be like Wells – to seek a new way of liberty and justice for all.  

Ida Wells confronted the evils of her time with a determination to compel America to live up to its highest ideals. Her example continues to guide the work of millions, including my own, as we in our own ways work to reaffirm the humanity of all and the potential for more. I applaud Nibs and Catherine for their efforts, a robust inquiry that produced such a transformative statement about the meaning of Wells’ life for the twenty-first century. They honor the life of Ida B. Wells, a life carved out of the hard scrabble ground of slavery, white supremacy and oppression of women, especially black women. In Passionate for Justice, we find a compass that points us to the future, where we can each give voice and action to justice, equity and life-giving community.  Ida Wells would have had it no other way.”

"WE ARE CHRISTMAS"

 “WE ARE CHRISTMAS”

When Caroline and I were pastors at Oakhurst, we were privileged to be part of church group who attended the annual Spelman-Morehouse Christmas Concert on the first weekend in December.  It would be held twice in King Chapel on Morehouse campus and once in Sisters Chapel at Spelman.  It was always crowded, and it was always a moving experience.  The power of the voices, the arrangements, and the sheer joy of being in Black space to welcome the season – these drew us many times to this annual concert.  Covid forced last year’s concert to go online rather than in person, and that is the case this year too.  

    Their 95th Annual Christmas Concert will be shown on their websites beginning on December 15.  If you have not experienced this magnificent concert, please treat yourself this year.  There is nothing like being in person, being incarnate for this concert, but you can still feel the power online.  Check out the Spelman or Morehouse websites for more information.

I have many favorite songs from these concerts, but this year, a song stands out:  “We Are Christmas.” It is co-written written by the Spelman Glee Club Director, Kevin Johnson, and by student Sarah Stephens Benibo. Here is the link to Ms. Stephens Benibo as a soloist on the song with  the Spelman Choir (with handbells that year in 2006).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj33F8ZBQCM

    Since her graduation, she has come back to sing this at the annual concert.   The idea for the song comes from Sweet Honey in the Rock’s song “We Are,” and it is based on Mary’s experience in the Christmas story, as well as her vision (“The Magnificat.”). At first the music lulls us into thinking that we have another “Sweet little Jesus boy” song, but the lyrics lead us into something quite different – it is up to us to bring this story to life in our day and in our time.  Let it speak to you, and plan to watch some more of their work.  Then let us find ways in our lives to make the vision of Christmas come alive.