Author: philipamerson

The Last Apple

~ philipamerson

THE LAST APPLE

November 2015

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Autumn sharpens one’s imagination.  Days are filled with transition.  The weather teases — do we chance leaving the tomatoes on the vine one more day?  Was it frost last night, or nearly frost? When will the leaves turn?  Will they be mostly golden or red or brown this year?  Day to day, transition comes, sometimes slowly and sometimes in a burst.  Some things end, some things anticipate a spring.  

This year, again, I have been planing bulbs (300 of them in the last week).  Tulips, daffodils, allium.  I know better, especially setting those tulips in bed for the winter, as the deer find them irresistible in the spring.  I foolishly calculate that if 100 bulbs are set this fall, maybe 50 will survive, especially if I spred some deer repellent nearby next spring.  Okay, so sign me up as an eternal optimist!  Still, there is something compelling about autumn.  A thinking person and/or a person of faith will see this as a time for hope… or, so I tell myself.

Each fall I think of the haunting passage written by E. B. White who described his wife Katherine, as she aged, still kneeling each fall to plant bulbs.  He wrote: “As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical in her bedraggled appearance… her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.” [Forward in Katherine S. White, Onward and Upward in the Garden, Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.]

I’m with Kathrine White — calmly plotting the resurrection, indeed.  As I plant bulbs and trees I am aware that I may or may not be around to enjoy them 15 or 20 years hence — but my prayer is that someone will benefit and thereby be reminded of the beauty and promise found in these autumn days.

This year I also planted trees — decorative plum, pear and magnolia.  They stand all along the driveway.  And there were three apple and two cherry trees planted last spring.  I find I have to protect them all from the deer, who like to munch on the apple or cherry tree leaves or, in the case of the other trees, the bucks will come and scar the trunks during rutting season. 

IMG_1064 We lost the old apple tree in the front yard this fall.  A friend who knows about such things tells me the tree was approaching its 100th year… but we watched as it slowly faded in health over the past three years.  Someone, a century or so ago planted this apple tree; perhaps, like me, hoping it would be appreciated by another in a distant future.  This fall the time had come; we had to cut that tree down.  Sad, as the old apple tree in the front of the house was one of the features we loved when we bought the place three years ago.         

In  mid-September, walking past the tree, I noticed one last apple hanging up among the few branches still clinging to life.  (For those of you wondering, I took a cutting off that branch, in the hope I might plant it next spring — yes, my hope springs eternal!)    The tree is now down, the wood cleared and stump ground up.   That last apple — tart and memorable — has now been eaten and enjoyed.  In my imagination, that last apple lingers, remaining for me as an autumn metaphor.

IMG_1052As my seventieth birthday approaches on the cusp of a New Year, I still think of myself as young.  I do this even when I am sometimes offered the “senior discount.”  And this without my even asking!  More and more often, when speaking of friends, I add the words “of blessed memory” upon mentioning their names.  Time passes, life’s autumn season arrives.  Thankfully it does not mean that imagination disappears.

It is not only friends who have passed on.  I find institutions and organizational cultures are often “of blessed memory.”  Some gifts of courage and quality of thought I saw in the life of others seem to have evaporated in recent decades.  I confess to grieving the loss of courage and imagination among many who lead my denomination, the United Methodist Church. 

It is strange to go to denominational gatherings and realize that there is little appetite or awareness of the need to speak prophetically on matters of justice.  In this early autumn season of my life, when I look at Indiana United Methodism at least, it is easy to feel like I am one of the last apples. 

(Thankfully there are a few other ‘last apples’ around, but too few.  Hopefully we are not the “bad apples” as some now seeking to reform United Methodism seem prone to suggest.  Please know that I am all too aware of the inadequacies that were abundant in earlier generations.  I remember the bigotries and peevishness of some laity, clergy and denominational leaders — I remember these well.  I also remember courageous bishops and pastors who spoke prophetically about racism, war and peace, sexism and economic injustice.) 

Today, few wise and clarion voices are speaking.  The denomination is knotted up a homophobic dystrophy.   There is silence.  Or worse, we find a continuation of bigotry and exclusion toward gay and lesbian folks, lay and clergy.  There is more — there is too often silence regarding issues of economic injustice or environmental destruction.   In May 2016, the denomination will join in another General Conference — signs are not encouraging.  In Indiana, I find so-called United Methodists have little in common with those who provided a place for the prophetic tradition over the past century. 

Maybe the old tree has been removed, chopped down, and I missed the felling of it.  Maybe.  There is an old saying the “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”   I wonder.   Sometimes I look around and think the whole orchard has been moved or chopped down.  What was once Methodism has become something wholly different.  Perhaps this new orchard is one of persimmons or crab apples.  I am surprised by the way a pathetic, poorly articulated and distorted Calvinism (dividing the world into the “saved and the fallen” with no hope for transformation or renewal) has replaced the Wesleyan vision of redemption and perfect love.

Even so, I can’t stop kneeling and planting the bulbs — and trees — of the future.  I will still try to take cuttings from the old tree and see if these can be brought to life — and perhaps appreciated by someone 100 years from now.  Maybe I am not among the last apples after all.

My One Question

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

My One Question

What would you ask?  If you could ask only one question of the candidates for the presidency of the United States what would it be? 

Tonight we will see the spectacle of the first presidential debates among the candidates of the Republican Party.  Several television and newspaper pundits are suggesting the questions that “must be asked by” the moderator.  For example, Tom Friedman suggests candidates be asked about an increase in the gasoline tax to pay for our crumbling highway infrastructure.  He notes this is something that Ronald Reagan supported upon his election and might help determine which candidates would be able to lead beyond narrow ideological constraints.  (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/thomas-friedman-my-question-for-the-republican-presidential-debate.html?src=me&_r=0).  Friedman also suggests questions on immigration and carbon tax credits.  Good questions — just not my question.

There is another group called Circle of Protection that would ask the candidates what they would do to end hunger and poverty in our nation.  Several of the candidates, in both parties, have posted video responses to this excellent question (see: circleofprotection.us).  This too is a marvelous question — a truly important question.  The video responses by candidates that have already been made are helpful — revealing of core beliefs.

However, most of the questions suggested by the pundits are designed to elicit a provocative response, something that will pit one candidate against another.  Most of the suggested questions have little to do with policy or vision and much to do with demeaning another candidate.  Clearly, the hope is to start a political food fight!   Most of the suggested quarries by the television talking-heads are designed to generate more heat than light.  These suggestions are a version of the old school yard taunt “Lets you and him fight!”  How interesting that on August 6th, Hiroshima Day, our nation’s attention turns to a forum where many are hoping to see a fight.

My one question would be this: WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? 

It comes from my enduring preoccupation with the Gospel parable we often refer to as the story of the Good Samaritan.  I prefer to call it the Parable of the Unexpected Neighbor.  My preoccupation with this particular parable is shaped by the reading of the social philosopher Ivan Illich.  Illich returns to this story again and again as a theme in his analysis of modern institutions.  He notes our misguided efforts to provide professional solutions to problems that require, first and foremost, a neighborly community and a commitment to common conviviality.

Huntington Library Gardens
Huntington Library Gardens, Image of St. Francis

I believe the story of the Good Samaritan has been domesticated, romanticized and distorted in meaning.  I hold that in answering the question “Who is my neighbor?” one will hear from the respondent the core commitments of that person.  This is a “template narrative.”  It uncovers a human gestalt — points to the baseline of meaning. The answer to this question has shaped the lives of people throughout the ages, from St. Francis to Mother Teresa, from Ghandi to Thomas Merton.

Who is my neighbor?  The answer suggests so much — from a compassion for the stranger, to an openness to the foreigner, and a welcoming of the alien, alternative solutions to vexing problems.  It is a question that allows the responder to share ideas that might give us larger purpose and expanded hope.  Yes, the theme of care for the neighbor challenges our propensity to selfishness, bigotry and violence; I believe it offers us even more, when we grasp the dimensions of how this story and its context might shape our perspectives today.

Ivan Illich was once asked, “Given what you suggest about institutions, what is the best way to make change, violent revolution or gradual reform?” Illich answered, “Neither, the best way to bring change is to give an alternative story.” (in David Cayley’s, The Rivers North of the Future).

Over the next several postings I will expand on the wonder of this parable and the power of the question asked of Jesus by the young man in Luke 10:25-37.  I believe it opens us to a remarkably powerful, alternative story — maybe the most powerful alternative story available to humanity!

My plans this evening do not include watching “the debate.”  There will be plenty more where these came from.  I wonder what questions will be asked.  Were I given just one question, it would be — WHO?  WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Bring Down that Banner — And More

~ philipamerson

Good Riddance to One Symbol

Hurray and Harumph — the Confederate Battle flags are coming down!  It has been marvelous seeing the emergence of a public conscience in South Carolina.  Let the symbol of hatred and racism come down!  Across the South the Confederate Battle Flag is being removed from State House grounds and other public spaces.  Walmart, Amazon and Sears have each said they will no longer sell this symbol of racism and exclusion.   Good riddance, I say.  It is long past time for this emblem of slavery and Jim Crow structures of oppression and injustice to disappear.  Place it in a museum where it belongs.th

Still, I am a little uneasy about my sense of triumph over this matter.  Born as I was just across the river from Kentucky and growing up in an era when “whites only” signs were above water fountains in Louisville, I know that progress has been made with regard to symbols.  I also know that as a “Yankee” (just barely by geography), there is too often a false pride and sense that the problems with racism are only in the south.  I think of the appeal George Wallace had in Michigan when he ran for president or the treatment Dr. King received in Cicero, Illinois.  We northerners too easily believe the problems of racism are located somewhere else.

So, as the Confederate battle flag is coming down in Charleston, I am thinking about those other, less obvious, banners of phony privilege and separation that fly in every corner of our nation.  The removal of the Confederate flag should have happened long ago.  And, the removal of these banners does not begin to compensate for the lives of the nine people who were Murdered at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The nine persons who were assassinated deserve more than this important symbolic gesture.  The millions who have lived with the tyranny of racial discrimination and implicit threat to their well being deserve more.  At this time of repentance and reconciliation, the lowering of symbols of hatred is not enough.  

Bringing down this flag is easy compared with ending the almost limitless access to assault weapons across our land.  How many more gun deaths will it take for us to stop worshiping under the banner of a erroneous interpretation of the second amendment?  When will we take down the banners of the NRA that fly over the heads of our congress and members of our state legislatures?  Those murdered at Mother Emmanuel Church were not only the victims of racial hatred; to some degree their lives were taken by our inability to establish appropriate limits on the availability of weaponry on our streets.  We will never know if more reasonable gun laws might have reduced the dimensions of this tragedy.  Surely, our apparent blindness to the easy access to guns — the tool used in this tragedy — must be considered when we think about the Charleston assassinations.

What other less obvious banners do we fly without thinking of the ways they contribute to injustice?  Who are our friends?  How do we spend our money?  Where do we worship?  How have we benefited from racial privilege… often in ways we do not recognize?  I have mentioned in an earlier post the work of Richard Rothstein (see for example: http://prospect.org/article/making-ferguson-how-decades-hostile-policy-created-powder-keg) and his valuable research on the history of racial privilege in housing.  Often, even the diplomas hanging on our walls are symbols of the ways our educational systems were shaped by racial privilege.

NO, NO, NO, I am not asking you to feel guilty.  I am simply saying that there is no room for false pride as the legislature of South Carolina finally does the right thing.  Instead, this is a time to be grateful for the actions those in South Carolina are taking to remove one symbol AND for us all to consider the ways we, too often, live under the benefits of other less visible flags of privilege.

 

Lessons from the Barber Shop

~ philipamerson

Lessons from the Barber Shop

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One of the challenges of moving to a new community is finding a barber.  For nearly eight years I had been in the hands of Manny, my barber — or his father before him.  I knew about Manny’s family and where they vacationed — and he knew about mine.  In our new home, I discovered yet again that starting over on haircuts can be both a test and a teaching experience.

As my appearance no doubt shows — I have never sought a stylist or looked for any of the extras offered by upscale salons.  Nope, I liked the democratic air of the good ole, two or three chaired, small barber shop.  These are the places where opinions are uncensored even if sometimes overblown.  Here is where you hear the young ones brag and the older fellas complain.  Here I can see my gray hair drop to the floor and watch as it is swept up into a pile along with the darker shades of hair from younger customers. 

I’ve tried nearly half-a-dozen barbers since settling in northern Indiana last summer.  Each one was a teacher, as well as a barber.  This I found true from the tattooed fella who gave a fine haircut, but was so good, that he always had a long line of customers ahead of me, to the old-timer who opined that he had been cutting hair since “Nixon was telling lies in the White House and, that none of those crooks following him there got any better.”  So, in the past year I have experienced a range of clips and snips, views of the news and an open-sourced set of opinions about life, love, politics and religion.

The barber shop is a place to listen in on everyday perspectives on the world.  Of course, these male refuges remain (along with our Sunday morning worship services) among the most racially segregated places in our society.  I like to listen, especially if I can stay anonymous.  I learn a lot, about how some folks are thinking about everything from foreign trade to who’s been arrested and why.  I’ve heard opinions on how to save a marriage and what’s gone wrong with the county fair.  I was able to learn a lot, that is until someone, usually the barber, asked me what I do for a living.  I get some cover by simply saying I am retired… but the questions keep coming and the truth is squeezed, like Brylcreem from a tube, out of me. 

“You’re a preacher, I thought so!” someone says, and with that, I lose the advantage of hearing unvarnished and often quite colorful language about life and the world around.

One of the joys of retirement has been the advantage of not being “on” as a professional Christian.  And, until I was recently “outed” as a retired pastor, I was able to listen in on colorful language and ribald boasting of men in the barbershop of a small rust-belt community of the Midwest. 

I listened to talk about the economy, politics and sex, baseball and hockey, motorcycles, farming, golf and flying model planes.  The talk wasn’t as full of victimization, anger, fear or racism as some of our talk-radio hosts seem to encourage.  Instead, these were folks seeking company, a good laugh or maybe a story to re-tell. 

Talk about the church, before I was outed as a pastor, wasn’t very positive.  The church was seen as a place trying to get your money, to build another building or where a fella would have to work all weekend at a fish fry when he would rather be just fishing.  Honestly, the church was viewed as just another program or another project to be avoided.  Yes, I heard the word “hypocrites” more than once when talk turned to church.

Please don’t misunderstand, while I don’t confuse what happens in a barbershop for important and potentially transformative work of the church, there is a lot that goes on in barbershops that is more honest and helpful than in much of what happens in churches these days.  It is about relationships, first; a story, second; and, some honest talk about the real world, third.   Of course, if we let folks know that church life could be this simple and direct it would put all our church consultants and revitalization specialists out of business.  And, building such relationships wouldn’t cost as much as a shave and a haircut!

It’s as my barber said last week, “You know, most people are hungry for someone just to listen to them.  When I remember that, I am happiest in my job.”  Should I tell the barber he is involved in ministry, or would this spoil it for him?

Bee Cause — To Bee or Not to Bee?

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Bee Cause

“Slowly Learning?” — I scratch my head in wonderment.  Where did I read those words?   I have become aware that some slow learning is what I need at this juncture in life.  How about you?  This is a way we can slow down, be attentive to overlooked dimensions and gain knowledge we otherwise might miss?   Our culture is often better at fast-forgetting than slow learning.  To be labeled a “slow learner” in school is problematic  — it is a stigma, a barrier to future success.  In my search for abundant life, however, I have come to recognize this is a label to which I aspire.

New condos for the hives, just bee-cause.
New condos for the hives, just bee-cause.

I enrolled in a particularly challenging “slow-learning” curriculum this spring.  My teachers, all 14,000+ of them, arrived in late April.  They came in two small packages, 16x8x6 inch boxes with over 7,000 honey bees in each.   I prepared for their arrival by constructing two hives.  One hive was named “BEE WARE” and the other christened “BEE CAUSE.”  The bees arrived on April 21, the day before Earth Day.  At this point my learning curve went up in an almost perpendicular direction.  Can I learn from such a large faculty of over 7,000 in each hive?  I fret.  The weather is cold.  And, then I remember — slow learning may be my best option.

I kept bees before.  My first lessons in beekeeping came when I was in graduate school in Atlanta in the early 1970s.  It was a different time, before we heard of Africanized bees or the threat from a changing climate or the failure that results from an overuse of pesticides.  Having forgotten the little bit I once knew those many decades ago, I began again in the slow-learner class.  After attending the Indiana Bee School in March, I read and watched videos for beginning beekeepers.  It was clear much had changed.  Today bees are increasingly understood as critical, make that essential, to a healthy environment.

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Bee-ing attentive to the lessons at hand.

Upon retiring as a seminary administrator, a friend gave me Bill McKibben’s evocative book Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist.   (I had mentioned to my friend that I might return to bee keeping and he kindly sent me the book.) 

Oil and Honey speaks of the challenge before our civilization as we face the relentless and greedy forces determined to ignore the damage done by our heavily carbon-based economy.  There is an interesting counterbalance between the two commodities.  As oil production soars, honey production is in jeopardy.  McKibben, “an unlikely activist” he says, because his primary identity was as a college professor and United Methodist Sunday School Teacher.  McKibben’s research left him little choice but to do something more dramatic.  He began to organize against the growing overuse and dangerous distribution of petroleum products, especially the development of schemes like the Keystone Pipeline.  There are other things much more important than making profits — one is providing for a sustainable environment.  This is a much more worthy goal.   (These other lessons require a slower leaning.  They can be learned by staying home, listening and learning from the world around.)

Sadly, too many in our nation’s political leadership don’t seem to desire to learn these lessons at all.  Are they moving too fast?  Or, are they blinded by their attachments to wealth and power that actually encourages ignorance and denial?  It is, frankly, amazing that in the face of the dramatic changes in our environment, congress votes over-and-over on bills that deny any environmental changes are occurring.  And, how many absurd television commercials does it require to tell us that BP really cares about the environment or that fracking is a safe way to provide for our insatiable carbon appetites?

McKibben notes there are many ways to address the challenges we face.  One way is through activism — he is the leader of the 350.0rg environmental coalition.  McKibben also notes other ways we can continue to learn and make a difference — by staying at home and doing small things like keeping bees.  He speaks of his friend Kirk, the bee-keeper.  Kirk becomes a counterbalance to McKibben’s admittedly contradictory rushing around from protest to protest in petroleum fueled airplanes.  He notes some need to protest and others need to give primary attention to care for the earth before we lose much more of our environmental carrying capacity.  One small example of this earth care is by beekeeping.

Upon reading Oil and Honey I sent an email to McKibben including this message: “I chuckled when I read of your friend telling you that you were not a ‘mild mannered Methodist Sunday school teacher.’  You have perhaps proven her correct — at least regarding the ‘mild mannered’ part of your self description.  However, you stand high on the list of unlikely activists in my life, among them many great Methodist Sunday school teachers!” 

I mentioned that he would be in my prayers and that I was taking up bee-keeping again on our small acreage in northwest Indiana.  McKibben wrote back this response: “Dear Rev. Amerson–your words made me very happy, and even more so the thought of you donning the beekeeper’s veil again after those decades! all best, Bill.”

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SLOWLY LEARNING — I remember now.  It comes from the last line in the poem “Thirst” by Mary Oliver. 

Thirst

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.

— Mary Oliver, Thirst,
Beacon Press, Boston, 2006

This poem, this prayer, is my prayer during the spring of 2015.  “Love for the earth and love for you [God] is having a long conversation in my heart.”  So, I make this small act of learning from my bees… and perhaps they will give a little something extra in return.

We all can learn, we can move beyond intentional ignorance, we can agree that we can join in slowly learning a new way forward.

Grandsons Colin and Zack Murray get ready to help check on the hives.
Grandsons Colin and Zack Murray get ready to help check on the hives.

Lamp Post Literalists

~ philipamerson

Hands of the Strong: Lamp Post Literalists. 

Amid the twists and turns of everyday life, I have been reflecting on the “recipes for a significant life” offered in our culture these days.  If you are like me, you long for certitude — for the right idea, the perfect politician, the road to true happiness.  And, if you are like me, you are tempted to believe there is a shortcut to such significance and joy.

Such hunger for certainty and clarity is, I have come to believe, the seedbed of fundamentalism.  Before your ask, yes, I believe fundamentalism is a shared human dilemma — make that a shared human flaw.  Fundamentalists can be clothed in many garbs.  Yes, there is “Islamic Fundamentalism” and also “Christian Fundamentalism,” “Jewish Fundamentalism,” “Hindu Fundamentalism,” or, even, “Atheistic Fundamentalism.”  We can too easily, in our search for the simple answer, turn to criticize persons of other faith traditions.  I have come to believe that we must first speak clearly to persons, tempted to fundamentalism, in our own tradition.

William Sloan Coffin, of blessed memory, put it this way: “Some Christians use the scriptures like a drunk uses a lamp post — more for support than for illumination.”  Bill Coffin was at the time pastor of Riverside Church in New York City.  He spoke of the human temptation to selectively use scriptures, or our faith, as a prop for our own shallowness, even our weaknesses.  Coffin suggested that we ALL are tempted to be “selective literalists,” — each of us eager to find the easy way forward, the simple formula, the one confirmation for what we already believe.

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This desire for the one formula, the simple rule, is too much at play in shaping our politics and our religious life.  It is astonishing, for example, that the mission of the United Methodist Church has been diverted, and in my view almost lost, by a focus on homosexuality.  This is based on 5 or 6 verses of scripture that are literally (and in my view wrongly) applied to our day.  How long will our mission and message be held captive to such sad smallness of vision?  In Indiana, we recently saw how this selective literalism of these scriptures was employed to pass legislation that would allow for discrimination against LGBT persons.

In our nation’s life, selective literalistic interpretation of the second amendment to the constitution has led us to a foolish worship of fire arms.  Such interpretations ignore any emphasis on “a well regulated militia.”  The “right to bear arms” is the predicate, not the subject, of this amendment.  As a result of this selective interpretation, we live in a nation where persons too easily trade in guns (even assault weapons) without background checks or any proof of competency.  This flawed literalism has lead to neighborhoods too often like war zones  — places where our children’s lives are under daily threat.

What then shall we do?  Columnist David Brooks’ new book The Road to Character is helpful.  Brooks suggests that the development of character requires humility, discipline, perspective and practice.  He notes that we too easily substitute our narcissistic desires for the gift of mature faith and the richness of the life well-lived.  He speaks of the dangers of smug superficiality — this, too frequently, reinforced by our fundamentalist instincts.  Finding strength and significance in our personal lives and in our national conversation will require a broader imagination and the admitting that we still have things to learn — that we are vulnerable to the siren songs of selfishness and narcissism.

The path to being spiritually healthy people, living emotionally substantial lives and sustaining healthy communities requires something more, something deeper.  Brooks speaks of dimensions of faith beyond our desire for personal validation or easy certainties.  He points to a better way forward offered by thousands, great and small.  He notes that in every community there are persons who are little recognized, yet seem to radiate the gift of faith as they relate to others.  And he notes several of the great thinkers and actors of faith.  Folks like St. Augustine offer a richer way forward, shaped by an understanding that we are all children of God, easily tempted to forget our place and to focus on our selective biases.

In my best moments, I am able to read the scriptures in a more holistic way and see there the deeper trend lines of God’s activity in human history.  There is a larger narrative at play than my self interest.  I see that for faith to be vibrant and meaning-filled will require attention to many dimensions and not my desire to exclude or simplify.  It will require head, heart and hands.  (See the sermon at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SgvnUrT7tk.)

The poet Marianne Moore calls for us to live beyond the “insolence and triviality” around us and to become “literalists of the imagination.”  She suggests that we explore “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”  So speaks the poet — and the columnist — and this pastor who seeks to keep learning.  I too often get focused on the real toads and miss the larger vision of the garden.  You?

Hands of the Strong: Get Off My Shoulders!

Link ~ ~ philipamerson

“Get Off My Shoulders!  There is Work to Be Done.”

Amelia Boynton Robinson, 103, back in Selma with President Obama
Amelia Boynton Robinson, 103, back in Selma with President Obama

No one said it better.  “Get off my shoulders!  There is work to be done.”  Amelia Boynton Robinson was responding to those who sought to honor her by saying they were “standing on her shoulders.”  In March 1965 she nearly lost her life on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.  Severely beaten, unconscious, she was left for dead.  On March 7, 2015, at age 103, this time in a wheel chair and holding the hand of President Obama, she crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

 

“Get off my shoulders” she says, “There is work to be done.”

images-5Work to be done?  In 2015?  Yes, there is.  Don’t we have an African American President?  Isn’t this a Post-Racial society?  Well, yes our president is African American… but NO this is not a post racial society.

Today, less than a week after the remembrance of Selma’s “Bloody Sunday,” we see video of members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the University of Oklahoma singing a song full of racial vitriol and threat.  What is happening?  From Ferguson, Missouri there is the tragic shooting of two police officers at a rally outside the police station.  What is this about?

Yes, Ms. Boynton Robinson, THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE.

Racism continues to plague our society.  There are many causes, many reasons.  Racism remains because some view it too simplistically and some see it as overwhelmingly complex.  Some seem to imply that by simply cleaning up our language and no longer tolerating certain words (or by ending fraternity songs), we will eliminate racism.  I hear former congressman and television personality Joe Scarborough opining that the use of such language wasn’t a part of his experience growing up in the south or attending the University of Alabama.   There was racism around but he seemed to suggest he didn’t participate.  Really?  The implication seems to be that if we would all just clean up our language, we could end racism.  We might eliminate blatant, red-neck racist words but, while laudable, that would not be sufficient.  Language, while important, is one of the least essential elements contributing to the persistence of racism.

Language and behavior are not always aligned.  Prejudice and discrimination can be distinct realms.  Sociologists for decades have shown that what people say and how they act don’t always match.  It is possible for one to have pure language and only noble thoughts (good luck with that) and still act in ways that exclude, belittle and diminish another. 

Racism can also appear to be overwhelming as it is so complex.  Prejudice and discrimination are only two elements in this wicked brew.  There are also deeply embedded institutional and cultural patterns.    We could elect an African American president and still see the dismantling of voters rights in our nation.  This is the other side of our dilemma — we can treat racism as so complex that there is little we individually can do about it.  This is when the words “get off my shoulders” take on special meaning.  We are to keep moving ahead against the forces of injustice, despite the complexities.

For example, how will we now see the situation in Ferguson?  There is absolutely no justification for the shooting of two police officers simply because they are seeking to keep a demonstration peaceful.  My prayers are with those men who were shot — and their families.  It is also my hope that arrests are made soon.  The irony, of course, is that the rally on the evening of March 11, 2015 should have been one of celebration.  The U. S. Justice Department had documented the on-going patterns of discrimination and institutional damages against the black citizen in Ferguson over many years.  Changes were being made, judges and officials are being replaced by persons committed to making change.

And what happens now?  More violence.  This time directed toward the police — police there from other municipalities.  Is this what we have come to?  Are we really so caught up in an eye-for-an-eye sense of justice that anyone could think such a shooting is justified?  Faced with such patterns of revenge, I am astonished that the shooting of these officers in Ferguson did not result in greater violence.  The restraint of the police officials on the scene is, in my view, nothing short of remarkable — and is doubly worthy of praise. 

Now the question my friend — should the protests in Ferguson continue, even after these shootings?  It is not my call.  Others on the scene who are committed to nonviolence need to make this tough decision.  However, if there are citizens who still feel their voices have not been heard, then…  yes, the right to peaceful protest remains essential.  Such are the complexities of dealing with race in our time.  What is on display in Ferguson requires deeper thought and careful study.  The killing of Michael Brown this summer only tore the scab off of a wound that runs decades deep.  I commend to the reader the exceptional research done by Richard Rothstein on housing and job discrimination in St. Louis over the past century. These decades-old practices of racial discrimination helped established the template for the challenges we face today.  What is true of St. Louis is true of every city in our nation.  This report can be found at: http://s3.epi.org/files/2014/making-of-ferguson-final.pdf.

A video interview with Mr. Rothstein can be seen at: http://www.epi.org/event/the-making-of-ferguson-with-sherrilyn-ifill-and-richard-rothstein/

The mystery of why racism persists may lie in our temptation to view it too simply — or to become overwhelmed by the complexities of continuing institutional and cultural realities.  Most of us live our lives in places where we don’t easily see how we can make a difference.  We can be careful in our language and be nice to others but is there more?  We are more comfortable standing on the shoulders of others rather than seeing the work around us to be done.  This work may be as simple as greeting a friend, or as challenging as joining a protest march. 

Many of you make a difference every day, in your places of work or play.  Sometimes it is a smile, sometimes an appreciative or corrective word, sometimes it is making a donation, sometimes it is writing an elected official, sometimes it is joining a project that affirms racial justice.

This past fall a group of friends gathered in Chicago to celebrate my spouse Elaine’s birthday.  I watched and listened remembering the ways Elaine has learned and acted to seek racial justice.  Like Joe Scarborough, she grew up in north Florida.  She too was taught not to say ugly racist words.  However, she looks back with astonishment on the reality of discrimination, segregation and Jim Crow laws in Tallahassee where she grew up.  I have been privileged to watch as Elaine has journeyed ahead in her own ways, seeking to end discrimination and promote racial justice.  Her work over the years as teacher, school board member, advocate for justice and her life as friend to so many signals an abiding witness to the work that still is to be done. 

Recently I was surprised when Elaine said she had arranged to volunteer in a school nearby.  I was proud for her and I also chuckled to myself when thinking about the witness Elaine will be making.    

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Dr. Adrienne Mims and Dr. Elaine Amerson, September 28, 2014.

There is work that we all have to do.  Won’t you join?

Hands of the Strong: The Order of the Teaspoon

Image ~ ~ philipamerson

The Order of the Teaspoon

The 2015 Lenten Season begins.  “From dust you have come and to dust you shall return” are the words we hear as millions of Christians receive the ashes.  They are daubed on our foreheads or hands in the shape of a cross.  Many enter Lent making plans for a specific “Lenten discipline” (something like giving up deserts, increasing prayer time or fasting at least one day a week).  And, with it goes the prayer that we will do better with our Lenten discipline that we did with that New Year’s resolution made just 45 days ago and already broken.

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As we enter Lent, on the first two days, we are met with not one but two major speeches by President Obama.  He speaks on terrorism or as he would have it “violent extremism.”  He says that “we are not at war with Islam; rather we are at war with those who have perverted Islam.”  I agree.  In the background, the chattering classes have been quick to argue that he should use the language of “radical Islam” to talk about the the barbaric, inhumane and extreme actions against innocents by ISIS or ISIL in the Middle East.

I don’t pretend to be a foreign policy expert.  Even so, I remember the mistakes our nation made following the tragedy of 9/11.   In my view we were led into an extended war in Iraq and Afghanistan that was fueled too much by revenge and too little by knowledge.  We allowed understandable but blind retribution propel the U.S.A. into war.  We now can see the terrible price of the last fifteen years in terms of human casualties and wasted treasure.  Some at the time warned of an inevitable “blow-back” that would result.

As we rushed to war I was a part of a minority who felt engaging in Iraq was misguided.  My opposition was in large measure related to the failure to follow the long established ethical guidelines for a just war (proportionality of response, clarity of purpose, authority, prospect for winning, protecting noncombatants).  I remember being invited to speak at a seminar in San Diego on Ash Wednesday in 2002.  Nervous, I was even more on pins and needles when I discovered that the room was full of active and retired military brass.  Still I proceeded to speak about the ethical realities when considering military engagement.

I need not to have worried.  The folks in the room were way ahead of me.  You see, I learned that those who face the reality of warfare are more thoughtful and careful about these matters.  They not only took to my rather tepid presentation on Just War Theory.  They appreciated it.  They also spoke in private conversations about the challenges of fighting our perceived enemies on multiple fronts.  They also spoke of the differences between Sunni and Shiite sects in Islam and of our sloppy language and analysis.  We as a nation were long on emotion and short on facts.

I am not certain we have learned much in the intervening decade.  I have more Muslim friends and have been privileged to know several Imams who encourage their followers in practices that are decidedly open and respectful of persons from other faiths.  Still, in too many ways the current talk of war with ISIS seems strangely like the situation we faced in 2001.

One of the reasons I won’t be using the words “radical Islam” is that many of the people who are encouraging us to do so wouldn’t think of insisting that we speak of “radical Judaism” or “radical Christianity.”  These folks, often encouraged by Christian leaders like Franklin Graham, paint Islam as entirely evil and see us in a great battle of civilizations.  These “Fanatical, Apocalyptic Christians” believe these are the end times.  They suggest that we are facing an inevitable encounter with the evils of Islam.  This is the mirror image of the view of “Fanatical, Apocalyptic Muslims” ready to establish a caliphate.

What do those of us who are not fanatics and do not accept such apocalyptic notions of the future have to bring?  I remember a phone call to an Imam, a man I didn’t know, back in 2002.  “I hear that the children of your mosque are living in fear as they walk to school.  Might we help?”  It was the beginning of a remarkable friendship.

During this Lent, I will give up easy, sloppy language and foolish images about those who differ in their faith.  More I will commit to giving time to study.  Military engagement seems to be inevitable in the Middle East.  I reluctantly understand this.  The Israeli novelist Amos Oz has written a fine essay “How to Cure a Fanatic” (Princeton University Press, 2004).  He writes: “Fanaticism is older than Islam, older than Christianity, older than Judaism, older than any state or any government, or any political system, older than any ideology or faith in the world… Who would have thought that the twentieth century would be immediately followed by the eleventh century?”  (pp. 41-42).  Amos Oz speaks of the value of imagination and humor in the face of such evil.  The volume ends with an interview in which he speaks of the Order of a Teaspoon (pp. 93ff).

Faced with a calamity, say a conflagration, Oz says there are three responses we may have: 1) run away; 2) Get angry, march in protest, blame others and seek to remove leaders from office; or, 3) grab a bucket of water and throw it on the fire.  And if you don’t have a bucket?  Bring a glass of water.  And if you don’t have a glass?  Bring a teaspoon. The fire is huge but we can bring what we can.

Our teaspoons may be the language we select, the prayers we pray, the letters we write, the hands we reach out to greet, the knowledge we seek.

This Lenten season, my discipline will be to bring all of the teaspoons and glasses and buckets I can to put out the flames.  Others may have to fight against evil in far away places; they may sacrifice their lives. 

Remember, “from dust you have come and to dust you shall return.”  It is how you use the spirit-infused life in the here-and-now that is of eternal consequence.  Begin where you are.  Bring your teaspoons full of good will, your imagination and your good humor.  We people of dust will need this and more…

Hands of the Strong: Southern Exposure – People

~ philipamerson

Southern Exposure – People

 A new novel by Harper Lee.  Stunning news.  There she is, pictured on the front page of sections in today’s New York Times and USA Today.  Unbelievably, a previously written novel now has been discovered.  Written before To Kill a Mockingbird, and rumored to have existed for many years, it has been found.  The new novel, titled Go Set a Watchman, will be out in July 2015.  Only recently discovered among other documents, the news story suggests that even Miss Lee did not know this novel still existed.  It was written prior to, and with source material for, To Kill a Mockingbird.

What does this have to do with the Amerson’s 2015 tour through the south?  Well — everything and nothing — I guess.  We were able to visit with many wonderful friends along the way.  I will only mention one by name, Thomas Lane Butts.  Tom lives in a town in southern Alabama, Monroeville.  We stopped for a delightful visit with Hilda and Tom on January 12, 2015.  Monroeville, you puzzle?  Yes, some of you are already making the connection with Miss Harper Lee, she too lives in Monroeville.

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In fact, Dr. Butts and Harper Lee are longtime friends.  For years they would meet for breakfast every Thursday at the Hardees in town.  Harper Lee was known for her reclusive ways but among her most trusted friends are the Butts.  When you visit Monroeville you feel as if you have walked right into the fictional Maycomb County of the novel.

Thomas Lane Butts has been a remarkable friend to Elaine and me over the years.  He has been one of my mentors.  He is a great preacher — to my knowledge no other preacher’s sermons were more often featured on the national radio program The Protestant Hour.  His commitments to the civil rights struggles meant that he often took courageous stands during the early days of his ministry.  As a result was often overlooked, ridiculed and even punished by religious and denominational leaders.  Tom is, for me, a giant.  I chuckle when I say this.  He is great in spirit and in intellect although he is short in physical stature.  I write about him today because he represents so many exceptional southerners we have been privileged to know. 

I knew Tom long before I became president of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and was pleased to discover after my appointment to that post that Tom was a graduate.  In fact, he finished a masters degree in pastoral counseling in Evanston before returning to the south and many years of courageous sacrifice in the service of racial justice.  If you want to hear more of Tom’s remarkable story you can find the sermon he preached at Garrett-Evangelical in the fall of 2013 on the school’s website: (http://www.garrett.edu/gmedia/pdf/communications/Thomas_Lane_Butts_Sermon_Nov_2013.pdf).

The movie Selma was playing as we traveled across the southern states.  We took time to see it one evening along the way.  I was reminded of the many great folks who sought racial justice in the past — and who still act with courage and vision.  On our southern tour we visited so many of them. 

We visited with friends who work at the Open Door community, a ministry modeled in the Catholic Worker tradition that offers shelter and clothing for the homeless and gives witness against the death penalty in Atlanta.  There were university deans providing remarkable leadership and preparing a new generation of community, religious and academic leaders.  There was a bishop who is doing amazing work that opens new vistas for the church in Texas.  We spent time with a medical doctor who is extending the availability of health care to the poor across the southeastern U.S. and a psychiatric social worker who provides creative new ways for mental healing.  There were teachers, preachers, engineers and preschool teachers along the way.  There was the board chair of a Fortune 500 company and a retired school teacher who drives elderly friends to the grocery each week.

“Red State/Blue State” divisions have become a part of our national vocabulary.   We think we can predict how people will behave or think based on where they live.  Of course, we know it isn’t true — but we so easily can divide folks into false dichotomies.  Stereotypes are dangerous things.  We found remarkable people everywhere we went, even in the most out of the way places.  Miss Harper Lee demonstrated this in her writing first published fifty-five years ago.  Do you recall?  I especially remember two quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird — the book we thought would be the only book Harper Lee would publish.  She wrote “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”  And in another place she says, “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

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I started writing this blog wondering if it was something I would want to continue.  Now, I find I am thinking of more posts than I dreamed might be tucked away in the corners of my consciousness.  If you would like to hear more about any items mentioned today, just ask.  Here are some of the other things I plan to write about soon:

  • What Contemporary Atheists Get Right,
  • What We Learn from Bees,
  • The Sermon that Pushed Me Over the Edge,
  • Encouragement Even Helps a Rat!
  • Whining Bishops and Other Oddities,
  • Why I Won’t Plant Rutabagas
  • Racism and Other Modern Mysteries

As you can tell, there will be whimsy and challenge, critique and compliment in the postings ahead.  Perhaps you would like to follow this post regularly?  There is now a “tag” along the right edge allowing you to do this.  Perhaps you will share this with friends.

Just Folks — Phil A

Hands of the Strong: Southern Exposure – Places

~ philipamerson

Southern Exposure – Places

We traveled south in January.  Logical, if you live in the north.  I will not regale you with the details of our seventeen day trip; unfamiliar as I am with social media, I am enough aware to understand this is not a twitter note or Facebook page.

Suffice it to say that we visited the Presidential Museums/Libraries in Georgia, Texas and Arkansas.  Five in all — and more.  Starting with the Carter museum in Atlanta.  We got our “passport” to the “modern” presidential museums, thirteen in all beginning with Herbert Hoover, right through George W. Bush.  Our hope, of course is to visit all thirteen in the next year or so — and, this will prepare us for the Obama Library/Museum we hope will be located in Chicago.

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The presidential museums were fine.  Lots of history — as presented in ways that were generally favorable to the president being honored.  Understandable, of course.  Still, I came away from some of the visits, not all, wondering if there could be any acknowledgement of the mistakes, the shortcomings, the poor decisions of those men — all men at this point.  In fact, I remember leaving one such museum with the feeling that this fella had been dealt an inside straight at birth and lived his whole life thinking he was a great poker player.

Lest I be misunderstood, there were things noteworthy about each of the presidents.  The experience reinforced the sense that we are fortunate — the “American experiment” has continued to provide a remarkable gift to many.  And, it leaves room for us to continually seek improvement!

Among these five libraries – Carter, Bush 41, LBJ, Bush 43 and Clinton, our favorite was the LBJ Library.  One is able to hear tape-recordings of Johnson and many other leaders of his day.  There is no hiding of his greatest failure — the extension of the Vietnam War.  There is also beautiful evidence of his courage and commitments to civil rights and a more just society.  He was a man who knew how to weld power — but who also was able to grow and change.

However, the best of the presidential centers was not in the five we had scheduled.  On the way home from Little Rock to La Porte we decided to stay over in Springfield, Illinois and visit the new Lincoln museum.  It is exceptionally well done.  Don’t miss it. 

In Atlanta we also visited the new Center for Human and Civil Rights.  It too is a spectacular way to spend an afternoon. We were also fortunate to fly out to Scottsdale, AZ for a few days.  Again, we found a museum-you-must-not-miss.  It is the little publicized but increasingly popular Museum of Musical Instruments in Scottsdale.  Not only a remarkable collection of instruments but also forms of music from nations around the world.  You will be amazed and to see/hear everything would take several days.

Museums, Libraries and Centers — all good, some great; however, the real reason for our travels was the people, friends we have known over the years.  Another post will come soon — maybe today — about these people.

This is a rapid overview of our tour.  We got off before the heavy snows came and drove across the south never paying more than $1.90 for a gallon of gasoline.  This in itself was miraculous.  And, we returned just home just in time for the BLIZZARD OF 2015!  Eighteen (18) inches of snow over a two day period in La Porte!  Yes, the new snow blower was great. 

Let me close with this word.  I started writing this blog wondering if it was something I would want to continue.  Now, I find I am thinking of more posts than I dreamed might be tucked away in the corners of my consciousness.  If you would like to hear more about any items mentioned today, just ask.  Here are some of the other things I plan to write about soon:

  • What Contemporary Atheists Get Right,
  • What We Learn from Bees,
  • The Sermon that Pushed Me Over the Edge,
  • Encouragement Even Helps a Rat!
  • Whining Bishops and Other Oddities,
  • Why I Won’t Plant Rutabagas
  • Racism and Other Modern Mysteries

As you can tell, there will be whimsy and challenge, critique and compliment in the postings ahead.  Perhaps you would like to follow this post regularly?  There is now a “tag” along the right edge allowing you to do this.  Perhaps you will share this with friends.  I know that I still owe you a more substantial reflection on the two movies Calvary and The Overnighters.  Soon.

Looking Forward – Phil A