James Cone, Gaye Hudson and Other Difference Makers
I have come to understand that there is a rather simple human choice each of us can make. It is this, will the generosity of a loving God be reflected in our lives?
In the past week two such difference makers for me, died. Their names, James Cone – renown theologian, faculty member at Union Seminary in NYC and author of ground-breaking work on Black and Liberation theologies, and Gaye Hudson – elementary school teacher, musician and supporter/surrogate parent of students at Indiana University both passed away.
Gaye and James were in many ways different, and yet, in essential ways they were similar. It is this — though both of them had reasons to live otherwise — they turned toward hope and healing as they lived their lives.
I remember the joy it was for me when James Cone would visit during my time in the administration at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary or when we were attending various academic meetings together. I would argue that more than any other writer in the last century, James Cone named the racism that constrained and corrupted the church in the United States. James understood the way all of our institutions, including his own alma mater, Garrett-Evangelical, were diminished by the toxins of racial bigotry and discrimination.
Still I knew him as a man of hope and… wait for it… JOY. I can see that smile and loved the ease with which he shared a small laugh, a riddle, a pun, that betrayed an underlying sense of hope. On more than one occasion, he expanded my ability to see past the fear-filled static and toxins of our society. Even when his words began in anger, they found their way to the gift of transformation. John Robert McFarland writes meaningfully and beautifully of memories with his seminary classmate James Cone — the difference maker (see: http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/).
Gaye Hudson was a member of First United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Indiana. This is a church I served as pastor for almost a decade. It was, and is, a congregation filled with remarkable folks — few more remarkable than Gaye. For over thirty years she sang in the choir and for all of this time she was a friend to many. Hundreds of students knew of Gaye’s care while in school. She fed them, provided transportation, encouraged them, attended their recitals and on occasion slipped a little extra cash their way. Some went on to teach; some became opera or recording stars; many were choral conductors, some wrote music and published books — ALL of them were in debt to their “dear friend Gaye.”
Gaye was the choir-mother — caring, challenging, sometimes lovingly disagreeing, anticipating the needs of others, and, yes, difference making. At her funeral service on April 29th, the choir loft was overflowing with her “children.” My, my, the music they made in her memory! I suspect that nowhere in American — or the world for that matter — was music of praise and generosity more gloriously sung than yesterday in that sanctuary.
In a world too full of anger and blame, fear and shame, I give thanks for James Cone and Gaye Hudson, two folks who didn’t know one another, two who knew injustice and burdens, but they knew more, they knew the joy of living with generosity toward others. I give thanks for these two who make a difference in my life.
Who or what will wash away the tears? On April 5th, 1968, I woke up crying. It was a cool morning, sunny as I remember, but a crushing shadow of sadness enveloped our small apartment. I had arrived home from travels late the night before. Stopping for fuel along Interstate 40 near Jackson, Tennessee that evening I was met by an attendant (others pumped gas in those years) who, even before asking whether I wanted “regular” or “high-test,” ebulliently announced, “We finally got the SOB.” I didn’t know what he meant. “Regular,” I remember saying. Later I would think that there was nothing regular about that evening.
Upon leaving the gas station I turned on the radio and heard the horrible news. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered, in Memphis, just a few miles away. The words “We finally got the SOB” were still fresh in my ears on that Friday morning, April 5th, 1968. They continue to echo fifty years later.
I wept on that cool sunny morning. Spring was near but hope seemed to be further away than ever. I was midway through my seminary education having come to understand and believe in Dr. King’s efforts. Professors like Gilbert James and Bob Lyon had challenged me to think more deeply about injustice. And I was reading widely — stretched to think that sin was more than individual and that prejudice was only the window dressing of racism. I was learning that discrimination and systemic injustice were often more difficult to see and much more difficult to address. I had not joined in any marches by then. Reading Dr. King had lead me back to the works of Gandhi, and surprisingly, back to E. Stanly Jones and J. Waskom Pickett out of my own tribe of Methodists.
(I chuckle at the folks who today tell their story of heroism — joining the Freedom Riders and so on. I’m glad, but my memory of those years does not include much heroism on my part.) I did march but it was four days later at Dr. King’s funeral in Atlanta. A few other students from seminary joined a couple of professors in the trip but we couldn’t get near Ebenezer Baptist Church for the funeral.
We did march, in truth it was a procession, continuing for several miles from Auburn Avenue to the Black Colleges in west Atlanta. I recall seeing the mules and a wagon pass. At a distance there was Mrs. King and the children. There was Harry Belafonte and other civil rights leaders: Andrew Young, Hosea Williams and Jesse Jackson. The Kennedys and Nixon, Humphrey and other politicos passed by. More than anything, I remember the press of people and their tears… and songs. Men hanging on telephone polls singing. One fellow, handkerchief in hand, weeping from a perch high up in a tree comes back to memory.
“We Shall Overcome” and “I Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” were the songs. I knew then that tears and these songs would not be enough. Racism was more profound and entrenched than I understood then. My racism. Much as my heart was in the right place, this national sin required more than changing my heart — or the hearts of ten million others. Like so many of my peers in those days I was blind to this pernicious illness that touched every sector of our lives. There were expansive institutional, economic and cultural dimensions of this sin. Shaped by a predominantly white southern Indiana culture, racism was like the water in which a fish swims. It was all around me, in the language spoken and the institutions that would educate and credentialed me and in the church where I prayed.
It was in my senior year of high school that I had first experienced any real racial diversity. No, let me be more specific, it was only then I had my first lasting conversations with black students. It was then I had my first African-American friends. Here were my first arguments, first disagreements with black students, who were also friends. I was growing toward understanding, but slowly. At the time I didn’t know it, but that year was a remarkable gift, a privilege.
My “white privilege” was being unmasked, slowly and sometimes painfully, my layered naiveté about racial relationships was exposed. This unmasking of our nation’s sins continues these fifty years later. Still I live with hope — I have seen some positive changes. I have also witnessed great ugliness that can only be shaped by a nation still laboring to find equality for all.
Six years prior to Dr. King’s assassination, in 1962, the bishop moved my father, a pastor, to Indianapolis to serve a central city church. This meant I would be attending Shortridge High School. Shortridge was at the time among the most racially diverse schools in the state, probably the nation. The African-American students were about half of those enrolled.
Here I met African-American students as smart, and many smarter, than me. I remember another tenor in our choral group who one day said to me, “You have your prophet Billy Graham but we have a King.” He meant it out of kindness and I heard it in confusion. Didn’t we share both? I wondered.
Years and study have followed. I did graduate work looking at how racial attitudes, institutions, and cultures might be changed. Like my tears and songs, the teaching, preaching, writing and sharing I have done over these fifty years have not been enough. Racism still rages like an unchecked fever in our society. I have sometimes thought I should return my diploma to Emory University where I wrote a dissertation titled: “Suburban Churches and White Racism: Strategies for Change.” What more might I have done? Or, perhaps, I should turn in my ordination papers as the church seems as limited in addressing its own racism as ever. There are still too many who would join in saying “We finally got the SOB.” Some days it seems that even those in our nation’s White House live in a world that cannot acknowledge this national sin — and are far from supporting efforts to bring equity.
It is true, tears are not enough. Nor are songs, or sermons, or books. But they are all essential, I have come to discover. These and other artifacts of our learning new ways to live, help us as we work to reshape our communities, our friendships, our churches, our politics.
So there are still tears, and songs, and sermons, and books, and movies, and churches, the institutions we lead and serve, and our mundane daily schedules. All of these are a part of moving beyond our nation’s blindness.
Has shared laughter gone into hiding? Shared laughter has become a stranger to our nation and the church. I miss the merry heart, spoken of in Proverbs 17. Expressions of common joy are secluded, perhaps kidnapped or a part of a gaiety-witness-protection-program buried underground somewhere. Shared laughter, healing laughter, earnest and sustained laughter, seems hard to find.
I still laugh, but too often alone… or with people who think much like me. Such singular pleasure is a place to begin. Small signs of whimsy, mirth and delight are starting places. When I miss those, I quickly get lost in my prejudices and despair. I lose the lightheartedness that can serve as a lubricant to God’s desired wholeheartedness for me. A little laughter keeps my ideological GPS in tune and my prejudice-constructed life-maps from being read upside down. Recently I had a reminder of such a gift.
On a winding road in central Kentucky, the junction ahead at first confused me, then delighted. I could turn left and go NORTH or turn right and go… uh… NORTH. And the path straight ahead (NORTH by the way) was posted with a NO TRESPASSING sign.
If I wished to go NORTH, which way should I go? I laughed out loud. This reminded me of the certainty as to direction I hear from pundits and preachers who speak confidently of the only true way forward — their way. Traveling this day and familiar with this particular road, I knew the path I would take. I wondered about others who followed, who arrive at this junction — first timers.
I believe the certainty, that there is only one way, a best and only road ahead puts the nation, and the church, in hands of humorless demagogues. For our nation such certainty means that every choice is binary with no ability to value and learn from those who have different perspectives or life experiences. Any sense of a commonweal is set aside. In the church such certainty turns the theological task into a marshaling of doctrinaire pronouncements. Instead of theology being “faith in search of understanding” we have one narrow set of understandings setting the limits of our faith. Not much shared joy here. I believe laughter can be medicine for the soul and oxygen for a suffocating nation and church.
On my wall is Wendell Berry’s poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Near the end, he counsels, “Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful even when you have considered all the facts.”
I am asking what has happened to shared laughter — among friends and with those who disagree? I don’t mean the little individual chuckles coming from late-night television parodies or the smile after reading ironic memes about the state of the nation. I mean the sense of well-being that is born of a shared hope beyond our calculations. What I miss is the ability to laugh at ourselves, to visit with others who may hold differing opinions and enjoy each other’s company. It is the joy of discourse and community that is creative and constructive and larger than our personal prejudices and proclivities. Laughter is not sufficient for our salvation but I believe it may be a necessary vestibule to hope and renewal in finding a way forward.
Aimee Laramore writing in the March 7, 2018 blog Voices on Stewardship helps me when she writes, “The great theologian Dave Chappelle introduced a concept that made me laugh out loud when he spoke about imperfect allies. In his most recent special, he offers a poignant description of not understanding some of the differences in societal demographics and ended with his personal truth on the matter. Is it possible in our faith communities to be honest about the things we don’t understand? He repeatedly said, “I don’t want to harm you. I want to support you. I just don’t understand you.” I believe we should do a lot more earnest laughing about our own discomfort about diversity in giving. At the very least, a heartfelt response is authentic.”
Much more shared EARNEST LAUGHING with IMPERFECT ALLIES is called for in the nation and church. In these time of “Fake News,” made-up statistics and certainties that avoid scientific evidence, we might look again to the realism of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. In response to the horrors and potential devastation from threats of fascism he wrote “Laughter is the no-man’s land between cynicism and contrition.” In his Children of Light, Children of Darkness, Niebuhr argues “Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer… Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.”
In an effort to offer something constructive for churches (and our society) I recently wrote a paper on what I see as the mistaken, and humorless efforts to repair the church by implementing certain business practices. This is a well-meaning effort but of little purchase if it simply is composed of one perspective, outside of dialogue with those who view the church differently (see: FruitFixPubShare02-01-18). My long and rather tedious musings needed the benefit of EARNEST LAUGHTER WITH IMPERFECT ALLIES.
I did find a chuckle when I read a quote from St. Louis area United Methodist pastor Diana Kenaston who captured my paper’s conclusions when she wrote:
“So we look at statistics and we call them ‘vital signs.’ We commission a report and draw an electrocardiogram on the front.”
In two sentences, Rev. Kenaston covered what took sixteen pages and forty-nine footnotes for me to say… and this without ever reading my paper! I LAUGHED.
I knew my research paper was insufficient. (Even so, I inflicted it upon many friends and my students.) Reading Diana’s quote helped. However, some other uncommon laughter was needed. Some candor from imperfect allies might help. The ability to learn of my mistaken understandings, and laugh with those who had another view, might help each. Until then I don’t believe much progress is made.
Might I sit with those who disagree and talk, and learn? Might we make a common alliance to agree to disagree? Until then, good as any research might be, it would be of modest value. Yes, I have reached out to my imperfect allies — several times asking to hear from them. Might those who offer their products, known as “fruitful congregation” initiatives be open to dialogue that might lead to understanding? As yet, no response to my multiple requests. Still waiting. Even more, I am eager to experience a little shared laughter.
Until then, or even if such shared conversation never arrives, I am helped by the poetry of the fourteenth-century Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart. He gives me a joy-filled perspective at this junction for our society and church.
He writes:
Do you want to know
what goes on in the core of the Trinity?
I will tell you.
In the core of the Trinity
The Father laughs
and gives birth to the Son.
The Son laughs back at the Father
and gives birth to the Spirit.
The whole Trinity laughs
and gives birth to us.
[Meister Eckhart, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, translation and editor Matthew Fox (Bear and Company: 1983), p. 129.
So, following the murder of seventeen children and teachers in Parkland, Florida, in what has become an all too common strategy, alleged “leaders” like Paul Ryan suggest it is too soon to talk about gun use — including AR-15 style assault weapons. Too soon to talk about how semiautomatic rifles are easier to purchase than hand guns? Too soon to talk as we watch the murders of our nation’s children? Too soon to talk following the murders in Las Vegas? Too soon to talk after worshipers are slaughtered in Southerland Springs, Texas?
Using language about wanting no “knee jerk responses,” and no “jumping to conclusions,” or the need to “get all the facts,” Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and others complicit in these deaths, use the tired old avoidance strategy. They are the ones who help make these battlefield weapons available to brutally slaughter our own children. They need to be asked, every day, when is the time to talk?
Is it today, tomorrow, next week? How about never? Is this what you are saying Mr. Ryan? The American public isn’t jumping to conclusions; rather you are the one jumping over the conclusions that a vast majority of our citizens have already made. It is time, way past the time really, to start every day with the question #TodayMrRyan?
In a nation where far too many “Christians” hide beneath the umbrella of cover-churches and look-the-other-way-religious-leaders who give space for greed, racial bigotry, manufactured cultural divisions and self-centered nationalism, let’s offer a counter narrative. Let’s proclaim messages of transformation and renewal?
In this season let’s encourage one another to think about the issue of wealth and poverty in new ways? The book by Maricio Miller, The Alternative is a place to begin. #WednesdayAshes is a way to share new understandings. If you are in or around central Indiana, folks will be gathering to learn more on February 24th Register here.
What better time to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
We might be clear that the time for repentance and renewal in this nation so full of words designed to divide and demean is at hand. Personally, I am sending my congressional representatives the passage from Isaiah 10:1-2 under the #WednesdayAshes.
10:1 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
It is a short, rather boring, walk from the elevator to our Chicago apartment. Twenty-three paces. We rarely meet anyone in the hallway. Nor is there anything particularly unusual about the tan walls and dark carpet.
It is this very ordinariness that makes what sometimes happens in the hallway so remarkable. The first time it occurred I was rushing to bring in groceries. I noticed the music — “what fine music,” I thought. It was a piano sonata, probably on the radio or a recording. Nice.
Shortly afterward, I heard the music behind the door again. Chopin, I thought… and just then, the piano music abruptly stopped, then began again a few measures earlier.
This wasn’t a recording at all! There was an actual pianist — and a talented one at that — practicing in #1408. It was my special gift, each time I walked past and listened to the artist at practice. I suspect she didn’t know she was gifting me or any of the others of us who passed by.
The Gifts Behind Door #1408
Then one afternoon, a violin was added to the piano. On another occasion there was a flute. Then I noticed a few times when the pianist wasn’t as accomplished.
[I am both slow-witted and a bit dull, you see, because it took me weeks to understand that this was the apartment of a music teacher. Of course, of course, there is a college of music nearby our apartment. Students, with differing skills and who play various instruments were coming for lessons.]
On one occasion, there was such a marvelous combination of violin and piano that I confess I stood in the hallway and luxuriated at the fine, hidden away, performance for several minutes. So exceptional were the musical gifts being practiced behind the door they demanded my slowing down and listening. That is when I first met one of my neighbors. A young woman. We exchanged greetings. She smiled, and stood with me for a moment, listening. “Isn’t this wonderful” she said as she moved on to her apartment.
The doorway to #1408 offers me a valuable lesson in a world chock-full of anonymous, mundane interactions. All around — just on the other side of this anonymity, this troubling news and fear-filled analysis — there is often beauty that I otherwise tend to miss. There is teaching and learning that is going on. There are glorious gifts waiting to be heard, to be seen, to be understood or simply appreciated. Sometimes the gift is offered as a solo, sometimes it is more than one who is sharing.
Then it happened, one afternoon, I met her, the pianist, the teacher.
We were leaving our apartments at the same time. She was almost as I had imagined her to be. Petite, handsome, she was moving carefully to close her door, a violin case in her hand. When I told her how I appreciated the music emanating from her apartment, she seemed surprised, a little worried. “I hope my music isn’t bothering you,” she said. “Bothering?” I reacted. “Not at all! Every time I leave the elevator on the 14th floor, I hope you will be playing. It is the best part of returning.”
I still don’t know her name — this teacher, this beauty maker. That will be remedied one day soon, I will make certain to learn more at the right time. For now, even though we are still moving in anonymous worlds, I receive her gift as a reminder that my senses are often too dull to receive other offerings.
What gifts around us do we miss each day? What gifts might we be sharing that we are unaware of at the time? Where are there human and transcendent notes of joy and hope that are muted by the “normal.”
I find that by passing my neighbor’s apartment, even when there is no music, I am reminded to consider such questions — and I am able to approach my day with an anticipation of the gifts all around that I often otherwise miss.
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(Our primary residence is in Bloomington, Indiana: we also keep an apartment in Chicago. We love both cities and because we have a couple of grandsons in Chicago, well…)
I am not a certified psychologist or psychiatrist — and the world is a better place for that, I am sure. Still, I will put out my analytic shingle today and offer this — the mental derangement we are experiencing is not just that of one lone-killer. We, corporately, too, suffer from what might be diagnosed as a “Lone Killer-Nation syndrome.”
The horrific events in Las Vegas are quickly assigned to one, single person, Stephen Paddock. It is how we have come to think about such tragic events. Here we have fifty-eight persons slaughtered and another 527 injured, many with life-altering physical and mental traumas. Over the past thirty years we have had nearly double the number of mass shootings as the next twenty-four nations in the world combined. (see: US Ranking in Mass Shootings)
We stand ALONE among the nations. Talk about American exceptionalism! Is this to be a sign of our strength and what we model for the world?
Symptoms of our national derangement:
With 5% of the world’s population, we have over 30% of the mass killings by gun violence?
The U.S. experienced mass murders at the rate of more than one per day in 2017 (see for example the Gun Violence Archieve (Gun Violence).
By ever-widening majorities, our citizens want stronger background checks on gun purchases (90%+), especially military style assault weapons (60%+).
However, these desires by the majority are ignored by legislators who believe they owe their election to support from groups like the NRA.
Researchers now find it necessary to distinguish between “mass murders” and “mass shootings.”
Politicians this week, made uncomfortable by this tragedy, say that “this is not an appropriate time to discuss gun violence in our nation.”
Pundit Bill O’Rielly, in the wake of this tragedy, opines that events like those in Las Vegas are the “Price of Freedom.”
As these killings were being planned in Las Vegas, many in congress were putting together legislation that would offer the option of silencers available on all weapons.
Historically, NRA membership and the sale of assault weapons INCREASES following tragedies like the one in Las Vegas. Stock values of companies that make these weapons increase following such tragedies!
We suffer from LONE-NATION mental derangement. For years the NRA, National Rifle Association, has blocked any effort to adopt common-sense gun control laws in the U.S. Laws, like those that have been implemented in places like Australia, demonstrate that a cure to our illness is possible. However, it will be increasingly difficult. At this point, we have more guns than citizens in our nation. Unwilling to control them, we have come to a point where these hundreds of million weapons are pointed directly at us, at our children and the children of every one of us — Republican, Independent or Democrat. There was no discrimination at that concert in Las Vegas — and this is what we are accepting in the future? Talk about CRAZY!
Yes, Stephen Paddock, committed an unimaginable atrocity — a lone gunman. “Las Vegas,” is now added to our internal maps of fear, joining “San Bernadino,” “Orlando,” “Columbine,” “Aurora,” “Newtown,” “Virginia Tech” and dozens of other tragedies.
Stephen Paddock had 23 weapons of war in his hotel room. Another 19 guns were found at his home. This along with thousands of rounds of ammunition. Many of these weapons used by Paddock were purchased at the Guns and Guitars store in Mesquite, Nevada. The store’s manager reported that he followed all of the procedures and background checks required. Really? This is the price of freedom — Really?
No, this is not the price of freedom, it is the cost of our societal derangement.
Almost autumn; rouge-tinged leaves hint that a soon-to-arrive-change is near. Rotund tomatoes have captured a summer filled with both promise and tragedy. It is time… to remember, to move on.
Saturday morning and a visit to our hometown Farmers’ Market. A much-needed respite, today’s early gifts.
Farmers Market, Bloomington, September 16, 2017
Our overripe national drama could cause one to despair, to wonder if a return to normal can be gained, or regained.
From near and far are images of tragedy… a nursing home in Hollywood Hills, Florida, opioid overdoses down the street, a denuded Virgin Island paradise, mud, posturing politicians, mold, South Texas languishing, St. Louis marching in step with decades of accumulated grievance. Politicians preen, speak sly words and pose for photo-op-displays-of-compassion. These televised images vie for attention alongside heartless racist-tinged rhetoric.
Will our national identity be reduced to cheap reality television episodes? Are we prisoners to shallow, disjointed actions and pathetic promises? “Everyone will be happy”!? Is this reality? Fake becomes real, while the real, the true, is declared fake. Don’t lose your balance fellow pilgrims-of-hope.
Even here, especially here, there is truth… there is music, poetry and beauty. So much fine produce at the market, stacked high, even okra (mostly for my spouse) and summers-end sweet corn (mostly for me). The community band plays sweet summers-end music. Abide With Me as it tunes up for the morning. Tune to the “A.” Some things do remind one of stability. Abide…
Sweet corn, ripe tomatoes, sweet music and poetry abide. Justice will prevail. Our belief in respect and decency will survive this cruel passage. It is clear in the acts of human compassion evidenced in the places of unimaginable destruction. From St. Johns, a family shares space under their tarpaulin. One visits a nearby hospital — just a brief word, a smile and a prayer. We applaud as early response teams arrive in Texas and Florida, and ahead of them are thousands-upon-thousands of cleaning kits, (flood buckets), arriving along with a piece of our hearts.
How will we know the way? What direction and pace shall we travel? Poetry directs us beyond the limits of here and now. Friend Walter Wangerin, Jr. calls our name:
The Wanderer*
I am the World-Rim-Walker.
I tread the sheer crags
Where night and daylight
Contour one other.
So we journey ahead as Rim Walkers toward the Eternal. Between the tragedy and treat offered in the daily news cycles and our truest hope found in the dignity of human beings at their best. Here and there… we move forward.
Bloomington Farmers Market
These are our compass points. Smiles and greetings. New friends met and old friends greeted. Fresh eggs, ripe tomatoes, kale and spinach now join honey, music and poetry to point to our pathway ahead. We journey together fellow Rim Walkers.
May your late summer be filled with laughter, joy and the reminders of taken-for-granted beauty all around. Together let us continue to walk in ways that rebut and rebuke the vapid efforts to divert us from the ways of our truest hope.
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*Poem The Wanderer is from “The Absolute, Relatively Inaccessible” by Walter Wangerin, Jr., Eugene, Oregon, Cascade Books, 2017.
One month ago, hurricane Harvey formed over the unusually warm waters of the Atlantic. Hurricane Irma was not far behind. Day by day since, we have been transfixed by images of calamity. First the Caribbean Islands. Then, the Texas Gulf. Then, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina – a full month’s dosage of disaster. Two of the most destructive hurricanes on record hit the United States only days apart.
What does this do to our limbic system, especially the amygdala, the mechanism in our brain that regulates responses to fear? What happens to our moral compass? Our spiritual perspective? These disasters come on top of months of upheaval in our national body-politic.
In my consciousness at least, these tragedies have moved from my thinking “isn’t that sad for those poor folks; I might do something” to “these are my family and friends; I will respond!”
You might consider these hurricanes “slow disasters.” (Hurricane Harvey stayed for days over south Texas. Rainfall was measured in feet, not inches. Irma, moved ever so slowly, eventually covering the entire state of Florida. Painfully slowly tracking up through Georgia and South Carolina, with ripping wind and record flood, and giving Atlanta the first ever “tropical storm” in its history.)
While these disasters seemed unending, they are but a tiny fragment of a much larger, slower disaster that has been unfolding over decades. A few courageous folks spoke of this larger reality, this SLOW DISASTER. As Hurricane Harvey approached his city, Republican Mayor Tomás Regalado said: “This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the [Environmental Protection Agency] and whoever makes decision needs to talk about climate change.” Mayor Regalado told the Miami Herald “This is truly, truly the poster child for what is to come.” (See: Miami Mayor Calls on Honest Climate Change Talk.) Brave man — truth teller he.
Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado in 2014
In contrast, last week EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt opined, “It is very, very insensitive to talk about climate change in the wake of such extreme storms.” Astonishing denial, this.
In the face of such clear evidence regarding the changes that have been slowly underway for decades, Pruitt seeks to somehow blame those who would tell the truth. He continues his assault on those who have been warning of such horrors surrounding the environmental degradation of our common home for decades.
“NO, Secretary Pruitt,” we need to say, “YOUR deceits and those who join you in such chicanery are undermining the future well-being of our grandchildren. You blow and blow and blow your hot air into a continuing SLOW DISASTER.” On the hurricane scale this is a magnitude 5 level storm-of-denial.
Painful as it may be to admit, we need to have the truth spoken, here and now. Calling any talk of climate change now “very insensitive” reminds me of what was said by a few following the slaughter of children at Sandy Hook, when it was suggested that it was an inappropriate time to speak about gun control!
It may be an uncomfortable time to speak — but speak we must. The evidence is abundant. Our climate is changing! We can trust science — our arctic and our glaciers are melting. Seas are warming and rising everywhere, threatening low-lying communities around the globe. While no one can as yet exactly measure how the magnitude of the hurricanes is directly related to human activity, we are shifting more and more from awful storms to catastrophes. As David Leonhardt writes, “Climate change doesn’t seem to increase the frequency of hurricanes, but it does seem to increase their severity” (David Leonhardt, New York Times, 9-12-17).
I remember well the late 1960s when we were told that research wasn’t yet clear enough to link cigarette smoking with cancer. It’s time to work with facts on the ground and in the air. Meanwhile Mr. Pruitt a climate change denier, is pulling the plug on critical research his agency has been carrying out for decades because he doesn’t like the science pointing to a SLOW DISASTER.
Yesterday, in Chicago, skies to the northwest were of a hazy orange hue, as they have been for weeks — this from wildfires in Saskatchewan and Manitoba Provinces in Canada. Smoke dims our skies from over a thousand miles away. And today, from the southeast, circles of clouds are arriving as left over signs from Hurricane Irma. Our global ecology and our local ecology are interrelated. Climate patterns covering thousands of miles these are. And we have before us slow disasters that are decades in the making.
A part of our dilemma in speaking about these tragedies is our cultural propensity to extend too easy blame or to believe in retribution. More astonishing than Secretary Pruitt’s comments were those made by television evangelists like Jim Bakker who suggested that the hurricanes were a part of God’s judgement on our nation. In the process Mr. Bakker was quick to sell survival kits to prepare his viewers for the end times. Yikes — now that is a stretch.
Then there is Rush Limbaugh who decided the increasing severity of hurricanes was simply being fabricated by the media — or by corporate America to sell more products by creating panic among the people. He suggested that the severity of the hurricane hitting Florida was overblown. Tell that to the folks in the Keys, Naples or Jacksonville today, Rush. Of course, Limbaugh managed to fly out of South Florida to safety elsewhere just before the hurricane arrived.
How do these “truthers” prosper? What gives them any agency in our world? Perhaps it is our inability to live with the complexities around the unintended consequences we face. Perhaps it is the hope that we will not be implicated in the creation of these slow disasters or that we can avoid the lifestyle changes that will be required. Perhaps we understand that folks are too easily blamed for things beyond their control. I live in Indiana — a place where tornadoes often occur. I don’t think I cause them. Even so, they seem to be gaining in frequency, size and destructive power. It is not my fault that I choose to live here.
However, each of us has contributed to small changes in climate that aggregate and rebound — an unintended consequence to our society’s lifestyle choices. In places like Houston and Miami, there have been patterns of development or loose zoning practices that clearly contribute to the scale of flooding and hurricane damage. Unwise development and the loss of barrier islands has been going on for decades in Louisiana, Texas and Florida — it has been a SLOW DISASTER.
How then shall we live? Three things have benefited me:
1) I have chosen to change the way I begin each day. It has been good for my limbic system — prayer before work or the news. Instead of beginning each day with the newspaper or some work project, I spend my first moments in prayer, reading scripture and writings from other religious traditions.
It helps. Here are some examples:
From Buddhist writings I found, “Teach this triple truth to all: a generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
From the New Testament, Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
From the Prayer for Patient Trust by Teilhard de Chardain: Above all trust in the slow work of God.
2) Seek to be better educated and work with others on addressing climate change at your local level. For me this has meant working with the Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light(www.hoosieripl.org) group in Indiana and the Creation Care Alliance among United Methodists (http://www.inumc.org/creationcare).
3) Support groups that work nationally and internationally to address the reality we face with the SLOW DISASTERS surrounding climate change.
So, in the face of denial and systems of blame, there are ways to work with a quiet and joyful heart to seek to join with others in “the slow work of God.”
Many of you have been doing this for a long time — I learn from you — together let’s do what we can to turn SLOW DISASTERS into MOVEMENT FOR STEADY RENEWAL IN HOPE.
Our pugilistic president has once more sought to bully his way past the moral and legal heritage we together claim as a nation. Much has already been said about his pathetic performance in Trump Tower on Tuesday, 8-15-17. He spoke his mind. In the process truth, his presidency and our nation’s standing in the world were diminished. It was a shameful moment that will, I suspect, become a central moment identified as the end any prospect to provide ethical leadership.
Increasingly, however, my concern is not primarily about Mr. Trump’s bigotry and failings. He is clearly not up to the job, intellectually or morally. His ignorance and intolerance are, sadly, no longer astonishing. My concern is now with those folks who continue to stand behind him.
It was rather graphically portrayed on Tuesday. There, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York were several Cabinet Secretaries standing behind as he spoke — each one of whom would be on the enemies list of the hate groups marching in Charlottesville.
The question before us all now is where do we stand? Political leaders — Republican, Democrat and Independent — have spoken out against the moral equivalency arguments misused by the president yesterday. However, this still begs the question about WHERE THEY WILL STAND GOING FORWARD?
White House “leaders” playing Musical Chairs — Who will be left? Photo by USA Today, February 17, 2017
We watch as one by one, folks leave their posts in the White House. Increasingly, many of these folks, fine people they, leave this administration with their reputations in tatters. They have, as the old joke goes, “Tried to teach a pig to sing.” The futility of this effort is identified as follows, “it only wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” As we have already seen there is a pathetic kind of musical chairs being played out in an administration that has no guiding set of principles other than the hope of returning us to a world that never existed — to the mythical land of “Make America Great Again.”
Romans 12:21 commends the faithful as follows: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” How then shall we live?
Is Mr. Trump redeemable? Yes, of course, as a person. I am a Christian pastor, after all, and I do believe in conversion. However, there is another question which we must consider: “Is this presidency redeemable?” To that I would answer “NO.” We have now passed the point of no-return for this administration. I speak for myself, and I regret to say, I suspect this is now the sentiment of a majority of others in our nation.
What then to do? Yes, you guessed it — we begin with ourselves — let’s start there. If we are not going to stand behind this fatally flawed president what will we do?
Years ago there was an Open Housing campaign that ran ads in national newspapers with the headline “Your Heart May Be in the Right Place But Are You?” As I suggested earlier this week on this blog, we need to reach across the many divides in our society (there are more than two, Mr. President) and build and rebuild what Dr. King called the Beloved Community.
(I am avoiding the question of what wasn’t done that allowed us to get to this place. I look around my denomination — United Methodism — and see our failures. We were so busy trying to grow our congregations that we missed what was happening in our communities. We allowed racist perceptions, fears of the undocumented and discrimination against gay persons to distort our Christian witness. We sought to “grow” our congregations by filling them up with people like ourselves.)
We need to be honest about the ways economic exclusion and racism have denied opportunities and allowed our nation to value crony capitalism and violence as our tools of choice when facing complex problems. For those of us who are perceived to be “white” and have thereby benefited from this underlying racial advantage, we need to rethink how we spend our time and resources. We may need to rethink our paternalistic styles of “helping the poor” as these often do more damage than good.
And, yes, we must support corporate, civic and political leaders who will no longer stand behind this president’s misguided set of words and actions.
We saw some corporate leaders take that step away in recent days, leaving the president’s manufacturing council. In every place now possible, I am prepared to argue that folks need to step away. Find a political leader who has a clear moral compass. Encourage and support him or her.
Send words of support to those corporate and political leaders who do step away and say, “Thank you for modeling true patriotism and the best of our citizenship by no longer following this misguided, confused man.” I believe our democracy is up to it. I pray our democracy is up to it.
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Post Script — Why My Strong Words:
I have wondered if I should respond to the president’s words yesterday. After all, I don’t have much in the way of authority or agency. My words might only do damage or cause pain… perhaps even be painful to persons I love and respect. However, I haven’t exactly been a wilting violet in the past — and, there is a sense that each one of us needs to now join in seeking to be a bit more bold and honest if we are to seek a peaceful and healthy nation and world. I also decided to write after seeing the video attached below. It is chilling to see the intentions of hatred from the inside white supremacists. So, I have added my small voice — more, I pledge my actions on the behalf of reconciliation and stronger communities.
Perhaps Mr. Trump mistakes loud verbal fisticuffs with moral strength. Sad. He stepped off script and spoken his mind yesterday. Among the many utterly foolish things said a the press conference in Trump Tower yesterday (8-15-17) were these words: “I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story.” No, Mr. President, you are wrong. There are many sides.
As persons from MANY sides are saying today, there is no moral equivalency between Neo-Nazis, KKK and other supremacists with those who were counter protesters. The president says he took time to gather the evidence before he spoke. Really? Has this been our experience over the months of this twitter presidency? I wonder if he took the time to see the images in the video on White supremacists on Vice News video on HBO. This remarkable coverage, from inside the hate group, gives a clear picture of the violence intended leading to the tragic events. Surely Mr. Trump could and should have this information — AND MORE. He is, after all, the president of the United States.
There are multiple sides to our nation’s story. Perhaps Mr. Trump is only able to work in a binary world of either this / or that. However, this is a nation that continues to benefit when our leaders have a moral center and when they seek to unify rather than divide.
Some have recently suggested to me that I should be equally concerned about the hatred and violence expressed by groups on the left. All such hatred and violence must stop — I am concerned, yes, but not equally. The reality is that the actual criminality, on the streets, is not comparable in threat or in our response to it. White supremacists represent more than 90% of the violence visited on us by terrorists-made-in-America in recent years. Most tragically, these supremacist groups have been validated and sustained by the beliefs and actions of staff persons currently serving on the White House. When David Duke praises the courage of Donald Trump for his words yesterday, there is no clearer witness needed to the danger that is at hand.
I still laugh, but too often alone… or with people who think much like me. Such singular pleasure is a 
They are the ones who help make these battlefield weapons available to brutally slaughter our own children. They need to be asked, every day, when is the time to talk?
We suffer from LONE-NATION mental derangement. 
Hands of the Strong 