Signs of the Times

16 April 2015  •  No. 18

¶ Invocation. “Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes….” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

¶ In memoriam. Award-winning journalist and author Eduardo Galeano died this week at his home in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was best known for his critique of colonialism, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, which was banned for years by military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, which arrested and exiled him in 1973.

9 April 2015  • No. 17

¶ Invocation. “ Love is / The funeral pyre / Where I have laid my living body. / All the false notions of myself / That once caused fear, pain, / Have turned to ash / As I neared God.” —Hãfez, 14th century Persian poet whose work is regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature

¶ A novice once came to Abba Macarius in the monastery at Scete, eager to excel quickly in his quest for holiness. “I’ve got three days to spend here,” he said. “I want to learn how to be a Desert Father just like you.” The abbot’s amused response was to send him to a nearby cemetery, instructing him to make all manner of accusations against those buried there. Though confused by the instruction, the novice complied.
        The next day the abbot issued an even more unusual assignment to the novice. This time, he instructed the novice, go to the cemetery and utter the most profound praises to those buried in these same graves. The novice dutifully complied. But at the end of the day he reported back that not a single one among the dead had replied either to curses or praises.
        Macarius responded, saying that they must be holy people indeed. “You insulted them and they did not answer; you applauded them and they said nothing. Go and do likewise.” —cited in Belden Lane’s “Backpacking with the Saints”

3 April 2015  •  No. 16
Good Friday  •  Pesach

¶ Invocation. “Nothing can trouble, nothing can frighten. / Those who seek God shall never go wanting. / God alone fills us.” —Listen to the Taizé chant “Nada Te Turbe,” based on the mystical writing of the Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Avila (aka Teresa of Jesus). This past week marked the 500th anniversary of her birth. Teresa was canonized 40 years after her death and, together, with Catherine of Siena, was declared a “Doctor of the Church” by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

¶ Hopeful news. Some 40 faith leaders across the width of Christian denominational lines have published a Holy Week letter calling for an abolition of the death penalty in the United States.
        “We urge governors, prosecutors, judges and anyone entrusted with power to do all that they can to end a practice that diminishes our humanity and contributes to a culture of violence and retribution without restoration,” the group said in a statement released the week Christians around the world commemorate the suffering and execution of Jesus leading up to Easter.
        “We especially ask public officials who are Christian to join us in the solidarity of prayer this week as we meditate on the wounds of injustice that sicken our society,” the statement said.

26 March 2015  •  No. 15

¶ Invocation. It’s not the Muslim, not the Jew, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. —old spiritual, new verse

¶ Amazing. Renewable energy sources “now generate nearly half of Nicaragua's electricity, a figure that government officials predict could rise to 80 percent within a few years. That compares to just 13 percent in the United States. . . . There is so much untapped energy in Nicaragua that it's planning to export electricity to its Central American neighbors.” —John Otis, "Nicaragua's Renewable Energy Revolution Picks Up Steam”

19 March 2015  •  No. 14

¶ Invocation. “Why, when God's world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?” —Rumi

¶ Remarkable news. “South Africa may be one of just 10 countries in the world to permit same-sex marriage—not to mention the only country in Africa—but it is also a place where the assault, rape and murder of lesbians remains a troublingly common issue. At the same time, however, a brave effort is taking shape to counter this hatred and violence. Among the groups leading the charge is Luleki Sizwe, founded in 2005 by Ndumie Funda. The group’s main objective is to put an end to corrective rape—a phenomenon where men rape lesbian women with the belief that it will somehow correct them of their sexuality.” —Ray Mwareya-Mhondera, “South Africa’s brave struggle against lesbian hate crimes”

12 March 2015 • No. 13

¶ Invocation. “Be humble for you are made of earth.” —Serbian proverb

¶ Southern Appalachian mountaintops are now a bit safer. “After five years of action by Earth Quaker Action Team, PNC Bank announced a shift in its policy on March 2 that will effectively cease its financing of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.
        “This marks a major turnaround for the nation’s seventh largest bank, which for years refused to budge on this issue. After more than 125 actions, their desire to continue business as usual proved no match for Earth Quaker Action Team, or EQAT, and our allies.
        “As more and more banks stop financing mountaintop removal, we expect the coal companies to have more trouble over the next few years securing financing for extreme extraction.” —“How a small Quaker group forced PNC Bank to stop financing mountaintop removal,” George Lakey

5 March 2015 • No. 12

¶ Invocation. “It happens often among us that praise is either escapist fantasy, or it is a bland affirmation of the status quo. In fact, doxology is a darling political, polemical act that serves to dismiss certain loyalties and to embrace and legitimate other loyalties.” —Walter Brueggemann (See Ken Sehested’s “The Work of Praise”  posted on this site.)

¶ Not just a pretty face. National Geographic researchers say in 1996 there were one billion monarch butterflies making their annual trek from the US to wintering grounds in Mexico. By 2004 that number was cut in half. Now the estimate of surviving Lepidoptera is about 33 million. In mid-February the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $3.2 million grant to conversation efforts. This week the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the US Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to get stronger restrictions on the chemical glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

¶ Radio for great music and greater stories. If you’ve never caught an "eTown"  radio broadcast, look for it (or listen to past programs on your computer). Begun 24 years ago by Nick and Helen Forster, the weekly program has a lineup of live music—and each week they give an eChievement award (nominations come from listeners) to someone making positive social change in their community, with a 6-7 minutes live or telephone interview with each week’s recipient each week. These are the kinds of small, courageous stories from which large movements begin.

¶ Lenten invocation. “I am the vessel. The draught is God’s. And God is the thirsty one.” — former United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld in Markings, his personal journal, posthumously published, now considered a classic of spiritual devotion

¶ Oscar good news. Citizenfour, the film chronicling the decision made by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose wrongdoing to the world by leaking details of the agency's top-secret global surveillance operation to journalists, was awarded the Best Documentary Film award at Sunday night's Academy Award. "The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don't only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself," said Laura Poitras, the film’s director.

¶ In case this question ever crossed your mind, the US government has 17 different intelligence agencies. Here’s the annotated listing.

¶ Invocation. Hearts open to Thy Face, like the flower to the sun / Hearts open to Thy Face, come and trace / The tears that stain our face, the joy that shall displace / All sorrow by thy grace, mercy bound, mercy bound / All sorrow by thy grace, circle ‘round. —new verse to “What Wondrous Love Is This"

Artwork at right ©Julie Lonneman, used with permission.

¶ One of the young people in our congregation is spending her junior year of high school as a foreign exchange student in Oman, located on the Arabian Peninsula’s southeast corner. Her blog posts have been remarkable, but a recent one is the most articulate statements I’ve seen on the struggle for intercultural understanding. She’s given me permission to share the link for that commentary.

¶ Confession. “In an unusually frank admission, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said that American law enforcement stands ‘at a crossroads,’ acknowledging in a speech at Georgetown University that ‘There is a disconnect between police and the communities they serve. . . . All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that our history is not pretty.’” —USAToday

¶ Like good cholesterol, there’s good socialism. The first bill approved (overwhelmingly so) by the new 114th Congress renewed a federal program providing supplemental insurance covering acts of terrorism. First approved after the 11 September 2001 terrorists attacks, the current renewal will double (over a course of five years) the previous $100 million threshold.

¶ Americans Who Tell the Truth is a website that celebrates passionate folks who give a damn about justice. This link takes you directly to the portraits page. There you’ll find paintings and profiles of dozens of US citizens—some famous, some not so much—who have impacted our culture in profound ways.
        The group includes James Douglass, whose book The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace (1968, reprinted in 2006) was my first introduction to a theology (not just a practice) rooted in nonviolence.

¶ “When NCLB (No Child Left Behind, federal legislation approved in 2001 setting measurable public education goals) first came out I thought it was a good idea. Higher standards? Accountability? NCLB sounds great on paper. But in practice? It’s a disaster.” So says Matt Buys, a friend serving on our city’s school board, in an opinion piece in our local paper.
        “I had two kids in schools when NCLB was put in place and immediately I saw my children go from loving knowledge, being naturally curious and telling me about their day at school to—and I wish I were exaggerating—lying on the couch exhausted because they had spent the day testing. . . . Creating wonder and awe, thereby inspiring creativity and a love of learning, is the most important things a teacher can do for your child.”
        In that same edition of our Sunday paper was a front page story of Dwight Mullen, political science professor at a local university, who specializes in analyzing educational disparity along racial lines. One of a score of indicators: 69% of black students nationally graduated from high school in 2012, while the rate for white students was 86%. As Dan Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators told National Public Radio in 2011, "The correlation between student achievement and Zip code is 100 percent. The quality of education you receive is entirely predictable based on where you live."
        Such statistical indicators of structural discrimination—and there are dozens in every conceivable measure of health and well-being in the US—suggest only two ways to interpret the disparities: Either African Americans (and other people of color, generally, and of low income, broadly) are cognitively deficient, morally lax or character defective. Or the deck is stacked against them. Attention to these and similar realities—with head, heart, hands and feet—is the sine qua non of biblical faith.