On maintaining the heart’s composure amid electoral mania
Ken Sehested
There is a certain pathology in our current season,
electoral follies punctuated by fresh tales of human
fury and nature’s duress—the combination exaggerated
if not unique. All the more reason to be reminded:
There is a life beneath, above, on the other side of this
present madness, a brightness excelling all expectation,
but not necessarily the one imagined, a surprise ending
beyond the sadness, a gladness for which we can only
wait in vigilant stillness—stillness, not inertia—where
the stilling is an ascetic centering and concentration
of the heart’s innermost desire reaching past the
boundaries of skin and kin, beyond stingy
care-fullness to generous care-lessness, where hope
eclipses fear’s gravitational pull, freeing hands to
practice the things that make for peace, releasing feet
to comport the good news of earth’s impending
reclamation and renewal. Despite much evidence,
those with eyes on the prize of a different, deeper
calling arise to confess that terror’s bedeviling will
not last. Creation’s aria and Redemption’s descant
may yet be heard above the dissonance, bolstered by
a chorus of witnesses, some as recent as yesterday,
sometimes even the stones themselves, in simple
melodies and complex harmonies. God’s orchestration
is not yet done. The finale is assured. Those with ears
to hear, persevere. Adagio. Be still. Hysteria’s reign is
in recession. Hilaria’s days of rejoicing approach. Maranatha. Come quickly!
I was a stranger in a strange land, having left behind a Baylor University football scholarship for the alluring but intimidating environs of New York University’s Greenwich Village campus in Manhattan. I was so over being who I was, so eager for, if frightened by, what was to come. Odd that it was there, so far from home, that I should encounter the iconoclastic voice of a fellow Baptist-flavored Southerner whose testimony would come to profoundly impact the tenor of my own.
“Here’s somebody you should know about,” said Dr. Carse, my religion department mentor, as he tossed an open copy of Newsweek magazine across his desk. The upturned page contained a one-column profile of self-styled bootleg preacher, Rev. Will Campbell.
I quickly scanned the article through to the final paragraph which nearly jumped off the page, ending with a quote from Will: “Jesus is Lord, goddamnit!”
Will’s name may not be widely known, but his presence was deeply felt, and in the oddest assortment of circles, including Civil Rights activists, literary illuminati, death penalty opponents and the patrons of Gass’s honkytonk near Will’s home in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
Will and his wife Brenda took my wife and me there for a catfish sandwich one weekend when we were guests. As soon as we ordered dinner Will got up and began to make the rounds of people he knew at several other tables, standing and chatting, occasionally pulling up a chair for longer conversation.
“He’s doing his pastoral visitations,” Brenda said, with a smirky smile. The local band that evening invited “Bro. Will” to join them as guest soloist for their last song before intermission, and Will obligingly belted out that country favorite, “Red Necks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer.”
That’s one of the important lessons he taught me: that you might be a redneck if white liberals got rich making fun of you. The other really important lesson, from my earlier, first visit with him, newly-minted Master of Divinity from northern, liberal Union Seminary that I was: “Don’t confuse your job with your vocation.”
Prior to that initial in-person visit, Will gave me one of the most significant blessings a young writer could receive.
I had written a few book reviews for a Baptist publication, one of them of Brother to a Dragonfly. A few weeks after its publication, to my great astonishment, I got a letter from Will, typed on what was obviously an ancient manual typewriter. It was a thank you note.
“. . . At first I resolved that I would not read reviews,” he wrote. “Being fully human, fully sinner, when they began telling me that the reviews were favorable, I broke that resolution. ‘But, by god,’ I said, ‘I won’t be stupid enough to respond to any of them.’ Now I am breaking that resolution, though I believe for the very first time. “
“I break it for a number of reasons. I could say that I respond because you obviously understood what the book is about, and that was not the case with all reviewers. . . . But I am sure that the real reason is because of who you are—yes, ‘FAMILY.’ I am no longer a Southern Baptist preacher. But I will be, for so long as I live, a Baptist preacher of the South. There is a difference. . . .”
He went on to talk about his identity with our early Baptist forebears—before, as he wrote, “we went to Baal-Peor and became like the things we detested” (referencing Hosea 9:10), especially on the Anabaptist side. By that time he was fully exiled from every Baptist institution (indeed just about every Christian institution).
Then he closed by saying, “I am grateful to you for pasting a small snapshot [of me] in the back of the family album.”
About 15 years later, after speaking to a Baptist Peace Fellowship summer conference, he wrote again (and returned an honorarium check I’d sent), this time one hand-written sentence saying, “They’re ain’t enough of us to take money from one another.”
Campbell’s eccentricities are legendary. A small town Mississippi native, at age 17 he was ordained to the ministry by a Southern Baptist church in 1940, his Brother to a Dragonfly memoir (which reads like a novel) won in 1977 the Lillian Smith Prize in fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He would later be the only white person in attendance at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (through which Martin Luther King Jr. would galvanize much of the modern Civil Rights Movement’s history) and be the only white allowed in the mourning circle outside Dr. King’s Lorraine Motel room in Memphis following the assassination that set numerous US cities ablaze in despair.
In a high profile debate at a university over the question of capital punishment, Campbell took to the podium—after his debate partner’s learned, lengthy defense of the practice—to utter a one-sentence response: “I just think it’s [capital punishment] tacky.” Then he sat down.
Will received death threats for his outspoken opposition to segregation when he served as chaplain of the University of Mississippi; he accompanied African American children attempting to integrate a Little Rock, Ark., school; he counseled Nashville students—including telling them they could be killed, which they nearly were—as they planned to pick up the Freedom Ride which had been disrupted by a Birmingham, Ala., mob attack. Yet he carried out pastoral ministry to infamous Ku Klux Klan leaders, infuriating closest allies by insisting that “if you’re gonna love one, you gotta love ‘em all.”
Will knew that red necks were the mark of white tenant farmers and laborers who knew nothing of the wealth accumulated by the nation’s (and not just the South’s) moneyed elites.*
Personally, I suspect Will would be privately pleased and vocally horrified that the New York Times assigned a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to write his obituary. I have witnessed a few moments when recognition—a feeling of being welcomed and celebrated by kindred—was an experience of surprised delight that showed in his face. None of us can be exiles everywhere and all the time. Yet he constantly ridiculed notoriety of every sort, savaged institutions of every cut and cloth, and few riled him more than fawning fans.
He was, as John Leonard wrote so long ago in his New York Times review of Brother to a Dragonfly, “a brave man who doesn’t like to talk about it. . . .” Similarly, Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the Civil Rights Movement era, tweeted on the news of Will’s passing, “He never received the recognition he truly deserved.”
Hearing such, I can imagine Will pausing his heavenly choir rehearsal of “Red Necks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer” long enough to grouse, “Yes, John, that’s just the point. Mr. Jesus didn’t say ‘blessed are you who find fame for your trouble.’
Trouble? What trouble?
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* Another account of where the word “redneck” comes from is the “Battle of Blair Mountain,” an August 1921 violent confrontation between coal miners in West Virginia and a paramilitary force assembled by a mining company. The miners wore red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves. For more see “The Battle of Blair Mountain,” Evan Andrews, History
Lent’s emphasis on ascetic practices—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—is not an obligatory gauntlet of self-abuse, designed to curry favor with the Beloved. These practices, rather, are illustrative means (there are many others) by which we can check personal and communal appetites, which so easily get out of control and function as illusions for what leads to the flourishing life intended from the Beginning. Of course, these aren’t limited-time-only practices; but during Lent the community of the Way devotes special attention to their observances.
A modern illustration: Some newer autos are equipped with a GPS-guided feature that sets off an audible alarm when it detects the car’s drift out of its lane of traffic. This is Lent’s training purpose for deepening life in the Spirit.
During Lent we are called on to do two things which seem at odds with each other. First, that we give focused attention to the world’s bursting seams and frayed conditions are resulting in repressive injury and mortal wounds.
On the other hand, we are also urged to resist the temptation to despair over the frightful state of the world’s condition.
The common assumption about hope is of the sort articulated by Countess Violet Crawley (played by Maggie Smith) on PBS’s “Downton Abbey” series when she said: “Hope is a tease designed to keep us from accepting reality.” Hope as fantasy, as magical thinking, as fluffy sentiment, as delusion.
In her extraordinary book, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, WildPossibilities, Rebecca Solnit writes:
“It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings. . . .”
Hear now these supplications and injunctions.
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A supplication for Ash Wednesday
Return to your heart, O you transgressors, and hold fast to the One who made you. Stand with the Beloved and your footing shall be firm. Rest in the Merciful One and you shalt be buoyed.
Where do you go along these rugged paths, pilgrim, so far from home yet so winsomely loved? Be clear about what you seek, and where you seek, for the beatific life cannot be found in the land of illusion.
But do not despair, for life is stirring in cracks and clefts and barren terrain. Train your eyes to see through the tangle of disordered desire.
Resist, even to death, that which bedevils the common good. Welcome and foster all that shields the battered, that restores harrowed fields and forests, that reclaims despoiled waters and all creatures great and small.
In these lie your spiritual duty: the performance of your praise and the practice of your baptismal vows. By such does your heart’s delight align with your hand’s valor.
Thereby you shall you go out in peace and be led back in joy, the hills bursting in song, the trees in applause.
(borrowing from St. Augustine and Isaiah 55:12)
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Admonitions for Lent
First Sunday
Kindred, lend your ears, set your sights, awaken your hearts! Lent’s rending work has begun. Your veiled life is destined for the Spirit’s tearing. Not for your woe, but for your weal; not for your injury, but for your delivery. The discomfort caused by Lent’s disciplines— prayer, fasting, almsgiving—is like that of the soil’s disturbance, the necessary rupture as preparation for receiving the seed. Trek with Jesus into the wilderness of risky provision. Venture into the wilderness of your own heart and habitation, where demons are wrestled and angels attend. Sustenance for this perilous journey entails a departing blessing. As you enter this feral landscape, hear Heaven’s assurance—as did Jesus, in Jordan’s penitential wake that you are beloved.
Second Sunday
Kindred, rouse from your slumber and sleepy-eyed repose! Awaken to Lent’s invitation to the storm’s squall and the desert’s besetting threat. Here, where desolation banishes distraction, set your face against the Tempter’s bargain and Mammon’s rule. Your detox recovery awaits, with the rough work of separation from addictive illusion and assumptions of privilege. Here the veil of self-sufficiency is lifted, eyes regain their focus, and the heart’s fibrillation realigns with the Beloved’s desire. Here begins the work repairing the rift between Earth’s agony and Heaven’s delight. Mind not the brow’s sweat, the hands’ callous, the arms’ ache, the legs’ fatigue. Treasure awaits.
Third Sunday
Kindred, Lent’s invitation is to move beyond prudence and discretion to a life on back roads, across furrowed fields and through tangled forests, at the summons of an eccentric vagabond like Jesus, escort on the migration out of slavery, hastening under cover of darkness with nothing but the stars as compass, uncertain provisions, no cushy pillow for to lay your head, knowing there are bloodhounds tracking your scent and rough men on your trail, destination uncertain, caution to the wind and risks galore, with only the whiff of freedom to assuage muscle ache, parched throat, and bloodied feet. Lift the veil on every sin-sick soul to the Light of God’s healing countenance.
Fourth Sunday
Kindred, Brazilian theologian Odja Barros, when asked to speak of where she saw God at work in the world, said instead: ““I confess that the first thing that comes to mind is to say where I see God’s absence,” detailing a few of those places, where the landscape is afflicted. Deus absconditus. “The hidden God.” Or, more literally (and more shockingly), the “absconding God.” “Truly, you are a hidden God” (45:15), Isaiah complained. “Why have you forsaken me,” cries the psalmist (22:1) and, later, at the last, cried Jesus (Matt. 27:46). Is this daring act of interrogating the Most High too impertinent to consider? Imagine instead if God could be contained by human forecast, held in check by creedal rigor, ritual purity, devotional sanctity, or moral precision. Thereby, as many prefer, God Becomes a mascot, a butler, an amulet—ornamentation to disguise blood lust. In the end, our Lenten prayer concludes, “Abba, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Fifth Sunday
Kindred, in our secret prayers we demand to know: Why, Beloved, have you led us from the prosperous land of shopping and homeland security to this discomforting and inconvenient place where death’s scent is strong and life’s failures are on display? Know this, pilgrim: Lent’s labor may be disconcerting but it is never demeaning. The relinquishment God asks of us—the desert into which Jesus guides us—is not a kind of spiritual immolation. Nor is the bent-kneed posture of Lent a form of groveling, as a beggar to a patron. The flame of the Spirit’s igniting presence does not scorch us. It makes us radiant. The ascetic practices of spiritual discipline are training for life unleashed from our shriveled little egos. The fruition of Lent’s labor has less to do with what you give up than with what you take up. May the promise of the season’s eventual delight be sufficient to endure its demands.
Sixth Sunday
Kindred, we stand on the cusp of Jesus’ final confrontation with Rome’s rulers and temple bouncers. We ourselves wish getting right with God were a more civil, emotionally satisfying affair. Instead, Lent beckons us to peer into the face of history’s tragedies, including those in our own hearts. Not because God is a sadist and has need of masochists. But because mercy is available—the opportunity to reverse the brutal momentum of enmity’s sway. Then to reestablish neighborliness, to realign life to its accurate plumb. What Lent asks of us is not for the faint of heart. It’s rending entails a kind of scouring, a veil shredded, and a frightful vulnerability. Soon, we submit to ashen dust—not of humiliation and stigma but as a blaze marking the way to the New Jerusalem, where death will meet its match. So “let the heavens hear it: the penitential hymn. Come healing of the spirit, come healing of the limb.”*
Processional. Thousands of students and faculty from the Catholic-run St. Scholastica’s College dance en masse to protest violence against women and children on 25 February 2024, in Manila, Philippines. The annual dance, dubbed One Billion Rising, is held every Valentine’s Day.
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Valentine’s Day is mostly subsidized by sentimental card makers, florists, and chocolatiers. That’s not to say practicing the habits of expressing regard, even affection, should not be fostered. This stereotypical “feminine” practice is one that all healthy human beings should cultivate. And not just for romantic partners but for children, for friends, for any with whom we collaborate.
No one likes cloying, suffocating repetition of devotion. But the art of timely and tender words of appreciation and encouragement should be one of our spiritual disciplines: which is to say, we need to consciously work at it, even against discomfort.
But keep this in mind: Like other major cultural observances (Thanksgiving and Christmas in particular) which highlight time feasting with beloveds, Valentine’s Day is for some a reminder of loss. When your Facebook page only has exhibits of cheery emotion, those who have suffered loss, because of mortality or fractured relations, Valentine’s Day is hard to swallow.
Hymn of praise. “Oh night that joined the lover / To the beloved one / Transforming each of them into the other.” —Loreena McKennitt, “The Dark Night Of the Soul”
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History of Valentine’s Day
As with many modern holiday traditions, Valentine’s Day draws from a jumble of historical memories. In the 15th century, English and French traditions recognized mid-February as the time when birds chose their mates. Surviving literature indicate that it became an occasion for sending romantic cards and letters. In ancient Rome, 14 February was the occasion to honor Juno, Goddess of women and marriage.
The Roman Catholic Church’s official list of saints actually have three entries for “St. Valentine,” all three of them martyred, at least two of which were executed for civil disobedience: One for simply practicing his faith when it was outlawed. A second for performing secret weddings when the Emperor, wanting his army stocked with single men, forbade such weddings.
While the existence of a St. Valentine is not in doubt—archeologists have unearthed a chapel built in his honor—reliable accounts of his (their?) life is scarce. Which is why, in 1969, the Vatican removed St. Valentine from its official list of feasts. However, St. Valentine’s Day is an official feast day in for Anglicans and Lutherans. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the day in July.
Numerous cultures and countries around the world observe some form of annual recognition of a romantically-themed day.
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Hymn of reparation. “This is where it hurts / It hurts here / It hurts here and here and here / And if you want to be a lover / You’ve got to see your way clear / To love here and here and here.” —Gary Rand, lyrics by Lenora Rand,“It Hurts Here” (click the “more” button to see all the lyrics)
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St. Valentine Remembering prisoners on his feast day
In ancient Rome lived a man named Valentine. He was a priest and a physician but was not free to express his Christian faith without the threat of persecution. He tended to his patients by day and prayed for them by night. Eventually however, he was arrested for his faith and executed on Feb 14, 270 during one of the persecutions ordered by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. In 496, Pope Gelasius I made February 14 as St. Valentines Day.
It is said that a jailer in a Roman prison had a daughter who was one of St. Valentine’s patients before he was arrested. He tended her for her blindness, but when he was arrested she still had not regained her sight. Before his execution, Valentine asked the jailer for some parchment and ink. He wrote the girl a note and signed it “From your Valentine.” When she opened the note, a yellow crocus flower fell out of the parchment and it was the first thing she had ever seen. She had received her sight. The crocus is the traditional flower of St. Valentine.
Given this background story, a number of churches now prepare for Valentine’s Day by having children and youth send Valentine’s Day cards and notes to prisoners.
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Word. I do not begrudge sentiment; nor pleasure, for as has been said, One day we shall each give account for the permittable pleasures we failed to enjoy.” (paraphrase of Rabbi Chizkiyah, Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12)
What I oppose is sentiment and pleasure substituting for the hard work of loving attention: In particular, practicing incursions of compassionate proximity with, and exposure to, those whom the world considers expendable.
Odd as it may sound, for the spiritually grounded there is in fact a kind of pleasure in reflecting our own belovedness upon the neighbor, especially those who have little capacity to respond in kind. —kls
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The ministry of encouragement
Encouragement is the lime and silica that cement fickle sand into concrete resolve. The ministry of encouragement is not the “soft,” interpersonal side of our more hard-charging, public mission of confronting disruptive power.
We rejoice in the Blessed One, who draws us up and circles us round and builds a bulwark against gales of destruction.
Offering pastoral encouragement within the Body is not “feminine” work where mission in the larger world is “masculine.”
As the Scripture enjoins, weep with those who weep; rejoice with those who rejoice; and thereby reweave the unraveling fabric of the Beloved Community.
Nor are habits of complimenting each other to be shaped by the logic of commercial transactions: I offer winsome words to you, anticipating you will return the favor, and more, later on.
O God who ventures into the pit of every human catastrophe, your ears catch the pitch of our cries which no mortal can hear.
The work of encouragement is done to boost the soul’s immune system. Encouragement does more than make someone “feel better.” It’s how we prepare for struggle.
Incite one another to love and good works, says the Apostle.
Encouragement is the capacity to confront fatigue, failure, even desperation, with the confidence that God is not yet done. And neither are we.
Provoke one another to fidelity amid the world’s faithless affairs. By so doing, the Evil One’s power to rend us asunder comes undone.
The giving and receiving of timely encouragement in seasons of severity opens a portal to Heaven’s purpose and promise and power.
¿Es una buena lucha? Is the struggle a good one?
¡Es una buena lucha! It is good indeed!
—Ken Sehested, inspired by Psalm 30; Hebrews 10:24; and Romans 12:5
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Recessional. “My place is of the sun and this place is of the dark / And I do not feel the romance I do not catch the spark / My place is of the sun and this place is of the dark / By grace, my sight grows stronger / And I do not feel the romance I will not be / And I will not be a pawn for the prince of darkness any longer.” —Indigo Girls, “Prince of Darkness”
Might the church in the US have a new liturgical season,
beginning with the anniversary of King’s birth and extending to Ash Wednesday?
Processional. “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.” —Fannie Lou Hamer, renowned civil rights leader from Mississippi, who persevered despite receiving unrelenting threats and endured brutal beatings by police
Invocation. “May God bless you with discomfort . . . so that you may live deep within your heart,” begins “A Franciscan Blessing”
Call to worship. “Who the hell is Diane Nash?” features a brief (2:04) interview with former Assistant Attorney General John Seigenthaler remembering his phone conversation with civil rights leader Diane Nash, trying to talk Black students from Nashville from carrying on the “freedom ride” after the original participants were brutally beaten when their bus arrived in Birmingham, Alabama
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Providence has a way of narrating the jumble of daily life—with its odd concurrences, apparent coincidences, and seemingly random choices—to create stories where before were only disconnected episodes. Last spring brought an especially significant such day.
The scheduling of my periodic medical check-up was made long before I noticed the date for Easter.
My doctor said “It’s time to do some routine blood work.” OK. “You’ll need to fast for at least seven hours beforehand.”
Well, as it happens, I started a fast today, I said.
“Really?” she said, lifting her gaze from charts on her laptop. “I’m curious about why now, after Easter, and not during Lent?”
I was a bit surprised that I had a doctor (a young one, at that) with liturgical awareness.
Truth is, I hadn’t intentionally thought out the timing of this fast. I do so, typically every year or so, when I face the fact that my eating habits have gotten out of alignment. One of my typical responses to angst is to put something in my mouth to chew on. And in the age of cultural clashes and political boondoggling, there’s a lot of angst in the air.
Linocut by Julie Lonneman
Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting such a question from my doctor. But I found myself responding with thoughts I don’t remember having before that moment. It was like an epiphany.
I began by saying, yes, I have often fasted during Lent; but that this year I was focused on how resurrection’s assurance was the very thing that made it possible to persevere through difficult seasons. Going without food, for any length of time, is both a physical challenge, an emotional scuffle, and a spiritual shakedown.
If I were to ever write one of the “how my mind has changed over time” essays, it would focus on the increased emphasis I put on the work of grace, over heroic will, in steeling courage in the midst of threat. The work of grace—and its offspring, joy—commences when willful effort is battered into subjugation.
No doubt some of this comes with aging. In any given season of life the disappointments and discouragements and challenges and fears are for the most part manageable. But the cumulative effect takes a toll. Thing hurt where you didn’t know you had things. Over time the heart can fibrillate. Blood vessels clog. Bones can grow brittle and the knees grow feeble. Threats multiply. Lungs flag. Eyes cloud.
Nevertheless, the capacity for grace and the arousal of joy, when grit comes up short, is the prize to which all eyes must arise, no matter the years or the miles.
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Hymn of intercession. “Come to Me all you weary, and I will give you rest. One more step, one more step, to my love, to my rest.” —“All Who Are Weary,” Psalters (click the “show more” button to see all the lyrics)
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I think of these things precisely at this moment, on observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s January birth anniversary, coupled with anticipation of the anniversary of his 4 April assassination.
Dr. King is remembered too often for his visionary “dream” and too little for the struggles, bruises, failures and weariness he endured. There is much revelry over his assuring cadences and lilting imagery. Yet we have largely ignored the threats he faced and the hazards he navigated. The iconic stature we have bestowed on him has had the unintended consequence of hiding the unfulfilled elements of that dream, along with the regrouped and recuperated opposition that remains.
We forget the fact that the movement he animated was already unraveling during the last three years of his life. Following his Nobel Peace Prize acclaim in December 1964, and the successes of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965—just when you thought his fame would displace his detractors—the fabric of that movement began to tear.
Like marchers in Montgomery (and elsewhere), Lent forces us to ask “Were we suckers to believe in such a dream? Did not hate collapse hopes for the Beloved Community? Did not Trump eviscerate Obama’s humane legacy? And then rise against from the depths of infamy again last fall? Are we not wearied to the bone? Is it a fantasy, after all, about a balm hovering in Gilead?
There were a variety of factors that led to a faltering of the (modern) civil rights movement and Dr. King’s declining popularity. For years the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency, and even the US Army Intelligence unit, had been illegally wiretapping Dr. King and some of his close associates. One FBI memo referred to King as “the most dangerous negro” in America.
In 1966 Dr. King consciously chose to organize around fair housing in Chicago, his first major venture out of the South, named The Chicago Freedom Movement. His marches were met with violent counter-protesters, and Dr. King remarked that he had never seen this level of vitriolic hatred even in Mississippi and Alabama. White Northerners who had previously supported integration and voter registration efforts in the South recoiled when the target switched to fair housing and labor markets in their neighborhoods.
About this same time, younger, more militant civil rights leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress on Racial Equality had grown impatient with the nonviolent strategies and gravitated to the rhetoric of Black Power and militancy of self-defense.
The summers of 1966 and 1967 brought violent demonstrations in hundreds of US cities.
Fractures opened within King’s own Southern Christian Leadership Conference over whether to stick with legal issues of segregation and voting rights, or expand to matters pertaining to larger questions of economic injustice and of US foreign policy.
The major blow to the movement’s unity came in the aftermath of King’s historic address at The Riverside Church in New York City, on 4 April 1967, exactly one year to the day before his assassination in Memphis. In this speech (variously named “Beyond Vietnam,” “Time to Break the Silence,” or “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam”), King explicitly and passionately denounced the war. This time it was not the political right that denounced him but his more liberal allies as well.
Life magazine called the sermon “a demagogic slander that sounded like a script for radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post said, “Many who have listened to [King] with respect will never again accord him with the same confidence. He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country and his people.” The New York Times ran an editorial, “Dr. King’s Error,” chiding him for linking foreign policy with domestic policy: “This is a fusion of two public programs that are distinct and separate. By drawing them together, Dr. King has done a disservice to both. The moral issues in Vietnam are less clear-cut than he suggests; the political strategy of uniting the peace movement could very well be disastrous for both causes.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People described the address as “a serious tactical error.” The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper in the country, said King was “tragically misleading” black Americans. And President Lyndon B. Johnson, King’s ally in pushing for the Civil Rights and Voter Registration Acts, referred to King as “that god****ed n****r preacher.”
In 1966, 63 percent of Americans held a negative view of the civil rights leader, while just 32 percent held a positive one. This was a marked reversal from five years earlier, when 41 percent of Americans gave King a positive rating and 37 percent a negative one.
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Hymn of absolution. “There’s a rainbow ’round my shoulder / And a sky of blue above / How the sun shines bright / The world’s all right / Cause I’m in love.” —“Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder” (traditional chain gang song), One Voice Mixed Chorus in remembrance of Bayard Rustin, considered the “least-known most-important” leader of the civil rights movement
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If I had the authority, I would institute a new liturgical season for us in the US—beginning with Dr. King’s birthday, extending to Ash Wednesday—in preparation devoted to the gift of discomfort in spiritual formation.
It also provides a more visceral connection to the Lenten drama: the breathtaking breakthrough of hope, seemingly out of nowhere, for the prospect of a major advance of justice and human dignity (not unlike the disciples’ and other followers of Jesus experienced), followed by a cruel backlash and crackdown against the same (like the narrative of Jesus’ final days). Then prepping our attention to Jesus’ resurrection stories by attending Dr. King’s parting exhortation: I’ve been to the mountaintop. I may not get to the promised land with you; but we as a people will get there!
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Word. Listen to this brief (2:37) excerpt from King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech delivered in Memphis on the night before his assassination.
§ § §
The original blessing of God’s delight in Creation echoes through this blessing given by Isaac to his son: “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine” (Genesis 27:28). But a fraud is perpetuated by Jacob, who disguised himself as his brother Esau. The subsequent history of human racketeering is recorded in this complaint of the Psalmist: “[P]ride is the necklace [of the wicked]; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out with fatness, their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth” (73:6-9).
The function of Lent’s penitential posture is to halt the momentum of this mugging and restore the bountiful, flourishing intention of Creation’s promise. It is not, as theological sadists would have us believe, a season for self-flogging and disgust over our frailties. But it does entail disquiet as we recognize and confess the ways our hearts have been kidnapped by frivolous pursuits and perilous habits.
Such work involves, as Jesus noted, a kind of dying. But its purpose is not punishment or retribution, but an invitation to a new life of flourishing instead of rivalry, of freedom shorn of the impulse to dominate, socially expressive of the kind of compassion, justice, and mercy which we ourselves have encountered in a compassionate and merciful God.
The peace of Christ entails the unraveling of the “peace” of bloody-handed potentates who enforce an order requiring the cheap labor of the many for the wealth of the few. Their reign, of course, requires the collaboration of a cast willing to do the dirty work in exchange for leftover luxury.
§ § §
Altar call. “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Darker midnight lies before us . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / For the morning soon is breaking . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Children, don’t get weary / till your work is done.” —“Keep Your Lamps,” arr. André Thomas, combined choirs of Florida State University
§ § §
In words uncommon for tourism journalists, popular travel reporter Rick Steves testified that travel creates “a creeping discomfort about my confidence in the way I’ve always viewed the world.” This is what Lenten practices are designed to do. Think: detoxification. The rough work of being separated from illusion. The dismemberment of assumptions of privilege. The forfeiture of innocence. Calling into question the obsession with personal security needs extended out to questioning our bloated national security state.
All of these, and more, are among the polytheistic pantheon of idols. And if you refuse to bow, you may be judged impious, unpatriotic, or treasonous.
Since January 2021 in the US, 42 states have passed legislation limiting what school teachers can say about race (among other forms of structural injustice). A number of these bills include language prohibiting teachers from introducing subjects that might make students feel “discomfort, guilt or anguish” or are otherwise “divisive.”
There is a kind of discomfort that leads us to the precipice of godly grief (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:10), and thereby to the portal of repentance, which inclines to clarity, to communion, to intimacy with the Beloved, for the Beloved, in the Beloved . . . and with, for and in all the Beloved’s creation.
The world as it stands labors under the weight of much sadness, grief, and despair. But also displays much generosity, holiness and joy. Go to the mountaintop with Dr. King, to the desert with Jesus. Hitch your faith to the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
§ § §
Benediction. “Amen, Alleluia” —Sergei Rachmaninov, performed by the Russian State Symphony Cappella
Recessional. “Now the war is not over, victory isn’t won / And we’ll fight on to the finish, then when it’s all done / We’ll cry glory, oh glory (Glory, glory).” —John Legend and Common, “Glory,” theme song for the 2014 film “Selma” which portrays the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march
This coming Monday features the cruelest irony of our era: the national observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday against the backdrop of Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as president of the US.
But here we are. It’s horrendous.
But don’t get so perturbed as to think the end is near. It’s not. Another word is available; another world, promised. But it requires hearts willing to stand in the face of this squall, be prepared for raids on the unspeakable, listen from the underside of history, recall brave ancestors, gather with communities of conviction, assess in whose presence to stand and in whose presence to kneel, and trust the assurance that manna will appear in the wilderness and water flow from sheer rocks.
(By the way, my favorite concise statement of what Trump’s ascendance means is not by a nationally-known columnist or commentator, but by a Baptist journalist, Mark Wingfield. See his “If you plan to vote for Donald Trump . . .”)
§ § §
Hymn of resolve. “Oh Freedom.” —The Golden Gospel Singers
But if there’s one thing I would urge you to read (or listen to), it’s the short excerpt from his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, where King describes his “kitchen table conversion.” (Printed at bottom. Audio in his own voice (4:26), a poignant account of how he came close to giving up under the pressure of threats to him, his wife, and infant daughter.)
§ § §
Altar call. “Now the war is not over, victory isn’t won / And we’ll fight on to the finish, then when it’s all done / We’ll cry glory, oh glory.” —“Glory,” John Legend
§ § §
The unruly truth is that spiritually forming experiences typically blossom in contexts of risk, when we come to the end of our rope, when resources of ingenuity and strength appear all but exhausted, when imaginable assets are depleted.
The pertinent text here is that odd statement from John’s Gospel—and this is one time I love the florid wording of King Jimmy’s translation: “But the one that doeth truth cometh to the light. . . .” (3:21)
Faith is not the propositions we affirm, the rituals we practice, the moral code we observe, or the pious emotions we experience.
No, biblical faith is an inherently kinetic experience. By its very nature, such faith has an animating quality. Insights can be refined, clarified, and cultivated by our theology, our rituals, our ethical commitments, and our emotive intelligence. But the walking comes first.
Every worthy educator knows the wisdom of this proverb: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Or as Yoda would say: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
In this season of Epiphany (“revealing”), the testimony of Dr. King—and the host of other Civil Rights Movement actors, some known, many unheralded, most unnamed—provide critical instruction as we move toward Lent.
§ § §
Benediction. “Precious Lord.” —Mahalia Jackson singing King’s favorite hymn
For those who track the annual lectionary journey, this coming Sunday’s focus is the “Baptism of the Lord.” It’s a topic near and dear to my heart, since I hold that the recovery of baptismal integrity is one way to address the profound renewal needed among communities on the Way of Jesus.
Early in 2001, as three of us were busy making plans for a new congregation, I wrote to pastors of congregations dually affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Alliance of Baptists (as was our intent). One of the questions I asked was how each approached the practice of baptism: given the UCC’s history is in the Reformed tradition, commonly practicing infant baptism; and the AOB’s history is in credobaptist (from the Latin credo, “I believe’) tradition.
One response I got summed up the general sentiment of those who responded: “Actually, we don’t talk much about baptism.”
Part of me resonated with that conclusion. There has been much persecution dispensed, not to mention actual shedding of blood, in the history of the church’s internal dispute over this matter (at least since the Reformation).
Another part of me was just sad. Grieved and regretful. Wondering if this practice was part of the furniture needing to be tossed as part of the continuing process of reformation of the little flock of Jesus.
In a few days we will mark the 500th anniversary of the first adult “re-baptism” by leaders of what their detractors called the “anabaptist” movement. Followers of the Reformation leader Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich broke with their mentor over the matter of infant baptism; and on 21 January 1525 a small group of these dissenters, who referred themselves as Swiss Brethren, gathered for worship and prayers. One of them, Conrad Grebel, baptized George Blaurock, a Catholic priest-turned-protestor, by immersion, who then baptized the others. It was considered illegal by the semi-sovereign canton of Zurich, then one of three regions of the Swiss Confederation.
The following year, on 7 March 1526, the Zurich council passed an edict that made adult re-baptism punishable by drowning. Felix Manz, the first casualty of that ruling, had his hands bound from behind to his feet, through which a wooden pole was placed, then thrown in the middle of the Limmat River. Thus began a long period of violent repression by leaders of the Magisterial Reformation (led by the likes of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli) and the Catholic Church against the multiple fledgling Anabaptist (‘rebaptizer’) groups collectively referred to as the Radical Reformation.
In 2004 the Evangelical-Reformed Church of Zurich had a six-month commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Bullinger (1504~75), Zwingli’s successor as pastor of the city’s historic Grossmünster church (formerly a Catholic cathedral). On 26 June, that church confessed their sins of the sixteenth century and asked for forgiveness by the descendants of those first Anabaptists. That evening, a historical marker was unveiled on the bank of the river where Manz was drowned. (See above photo)
§ § §
Hymn of thanks. “The summer breeze, made ripples on the pond / Rattled through the rings and the willow trees beyond / Daddy in his good hat, mama in her Sunday dress / Watched in pride, as I stood there in the water up to my chest / And the preacher spoke about the cleansing blood / I sank my toes into that East Texas mud. . . . / This road is long and dusty, sometimes the soul must be cleansed / And I long to feel that water, rushing over me again.” —Randy Travis, “Baptism”
§ § §
After intensive research and much self-interrogation on the question of baptism, my conviction crystalized, was underscored and printed in all-caps, punctuated in no small measure by horror of the 9/11 terrorist attack here in the US. Here is an except of what I wrote:
“Every discipline of spiritual formation is reckoned by some form of relinquishment, is oriented to some kind of ‘dying.’ Which makes sense, because every dominant system will claim that what is possible is limited to what is available. People of faith believe otherwise; but in order to move forward a kind of retraction is needed.
“For many Christians, the inaugural act of this retraction exercise is signified by baptism, which involves the ritualized activity of dying (to the current ordering of values), being buried (severance from the illusion of self-centered life) and being resurrected (to a renewed configuration of safety, security, salvation). ‘Those who find their life will lose it,’ Jesus said, ‘and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 10:39). . . . Thus, people on the Way, those immersed in the Jesus narrative—which, like most narratives, is porous and resistant to philosophical precision—are bound for trouble.
“I like the way this aphorism states it, paraphrasing a text from John’s Gospel: ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you odd’ (author unknown, though often attributed to Flannery O’Connor).
We are God’s odd ones. And according to the Jesus story, God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven. Connecting the purpose of Jesus with the drama of Creation is the heart of Christian confession. Everything else is footnote. (For more see “Wade in the water: Baptism as political mandate (in this and every ‘9/11’ moment in history).”
The church’s “political” task is only distantly related to electoral politics, and completely foreign to partisan wrangling among elected leaders, particularly in our addled age, with the Oval Office soon to become a romper room, a Congress directed by a clown car coterie, and a Supreme Court majority adrift in injudicious rulings based on spurious reasoning and rampant venality.
The root meaning of politics, broadly stated, has to do with the complex patterns and structures of relations in the created order. God’s purpose was for a flourishing community, human and humus alike, just governance of who gets what, when, and how—virtually opposite of what now exists.
From the earliest chapters in Genesis, spiritual corruption and violent conflict are mirror images of each other. “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (6:11). As Luke’s Gospel confirms, when “glory to God” is rightly rendered, “peace” will be its earthly correspondence (2:14).
As the ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote, quoting a Caledonian chieftain subdued by the Roman empire, “They create a wasteland and call it peace.” This is Pax Romana, the “peace” of Rome wrought by violent repression, and it stands in sharp, unequivocal contrast to Pax Christi, the peace of Christ, of which John the Revelator lyrically spoke, the time when God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (21:4).
§ § §
Hymn of petition. “Down to the River to Pray.” —Allison Krauss, a cappella backed by an unnamed choir
§ § §
In its variant practices with regards to baptism—and in its best moments—the church has always attempted to say two important things about God’s redemptive work in the world.
First, that the initiative of grace is God’s, not our own. We are not self-sufficient, nor are we self-generated. Those who argue for infant baptism have (in their best moments) emphasized this reality, along with the insistence that faith is communally-formed, that the spiritual formation of individuals involves being nurtured and cultivated in a community.
In this tradition of baptism—at its best—the responsibility of the entire believing community is emphasized.
Second, for a relationship to thrive it must be mutual. The Radical Reformers’ “believer’s” baptism tradition began not as an argument over how much water was necessary. The argument centered in this controversial assertion: Membership in the state and membership in the church are not coterminous. Being a citizen is not the same as being a Christian. They argued that, in the New Testament, the decision to “follow” Jesus very often involved a rupture of social life, potentially a conflict with ruling authorities.
Notably, for most in the Anabaptist tradition, the refusal to wield the sword in defense of the state was a theological affirmation, not simply a moral conviction, i.e., nonviolence says something about God, reflected back into the covenantal terms of godliness.
As it happens, those congregations who practice believer’s baptism often observe blessing rituals for infants; and those who practice infant baptism typically have catechesis or confirmation classes for youth.
The pastoral difficulty is that we have these two crucial rites of passage but only one historic ritual.
Pious adoration of the baptistry (and the communion table) has always been an effective means of exempting participants from enlistment in the real-life struggles to which this vision-shaping ritual directs. We parse the syntax of the delivery mechanism and forget all about the payload.
§ § §
Hymn of commitment. “But I’ll never give up even when it hurts / Because love is still turning over tables / And love still makes the blinded eyes see / And there’s a healing that’s waiting in the water / That’s still making saints out of rebels / My God is still making good trouble.” —“Good Trouble,” Leigh Nash with Ruby Amanfu
§ § §
Paul Ricouer wrote: “If you want to change people’s obedience then you must change their imagination.”
My overriding passion is to insist that recovery of baptismal integrity is the Christian community’s most urgent reimagining act. By implication, this suggests that the most urgent revival is to drink more deeply from the wells that nourish world-transforming faith.
The church’s invitation to the water is not a tribal identity marker. It is the call to live in contradiction to the present world’s prevailing values and aligning order: a call that leads to reading history from the underside, to God’s preferential option for those for whom the world considers dispensable and of little value.
Dare to wade in such waters. Where the Spirit guides faithfully amid parched landscape and drowning seas. To the land where milk and honey are neither hoarded for profit nor rationed in demand for tribute. Here, milk strengthens brittle bones and honey’s sweet delight feeds joy’s outbreak in dancing, praise, and adoration,
§ § §
Benediction. “Wade in the Water.” —adaptation of the traditional spiritual by Ken Medema to mark the anniversary of the George Floyd murder
We, of the majority caste, are largely innocents. By innocent I mean clueless about the way history has privileged some and impoverished others. If we are to move toward a future beyond the fatal consequence of our transgressions, we must lose our innocence. We have hard work to do, patient work, risky work, but worthy, inspiring, hopeful work.
Take a hand.
Make your vow.
Gird your loins.
Declare an allegiance beyond the tip of your nose.
Step over your contented threshold and out of your comfort zone.
Prepare for turbulence, maybe threat; or merely the ordinary onset of fatigue.
Make alliances across racial and class and cultural boundaries and history’s margins.
Cultivate the kind of imagination needed to resist cultural conformity and nationalist fervor.
Nurture a faith rooted deeply enough to withstand inevitable seasons of drought and tempest.
Fear not the mourner’s bench nor the penitential booth,
neither of which are for your debility nor your shame, but for your rejuvenation.
Set your eyes on a horizon beyond every available dictate.
Never forget that history belongs to the interceding intercessors.
And through it all, continually refresh your vision in the company of fellow travelers on the Way,
from whom you may catch courage, who carry you when your vision clouds,
sorrows threaten, energy lags, or despair nips at your feet; others with whom you can
sharpen clarity of when, where, and how to apply the weight of your convictions.
These are our disciplines, and sometimes they are arduous. But they are not imposed by a divine taskmaster. They are imparted by means of joy’s overflow, galvanized by ecstatic vision capable of tracing the drama of Creation’s promise to Resurrection’s assurance, recollecting the Prophet’s assertion that wolf and lamb will lie shorn of threat, Jesus’ promise that the meek will inherit the earth, and the Revelator’s conclusion that, one day, death will be no more.
For this purpose, by means of this resolve, buoyed by beatific vision and sustained by mercy’s stream and grace’s provision, move forward, and “let nothing you dismay.”*
§ § §
Benediction(marking Hanukkah’s closure). “Not by might, & not by power, / But by spirit alone (“ruach!”) / Shall we all live in peace. / The children sing, / the children dream, / And their tears will fall, / But we’ll hear them call, / And another song will rise.” —Debbie Friedman, “Not By Might” [cf. Zechariah 4:6]
Do not bow in the face of fear, O Little Flock of Jesus. Though be
vigilant, for there is reason to quake. Before Jesus was so described
in the Gospels, it was Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus who was
proclaimed as “savior” and “redeemer” who brought “salvation”
to the world, and citizens were to have “faith” in their “lord.”
Scripture’s nativity stories have grown sentimental in our telling,
but not so for the original accounts. Then and there, a head-to-head
conflict was narrated as to whose peace was more reliable, whose
promise more trustworthy, whose Word would endure beyond the
heavens’ rending and the mountains’ trembling. Regardless the
stumble, do not slumber. Despite history’s grimaces, do not shield
your eyes nor stop your ears, lest you miss an angel’s announcement
of hope’s incursion. Stay awake!
Second Sunday
Be clear about this, O Little Flock of Jesus: Fear is a liar and a
cheat. It will bargain its bag of trinkets and baubles and plastic
shiny objects for the world-blessing power with which you have
been vested. When fear comes knocking, open the door and say,
“Come in; stay as long as you like, but you’ll get no bed or board
here.” Do not trouble yourself over fear’s sneers. Though tossed
on the waves of dread and cast onto the shoals of distress, take
heart. Though the wilderness be your portion, remember that the
Light of Life has been promised specifically to those who dwell
there. Though that great gettin-up-morning tarries, the day will
come when righteousness and peace will kiss. Fear not, stand still:
or such is the war-cry of the nonviolent people of God.
Third Sunday
Fear the Lord, O Little Flock of Jesus, for only such holy fear has
the power to displace the sway of every mortal life’s dread and
dismay. Indeed, the fear of God liberates the fretful, whimpering
self that demands its privilege and exemption from covenant ties—
the very things that ruin life’s verdant provision. The One who
claims you thereby frees you to be the oil of gladness, an oak of
righteousness, repairer of ruined cities. This claim does not maim
but authorizes you to declare good news to the oppressed, bind up
the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the enslaved and exoneration
to the incarcerated. Fear’s murmuring shrivels the soul and desiccates
the heart. Though weeping o’ertake, sow your tears trusting in the
day when shouts of joy shall break out.
Fourth Sunday
Practice fear displacement, O Little Flock of Jesus. Resist any who
proclaim the politics of panic. Live in the blessed assurance that the
world—despite much evidence to the contrary—is in God’s hands
and is promised to the meek who know their true source of security
is the One who fashioned the earth in an act of sheer delight.
“Fear not!” was the angel’s greeting to Mother Mary. And her
response to this incredulous announcement? “Let it be. Let it be
with me according to your Word.” Let it be with thee as well, barren
pilgrim, every settler who will not settle for less than the coming new
heaven and new earth, every weary traveler who awaits Christ’s
disclosure in the breaking of bread. Trod on, you traveler to Beulah’s
fecund fields, to Zion’s streams of mercy and vineyards brimmed
with gladness, where Love Incarnate soothes every furrowed brow,
disentangles every knotted fear, restores the blinded eye and
deafened ear, and caters a feast for the ages.
Processional. “Give Thanks.” —Abyssinian Baptist Church choir, New York City
Invocation. “Come ye fearful people come / Cast your sighs to highest heav’n / Yet—though terror’s harvest spread, / Casting sorrow in its stead— / Still the Promise doth endure / Life abounding to secure / Come, ye thankful hearts, confess / Mercy’s lien o’er earth’s distress.” —Ken Sehested, new verse to “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”
§ § §
The topic of gratitude has become a marketing trend in publishing over the past decade—exemplified in Diana Butler Bass’ best-selling Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks, not to mention a score of books written by and for the “positive psychology” school of authors and readers. Recently I read an article titled, “Neuroscience Reveals: How Gratitude Rewires Your Brain to be Happier.”
I just did a web search for “gratitude” and got 491,00,000 results in .20 seconds.
Yet the history of formal Thanksgiving declarations in the US has a dark side.
The first official declaration of a Thanksgiving Day did not come in 1621, when the Plymouth Puritans sharing an impromptu feast with the local Wampanoag natives, who had taught these undocumented immigrants how to fish, farm, and generally fend for themselves.
Rather, it wasn’t until 1637 that Plymouth colony Governor William Bradford officially declared an annual day of thanks. And he did so in direct response to the Pilgrims’ massacre of some 500 men, women and children of the Pequot tribe (survivors were sold into slavery) along the Mystic River.
He wrote, “the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.”
He then went on to record details of the event that was to be annually commemorated.
“It was a fearful sight to see [the Pequot] thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [we] gave the praise thereof to God.”
President George Washington, in his first terms of office, declared a “day of thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789, months after the US Constitution was formally approved. But the observance did not come by way of perpetual declaration until October 1863, declared by President Abraham Lincoln, who announced an annual observance of the holiday, on the last Thursday of November, weeks after the Union’s pivotal victory at Gettysburg during the Civil War.
Public thanks for blessings can be a disguise for gloating and triumphalism. A kind of God-loves-you-but-thinks-I’m-special assertion.
Nevertheless, the observance of Thanksgiving ritual meals remains the calendar’s most common occasion for the gathering of scattered families. In a highly mobile culture, with weakened familial bonds, and even with the threat of contentious political conversations during the slathering of giblet gravy, this cultural habit is no small thing.
Scientists continue to provide confirmation of things mystics have promoted for eons: that singing is good for personal and communal health; that a cultivated devotional life tends to extend life expectancy; that wealth is not neutral but actually diminishes the capacity for empathy; that even the spiritual hunch that everything-is-connected is being confirmed by ecologists, cosmologists, and quantum physicists.
Such concurrence reminds me of the time, many moons ago, when I fled, midway through college, from my parochial Southern rearing to the urbane sophistication of New York City—only to discover that pointy-toed cowboy boots were the fashion rage in my newly-adopted Greenwich Village neighborhood. And Hank Williams Jr. was the headliner at the Bitter End nightclub. Go figure.
I have to resist the temptation to cynically roll my eyes when old stuff becomes swank among the trendy, upscale crowd. The stubborn truth, however, is that every abiding element of wisdom has to be renewed and re-energized from time to time: must be claimed and fortified and announced anew in every succeeding age.
So, yes, read books, listen to podcasts, have conversations, and perform new-old rituals that buoy the cultivation of gratitude, the practice of thanksgiving—with or without traditional holiday fare of turkey and sage-soaked dressing (my Mama’s favorite). And do so not as a bartered arrangement for future profit, but simply as the response of the loved to the Beloved.
The Black Friday gods and their fashionista agents are relentless in their assurance that you need more—more goods, second helpings, more esteem and recognition. Surround yourself with a community that says otherwise.
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First, that the initiative of grace is God’s, not our own. We are not self-sufficient, nor are we self-generated. Those who argue for infant baptism have (in their best moments) emphasized this reality, along with the insistence that faith is communally-formed, that the spiritual formation of individuals involves being nurtured and cultivated in a community.
