10/28
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| Keep on voting |
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| Pittsburgh strong |
Today is a day for Pittsburgh. The hat is a Steeler hat, perhaps the most widely held Pittsburgh icon. The logo originally was from the Iron and Steel Institute. The three hypocycloids (curved diamond shapes— alternative name, asteroids— I love that). One for coal, another for ore and the third for scrap steel. Th elements of industrial steel. Adopted by the Steelers in 1964 at the urging of Republic Steel. (Ironically from Cleveland!) The black and gold also represents coal and ore. As well as the colors of William Pitt, for whom the city is named.) Pittsburgh is the only city where all the teams…baseball football, hockey and soccer…all wear the same colors. Black and gold is Pittsburgh. A Chilean soccer team, los Arcereros de Huachipato /Talacahuano, inspired by the Steelers, have borrowed the same logo.
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| los arcereros |
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| Romemu |
The real reason though is that the symbol was repurposed in response to the Tree of Life shootings two years ago where a white nationalist opened fire in the synagogue killing 11 and wounding another 7. The adapted symbol became the image for the city’s resistance to hatred. I remain somewhat annoyed that an Upper West Side synagogue, Romemu, has borrowed the symbol for its own messaging. Taken apart form its Pittsburgh context, it loses its poignancy, and in fact, meaning.
Russ is wearing a hat from Table Mountain, Johannesburg, South Africa. Steve H who lived there’s says the legend is that is where God and the devil sat down to play cards to decide the country’s fate.
Sam tells a story of being inspired by Stephen P’s story in the Yale Divinity School’s Reflection magazine about hope. About being willing to step into the darkness. And embrace it. How she got trapped driving at night when she can’t see and found her way home by following the tail lights of the car right tin front. Hope beyond our power is prayer.
I quote form the Dead, (New Speedway Boogie)
Now I don't know, but I been told
If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load
I don't know whose back's that strong
Maybe find out before too long
One way or another, one way or another
One way or another, this darkness got to give
We follow the lights in front of us…
We talk about Marilynne Robinson’s New York Time’s op ed on what it means to love a country, especially in our current context. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/sunday/america-patriotism.html) It’s a clarion call to not give up on America. To see ourselves as a family. And have the courage to see the importance of not failing democracy.
I see her as perhaps the most articulate interpreter of Calvinist thought writing today. Beauty and grace in our inevitable imperfection.
Dre suggest that in our confusion, perhaps the best thing to do is to just set a direction and go. Define a problem and get to work. Knowing we are allowed to question and allowed to explore.
I recall how my mentor Philip Newell, describing his work as a church bureaucrat, said that if God wants something to be done in the world, it is already being done. It is our work to find it, support it and connect others with the same vision. Steve P reminds us that the root of the word organization has to do with bringing together different organs, like Paul’s analogy of the body. (1 Corinthians 12: 1-31.)
And Dre opens up forgiveness again. And we talk about the difference between shame and guilt, As I’ve been learning, guilt is acknowledgment of something you did, shame is a state of being, I consider it harmful, although Stephen P speaks of the danger of having a shameless President and a shameless Republican Party. How in this country, we began with the concept of correctional facilities, where someone be might be corrected. Penitentiaries where they might be reflective and repent, penitent. Reform schools for troubled children. To be reformed. They all were based on a concept of penitence, remorse, compassion and restoration. Instead what we have is a system of punishment and social control.
And in countries, like South Africa with its truth and reconciliation committees. Peoples’ stories being told is absolutely essential in healing a country. In places like Chile and Argentina where amnesty was declared, the wounds remain unhealed and open years later.
It begins in your family. As my boys said, the way we as parents would say, “We don’t do that in our family.” And by extension, the power of churches that can say, “We don’t do that in our church.”
As I said in my song:
We don’t roll that way.
Chi sis not what we believe, not the way we were raised.
I feel like it’s dar and getting dark every day
All I can say is
We don’t roll that way.
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| bienvenidos al barrio |
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| Timmy plays the trombone |
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| saints |
I walk to East Harlem to get a free taco. ( A World Series based Taco Bell promotion.) I consider the irony of a Taco Bell in an el Barrio filled with real Mexican restaurants and food trucks. As I reenter my part of Harlem, I see the political street signs. And in anticipation of All Saints Day, portraits of John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And as I near home Timmy is playing the trombone to welcome me back.
10/28
A wet and cold rainy day. The early voting continues. People are so anxious to have it count. There is another Peoples Music Network "song swap," primarily North Americans but two UK friends join us. I share my song "Listen" and it's well received.
...and all the people of the earth will hear the birds sing again..
This darkness has to give.
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