Living in cornonavirusworld 120: the perfection of creation

7/24

the squirrel

New York City Presbytery’s discussion group on the Black Women and Girls report meets. Tellingly, only one of our Black women leaders is in attendance. One of the members of the Justice Committee invites us to the (virtual) unveiling of a women’s leaders statue in Central Park on August 26th, It will include Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and SusanB.Anthony. Our commsioners share their frustration with General Assmebly and its failure to deal with the Black Women’s report. New York City Presbytery had been one of four Presbytery’s to be selected  for work on a previous Assembly action regarding Black Men, Freedom Rising.  The question was raised as to why it was restricted to men only. Was this another case of miscogeny? Actually no. This was an historic moment when the attack on Black men felt particularly acute. With bitterness and irony, African American men were spoken of as an “endangered species.” Black women commissioners supported an effort specifically for men. With no funding and no staff, the Freedom Rising initiative is fading away.

Our lone representative from the community of Black women, says  that frankly they are tired of telling their story…over and over with personal cost and seeing nothing gained. There can only be conversation with intentionality. And there must be action. As we begin to think of possible grant possibilities and potential scholarship programs, the mood changes, With the possibility of concrete action, perhaps conversation can begin again.

Conversation continues about a documentary on the Radical Monarchs, a social justice based alternative to the Girl  Scouts developed inOakland, California especially to speak to the issues faced by black and brown girls. (https://wearetheradicalmonarchsmovie.com/).  And so we will continue. Can it be different this time? 

The heat continues. On the edge of the park, I see a squirrel perched on a garbage barrel. He’s eating pizza. When he drops a piece, he’ll look around then dive back into the barrel and  emerge with another morsel. Never before corona would I have watched a squirrel for 20 minutes. In this coronavirus world, I have become ever more aware of other living beings. And ever more convinced that most creatures in creation are perfect for what  they are supposed to be. That our similarities are so much more than differences. Even dinosaurs had recognizable skeletons, eyes, brains, teeth, stomachs, penises. All eat, excrete and reproduce. An amazing intricate design in which we are only a part. I watch the squirrel finish its pizza. And continue my walk.

ready for the game

I had intended to spend my night watching my home town Pirates play  their  first ball game of the season but wind up having to host the West Park Open Mic. At first its just Malcolm and me. Swapping songs. I put the ball game on my Ipad and watch while I host. Soon Kosi  joins  from Baltimore  and then Dion joins us. One by one players join us. And then her friend Chris comes in from Erie, Pennsylvania and makes the night. He's part of what I'm learning is a burgeoning indie scene in the northwest corner of the state.  And a friend of Matt Boland who lit up our Beggar's Banquet recreation with his rendition of Prodigal Son. I feel up to sharing my Covid Song "Social distance" for the first time. Chris compliments it as a 30 year old Dylan response to the Virus. I'll take that. And throws in a reference to Owen Meany (John Irving) which makes the night for me.

Before the end, the Pirates fight back but still fall short in a predictable loss. I end the night pleasantly  surprised at what can  happen when  you least suspect it in the strange word of connection that ZOOM makes possible. 

So strange watching baseball with no fans and recorded crowd noise. Ultimate irony...they are using  a soundtrack from a video game for real games. This is not ending soon.

Living in cornavirusworld 117: privilege is our expertise

7/21

the birds seek shade

Central Park jazz combo

Back in the day, I used ti be a member of the New York Road Runners and a frequent race participant. I even ran 10 marathons in my time. Hard to believe.  But since a major back surgery in 2011, my running career came to a stop. This coronavirustime has meant time to reclaim lost, forgotten or ignored parts of ourselves. Like cooking for example. And this... I discovered an emerging world of ‘Virtual Road races” designed to be run individually wherever and whenever you want. I decided to reenter that world with a 5k in June, with a long hot stretch down Riverside Park to the Pier. Today, in 90 + degree weather, I create another 5k course from my Harlem apartment building down the West Drive of Central Park to Columbus Circle. I realize how many years it has been since I completed at least one whole side of the Park. Each particular part, the extended ups and downs you generally don’t think about, the different mini-worlds of the park pass underway feet in the heat. There’s a jazz combo in the Gazebo by the lake. Finally at Columbus Circle, I leave the Park. Time for an iced coffee in the shadow of the monument to victims of the Maine battleship explosion, cause celebre for the Spanish-American war. Remember the Maine now mainly forgotten. Birds are perched on the shade side trying to keep cool.

from Portland, where else?

Beekeepers

A beekeeper truck from Portland seems to have escaped the incursion of federales into their city and made its way to Fredrick Douglass Boulevard. 

The New York City Presbytery General Cabinet meets. Our moderator shares her own pain as a result of General Assembly. Reminds us that for white people, privilege is our expertise. We are experts about racism having lived with its benefits throughout our lives. Our Executive challenges his with the words of J.Philip Newell of the Iona Community with three questions:

* What can you leave behind?

* Can you imagine what is to be?

* What are you willing to commit to doing today? Tomorrow?…and forward?

We continue to live with the effects of this virus. Our loss of so many, including Grace Bowen, an urban ministry mentor whose life was the very definition of her name. Income last year for Presbytery at the end of June was $186000. This year only $99000. We will only be down $55000 thanks to a small business loan, otherwise we’d be down $!55000. Small churches are unable to pay their insurance. Churches need to reopen to reopen income streams, but only large churches can afford to do all the things listed on our checklist. We are entering into a new day for churches as money runs out.

Presbytery remains committed to engaging the engagement with  systemic racism. Several people point out all that is already been done. The Black Women and Girls conversation. Efforts around bail bonds. And Rikers.  Living wage. Homelessness. I point out that all those are issues, are symptoms of the deeper problem and we have to look not just outside but inside. Even as the most diverse Presbytery in the PC(USA), if we simply insert diversity into a system that by culture, structure and ethos is intrinsically white, all you do is strengthen the white privilege and worse, cause people of color to be complicit in their own disempowerment. We have to go deep. 

Living in coronavirusworld 105: Unfinished work

7/7

Melba's, Harlem

Our New York City  Commissioners from the Presbyterian General Assembly meet to share our experiences. With two missing. There is a solid sense of frustration at the outcome. And that serious, if unintentional,  harm was done to Black women and girls. We conclude by continuing the discussion towards what could be done to call the Assembly back into session. Later the day, we hear from our only Black commissioner, a young woman. Her emotions kept her from participating. She  speaks of her anger, shame and disgust during the last session when the effort to get the action for Black women and girls was turned down twice.  While her mother and grandmother are watching. And the pain of generations continues unabated.   I let her know we are not willing to let this go. Sadly, the assembly thought would be over won’t let go, its work is not finished.  

It’s finally time to get my Covid-19 test at a local hospital clinic. It takes two hours of waiting in line to get in.  A tent with multiple stations is set up on the sidewalk in front of the clinic for the testing. No big deal but that swab up the nose is annoying. 

There is a Zoom surprise farewell party for a colleague of over 40 years. Wants to not retire in the Louisville (national church) office. I so understand that. The risk he’s taking. Having  agency in your going is worth the risk.

During this coronavirustime I have become a real fan of the National Theatre of London. (Available through live streaming). Their programming is a mix of the classical and contemporary. And during this lockdown and time of uprising they’ve had a special focus on experience of postcolonial Black britons. The Official Barbershop Chronicles framed lives through the lens of six African barbershops and one  African diaspora London shop. All watching the same international football game. Small Island focused on the experiences of Jamaican RAF pilots who fought for Britain in integrated forces during World War II only to move to London and find prejudice and discrimination. Finally, this week’s offering is Les Blancs, the last play written by Lorraine Hansbury. I confess to knowing little of Ms. Hansbury’s work beyond “Raisin in the sun…” This playwright, dying much too young at 35, believed that struggles for freedom in colonial Africa and the United States are the same struggle and inextricably linked. Unfinished work when she died, it was completed by her husband Robert Nemiroff. Rejected by frightened critics in 1970 for its by any means necessary conclusion.  Ms. Hansbury’s interest in in the intersectionality makes this not only a valuable but arguably an essential resource in determining what we must be  doing now. https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home )

Living in coronavirusworld 100: You can't be both Micah and Isaiah

7/1

Mornningside

patriotic front

critical analysis

As the underground meets this week, I’m wearing  two items for this week’s July 4th celebration. My hat is last year’s Pittsburgh Pirates July 4th weekend hat. Most significant is that the logo “P” It's from 1903 hat, the first“real” World Series where the Pirates defeated the Red Sox.  My shirt come from the Uni Watch blog. From the front its a great parody of the typical “patriotic” jersey but instead  a name on back is  the word “pandering”and the number 4 indicating what blog creator  Paul Lukas believes to be the reality…these so-called patriotic shout outs are actually jingoistic pandering. 

Clyde brings us a virtual background and I wonder if we will ever meet there again. 

For the first time our roots are being seriously examined. 

As always, there is much to talk about. We talk about Jefferson’s “All men are created equal.” Which never  really meant what it sounded like until Lincoln used it and even then..it lay there until Dr.King brought it out as an unfulfilled promise. The cognitive dissonance of the American truth claim, texts never equaling truth . 

Steve H brings out the  idea of “convergence”and wonders about  the role of the preacher in “convergence.” How it’s the job of the  preacher to pull people out of their comfort zone while  keeping it safe.  (But not too safe...)

(A side discussion:  why did John’s gospel story reference 153 fish? Steve P maintains very little of John is about history. Story, yes, history no. Perhaps there were just 153 members of the community he was writing for…)

We note that the President’s disapproval raring as now reached 58%. 

                                                       'Free fallin'" Tom Petty

Of course the conversation continues about the phrase “new normal”…which I continue to reject because it may be new but it is certainly not normal. Neither should we accept it as such. Certainly part of what’s been going is  what we have, like a people under occupation, come to accept.  Perhaps we are now in a state of free falling and need to  get comfortable with the fact that that is where we are. 

Sam sees it as a time of pregnancy. Breaking us out of out of our smugness and complacency. That maybe Trump had to come to bring this moment for us to see ourselves as we truly are. In a time of the Black Madonna we need to see and ultimately  embrace our dark side. (See Jung? Robert  Bly?) So after today, what do we do tomorrow? After hurt comes  creativity. 

We talk about the loaves and fishes. How it was a miracle of distribution, not  production. The smallest have the power to meet the chaos. How do we create a system that honors the least?

Sam argues for the need of a change of heart. I argue for the power of law to change how we act and as a  result, ultimately how we think. And feel. Maybe starts at both ends and works towards the middle. 

One thing is clear…we must do everything we can to get people to vote. We note that some generals have declared the President a traitor. But it is clear… we must stop looking  for a stare of comfort and peace. 

Later in the day our Presbytrian Health Education and Welfare board meets to review the PC (USA) General Assembly. Clearly there is much work to be done. One friend tells us of the struggle of putting up a Black Lives Matter sign at their  church . We talk about what happens to our friends when they join the bureaucracy. One remembers our old friend of blessed memory, Bill Thomas, who spent his life and ministry  in Pittsburgh’s steel country of the Mon (ongahela) Valley. Bill said you can’t be both Micah and Isaiah.The rough hewn working class prophet vs. the court prophet. (I’ve always believed Isaiah copped Micah’s best line about swords into plowshares…) To hear Bill's name mentioned fills me with warm memories and heart ache...one of the true saints.

I'm noticing friends my age and older are very wary of venturing out, even as life loosens.

Sunset on the Hudson

I meet my friend Beppe in a grassy noll in Riverside Park. He's brought lawn chairs. And cold drinks. In the cool of the evening, as the sun touches the water, life feels almost perfect. For the moment.

The dice shooters are back. The nightly fireworks show continues.  

Living in coronavirusworld: the work is hard.....

6/30

125th Street

Another day spent with the after effects of the Presbyterian General Assembly and the depth of pain experienced by people of color, especially Black women at our Assembly. Wrestling with my own defensiveness and guilt. How I could work for two months before and in strenuous writing and strategizing within Assembly and still wind up hurting people. As I listen to my excuses, I realize how white I feel. As I wind up actually reading the report of the Black women and girls task force, I understand  why they  feel so aggrieved.  They had worked for two years and developed a stunning report which the Assembly refused to bring forward. It is filled with a rich history and analysis and strong awareness of intersectionality especially as it relates to the Black Queer and Trans communities. Black women being the marginalized of the marginalized. I checked my own emotional  reactions. I realized I had wanted to be seen as a “hero.” And objectively, much was accomplished.  But for many, especially younger people, all that mattered was that we had failed to hear and recognize and honor this voice.  

It also caused me to reflect on my history in urban ministry. My heroes who inspired me to enter into this work. And they were indeed heroes. They risked their families, their jobs and sometime even their lives to fight for justice in  the inner city.  This was real. But also real is that they were all white men. White cis, straight men going into the ghetto to save the day. At the end of the day, an unescapable ethos of  white saviorism that has been an undercurrent through these many years …yes, even through this  Assembly. 

As  a strategist, I also learned that if I  wanted to keep abreast of what was going on on the Assembly,I needed to keep an eye on Twitter where the  real grass roots commentary was going on.

I have written my younger friends cautioning  them against lingering too long in white guilt, as satisfying as that might be. For liberals, guilt is its own reward in that it allows us to  remain in our privilege because after all , we’re liberals and we feel guilty so it’s okay. What’s needed is the move beyond guilt to responsibility, accountability. What then are we  to do? Honestly, it is frustrating. If we move ahead, we can be criticized for not consulting. If we ask for guidance, we’re told it’s our job to figure it out.  So deal….

I have spoken with my own Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Associaton to have each of our networks examine how their particular ministry…HIV, domestic violence, reproductive options, disabilities…connects with the unique experience of Black Women and Girls. I have asked the Peace Fellowship to convene a webinar. And if need be, we who were commissioners to understand what it would take to  reconvene the Assembly. This is not easy work.

the barbershop

before

after

I get my first hair cut in three months. And a shave! There are only maybe two sensory experiences better than a barbershop shave.

I need a walk. A Philip Randolph park is open again. I see a Latino man face down in the park. Surrounded by police in masks and blue rubber gloves. And a core of black men with their phone cameras turned on to video. There is no public trust anymore. None. They try to help him up, he goes down again.Now its a job for an ambulance and EMTs. As I watch the ambulance arrive, I knew I can go. 

ATLAH

ATLAH

I head to 125th street.  All the widows have been unboarded except for the Burlington Coat Factory outlet.  The ATLAH church is back at again against LGBTQ gentrifiers. The street cops game done shooters are back out. The domino players are back out. 

It’s time for Taco Tuesdays at my neighborhood cantina. 

Living in coronavirusworld 98: Come you who are weary

6/29

Come you who are weary

General Assembly is not over.  I begin to write my reports to those I feel responsible to, namely New York City Presbytery and the Presbyterian Heath Education and Welfare Association. I find myself struggling to hear the depth of pain experienced by my Black siblings.  Especially black women.  As the day goes on, I begin  to understand  the depth of their anger and concern. Was too caught  up in wanting to celebrate  my own work being approved that I could not hear their work being excluded. And their hurt. One of those over and over again hurts.Words I’d  rather not  hear. But words that needed to be heard. 

Our Bible Study tonight looks at Matthew  11:16-19, 25-36.  It’s part of  a longer section looking  at Jesus as Messiah, servant and son of man. The one who continues his mission to Israel even as opposition mounts. In 16-19, he denounces his generation as corrupt. Calling out the elitism of the Pharisees.”We piped and you would not dance, wailed and you would not  mourn.” Wedding imagery. Funeral imagery. Jesus’,ministry vs. John the Baptist. People want neither one.   As son of man, he’s referring  to the final judge, as in Daniel 7:13-14, the one who must suffer and/or using an Aramaic expression for simply referring to ones’ self as human. The reference to eating and drinking’s comes back to John  again.  John the ascetic, Jesus the one who embraces abundant life, turning water into  wine. People don’t want to accept either one.

There’s a section about Jesus as Wisdom, this is Sophia, a feminine entity . By tradition, almost powerful enough to be part of the Trinity . Or maybe a quad god squad. Sophia the most hidden female side of the tradition. Scary enough to have women  who tried to reawaken interest  in sophia  accused of being idolators and heretics in the’90’s.  West Park had a Sophia group that  went on for years…even after the women members left the church…..

The final part is what everyone’s been waiting  for…

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

What we need …we are weary. Need a place to lay down all kinds of burdens. And simply rest.

                                                   from the Messiah

Russ plays for us that section of the Messiah.  

And I play my own Rest awhile. 

 I go it to get sandwich. My trombone man is just panhandling. Behind my mask I look at him and mime a trombone.  Man I got jumped on 120th. Some guys stole my horn.”

 I know a policeman helped him  get his last one, it’s been a “story. ” (https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2017/12/21/nypd-sergeant-gives-new-trombone-to-homeless-man#:~:text=One%20month%20after%20his%20trombone,was%20sleeping%20on%20the%20train.).  It’s got to be hard. Tim’s been out there awhile. With the trombone, he’s someone special. Without it, just another homeless panhandler who no one sees. And that’s what happens when you are homeless, you become invisible. We need to get Tim a new trombone. 

The seven o’clock cheer sees to be no more.

Matthew 11

16 “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

17 

“‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

The Father Revealed in the Son

25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Living in coronavirusworld 97: Pride Sunday

6/28

Pride

.Pride Sunday

Pride Sunday.  Different than any other I’ve  experienced.    

I go to the West Park Sunday shrive and a very happy to see a banner proclaiming Pride Sunday.  The Gospel lesson is  Matthew 10: 40-42, ends with these words

42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” …Dan, the preacher, tells a beautiful story of meeting a young man  in a park in  Pittsburgh who had been rejected by his family after he came out  and then  reconnecting him with a friend whose family took him in. During the prayers, I recount how the wife of the former pastor of West Park had started a  water table during the Pride march to  give a “cup of cold water” in Jesus’ name to hot and tired marchers. It’s good to see my old church worshipping again. 

I meet my family  for our weekly ZOOM get together, some in the Catskills, some in Berlin and me in Harlem. It’s interesting to hear my oldest son, probably the furthest left in the family, speak against “cancel culture.”  I had mentioned that as a young Boy Scout, our troop had done a minstrel show. My son laughed and said, “I hope no one took pictures”,  which led to a conversation about the necessity of grace in people’s lives leading to change and redirecting ones’ life, the total life being what counts. US Grant may have owned one slave, but could not bring himself to order him to work and granted him his freedom at a cost  of $1000 at a time he was without funds. As a General he defeated the South, defied President Johnson in pursuing reconstruction, led military operations against the Ku Klux Klan. What exactly is the message in tearing down his statue? I remember my friend Osagyefo Sekou’s criticism of the so-called Black Bloc white anarchists who with no sense of historic anarchism would  wreak havoc which  always  resulted in Black heads getting cracked. Still the same.  Tear down all the statues. Fire people for dumb mistakes. It's all virtue signaling.  The system remains intact. 

One last General Assembly related event. My friends in the HIV network hold a webinar featuring people working with HIV in Baltimore, where we were supposed to have met. Workers from the Hope Springs project. In Baltimore, the face of HIV is Black. One out of 41 over age 13 will contract HIV. One out of 20 in predominately Black zip codes. One half of Black trans will have HIV and one half of Black men who have sex with men. (MSMs, they say, not gay.) Baltimore is number  5 in the US in total HIV cases. People who have been abandoned by the church. Already marginalized people further marginalized. These are my friends, on the front line. I bring a word on behalf of the Presbyterian Health Educational Welfare Association. Thankful for their work.

Rock stars and prophets

I’m wearing, not seen, my tshirt from the Rock Stars and Prophets event where That All May Freely Serve called together all those who  for decades had fought the fight for full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in the Presbyterian Church, as a reminder to me of that struggle that began in 1978 and finally ended in May 2011. I do this in honor of Pride. 

My friends in Composers Concordance hold another Social Distance Concert. Their  new classic music reflecting the months of quarantine and lockdown. Again I envy them and wish I were there.

double rainbow

I meet a fiend for dinner, wanting to celebrate the new opening. The line at the Tavern is 25 minutes long. The Jamaican seafood restaurant only has uncovered seating. It’s starting to rain. We settle for middle eastern under an awning, beef kebabs and laban yogurt. Before the sun goes down, there’s a double rainbow.