Living in coronavirus world 197: We don't roll that way

 

10/28

Keep on voting

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. 

los arcereros

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.

bienvenidos al barrio

Timmy plays the trombone

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. 

Living in coronavirusworld 172: a question of authority

 

9/21

Lives depend on it

Tonight we’re looking at Matthew 21:23-32, which means we’re dealing with the issue of authority. The story begin with Jesus in another confrontation with the religious establishment, “chief priests and elders.” Contextwise, Jesus has just had a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, healing people, children crying out Hosanna and has just disrupted the Temple by turning over tables and chasing out  the money changers. Enough to disturb the peace. Now he’s teaching as if he has authority to do so. Where did he study theology? Where did he get an ordination? From God? From a rabbi? Or on his own? It's a trick question. To answer risks a blasphemy charge.

So Jesus responds with his own question. About John and his baptism. Of God? So why not listen? Or? They know the people are behind John. He’s got the numbers, so to speak. They don’t want to rile the crowds. So they say “Don’t know.” And Jesus responds with the first of four parables. About two sons, one who says he won't do what the father has asked, then changes his mind and does it. The other says he will, and then does nothing. Who did the father’s will? Tax collectors and prostitutes will get in first.

On first reaction, Marsha doesn’t see a connection. Just another Biblical nonsequetir.  But Amberleigh senses there’s something there.  The question of authority is answered by who gets it. John Wesley said that even when we see the prostitutes and tax collectors get it, we still don’t go in.

I recall that John, by tradition, was a child of the temple. Son of a priest, a tall steeple preacher. Herod, the ethnarch, the local ruler under authority of the Romans, had built the temple. And he built the mikvahs, the ritual baths for purification, to resemble pagan Roman baths. John is so  offended, sees the temple  so corrupt, that the goes out to the wilderness and says, we’ll do it in the river. It’s an act of subversion, of insubordination, what they call in Latin America propaganda of the deed. Jesus is cleary down with John. (John also reminds me of Jay Baker, son of televangelist Jim Baker who with his tattoos and punk vibe, went to the streets and started his own Revolution church.) 

So who are we? What authority do we have? One thing is clear: empty yeses are broken promises. It is God who shakes up our understanding of God, the demon that keeps us stuck in the status quo.  In looking at these conversations, we recall Voltaire who said a person is judged by their questions, not theie answers. From PostChrisitan comes this question: “If you could completely realize the mission of [your] congregation today, here, and now, but in order to do it, you’d have to close the doors of [your] church and walk away forever, would you do it?”( p. 197) Would we leave our temple and head out to the wilderness? 

Prostitutes and tax collectors get it. And will get in first. The moral and social outcasts. (Remebering that the author of Matthew was by tradition a tax collector himself. For the religious establishment, it would be better to not come in at all than to follow these outcasts. Jesus is saying  that authority is established by what you see. Changed lives.In her new book, Sanctuary, Being Christian in the wake of Trump, my friend Heidi Neumark recalls a memorial service for sex workers who had died during the year. Candle wax dripped on the communion table from the memorial candles. She decided the wax should remain, an expression of what the table really means.

Counter culture

We talk about authority. In churches, the culture is as important as the polity. Real authority may lie outside the elected leadership. Marsha knows that the work of community organizing is uncovering leaders. As my mentor Philip Newell once told me, leaders are people who have followers. Structural authority, cognitive authority over against organic, intrinsic, authority. Control over the act of freeing, of liberation. Marsha has a deep love of Wagner’s Ring Cycle ( as far as Wagner goes, the truth and beauty of the art us stronger than the weakness of the artist.) For her, the moral of the Ring is the Power of Love over the love of power as Wotan sacrifices his authority to free humans from the gods. It has been a very good conversation. Especially as we all stare into the face of growing authoritarian power. The  church must stand with John and Jesus, a counter culture to empire.

9/22

make it clear

My friend Rabbi Steve calls. We meet in the patio garden of Double Dutch Coffee. The weather is a cool and sunny September day. It would be perfect except…hey, we’ll take it. It’s hard to get past the daily anxiety. As if the election were not enough, we’ve now got the Supreme Court crisis as the President  and his congress push to get a nomination through before he election. It will take for republicans to sated against their reversal of the precedent they set when they refused to allow Obama to make his appointment in his last year establishing a new precedent as they called it. “You can use my words against me” said Lindsey Graham. Well….here we are. Fires, hurricanes, floods. People facing off with guns. Nature in revolt. Zombies would not surprise me. Things families can longer talk  about. And no confidence the election can resolve anything. The Covid death toll in the US has now reached 200000. Like the entire population of Akron, Ohio or Des Moines, Iowa or Spokane , Washington pr Richmond, Virginia; just gone. In such a time how do we celebrate Rosh Ha Shana? Yom Kippur? The days of awe?

A good day for a long walk. Afternoon drinks  with good friends. Breathe, just breathe.

What is your calling? by Philip Newell: a review

2/14

Add caption

The memorial service for my friend Philip Newell was now a few  weeks ago. I am thankful that he left for us his memoir, What is your calling? (https://www.amazon.com/What-Your-Calling-Philip-Newell/dp/1504371259). His own unique voice is very present in the pages of this book and it sounds very much like an extended conversation with him. What comes through very clearly is his intelligence, his faith, and his ability to communicate clearly with anyone.   

For Philip, the question What is your calling? is not just a spiritual question but one with primary existential moral content. In his world view, informed by his love  of Plato and Calvinist reformed theology, all of creation is interrelated and we as human beings have a shared  responsibility for the  overall health of creation. And because we are part of that whole, our own self interest is best served by working for the best for all. For Philip, "True spirituality and religious commitment are about adherence to a transcendent order of things, an order that manifests itself through our own transformation into an increasingly loving person who then supports the well-being, growth, and transformation of others."

The book takes us through the various parts of Philip's life beginning with his childhood and his endearing fascination with turtles. We learn of the impact of his Biblical scholar father on his life as  well as the effect of his father's own spiritual journey. His post World War II service in Japan as well his education at Harvard as well as his student friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr. had their own impact.

More than anything, it was his encounter with  George McLeod and  his time at the Scottish community of Iona that shaped his view of Christian life, beginning with the importance of one on one relationships the power of mutually accountable community and and an absolute commitment to social and economic justice. One can clearly see the connections between the Iona experience and Philip's later advocacy for Alinsky stye community organizing as the best means for social transformation.

Although his years in West Virginia with his closest school friends were rewarding it was in urban ministry, in Washington, DC that he truly discovered his calling. His forging ecumenical and interfaith relationships and the importance of weekly meetings with his colleagues are helpful models for us. 

It is also valuable to read inside stories of both the logistical and strategic planning for Civil Rights Movement actions from Selma to the March on Washington to see what is involved in actually creating change. It is often forgotten for example, that the March on Washington was primarily a Labor Movement action in its inception. Most of the marchers  were from the UAW which also footed most of the bill.The Civil Rights Movement was never separable from the call for economic justice and fair labor practices as in Dr. King's support for the sanitation workers in Memphis and the move towards a Poor Peoples Campaign.

From Washington, Philip worked creatively at the national level the Presbyterian Church forging alliances with working people and community organizers. The efforts to create a worker owned and managed steel mill in Youngstown in the face of industrial collapse was but one example. 

Philip shares  with us both the sorrows and joys of his personal life as well, from the tragic death of his oldest son Philip to his ultimate marriage to Madelyne Tramm. In describing his personal faith, Philip argues (as has Marilynne Robinson) that Calvin and the reformers were the first humanists. He challenges those of that tradition today to seek to reclaim its original  passion to reshape the social order so that human beings could  live as God intended. 

Philip's short but incisive book is a clarion call to faithful witness by faith communities:
"Religious institutions of all kinds, but certainly those for which the Hebrew and Christian scriptures provide inspiration and direction, have a particular vocation: to address the needs of the poor, the outcast, and all disadvantaged people, not only for their sakes, but also for the preservation and welfare of the common life of all humanity, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. And in a world where people increasingly see themselves as spiritual, though without affiliation with a particular denomination, it can only serve each of us individually to think of our own lives in terms of ministry."

For those of us who struggle with these issues, with our own call, this book is not only inspirational but instructive. 

Remembering Dr. King with Resistance

1/30

Micah Table Clergy in solidarity

It was the week before our annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's life that our President decided to make his "shithole countries" statement.  A little later that week, his Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) agents moved on the New Sanctuary movement.  First by seizing Associate Director Jean Montrevil. We knew the director, Ravi Ragbir, would be next.

Ravi speaks of his situation

The New Sanctuary Movement

NSM logo

is a grass roots movement commiNSM lgo
tted to providing safety  and shelter to vulnerable immigrants who find themselves under threat from ICE. Drawing its inspiration from the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980's which provided shelter for those escaping murder and repression in Central America, the NSM is committed to saving lives as well. The New York Times Magazine (1/17/18) has reported that immigration officials no longer ask the required questions as to whether someone fears for their life if returned, warranting an automatic hearing . Instead, persons are immediately deported, often to their deaths upon return. There are now, for example, nearly 300000 Salvadorans subject for deportation to the country with the world's highest murder rate. 

By the time Ravi's report date comes on Thursday, Jean has already been sent to the Chrome Avenue Detention Center in Miami, one step away form deportation to Haiti. We gather for breakfast and prayers, and then as Ravi leaves for his hearing, abroad interfaith coalition starts out on a "Jericho Walk"....

Beginning the "Jericho Walk" through AI Wei Wei's installation, "Fences make good neighbors"

seven circuits around the Federal Court Building with Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing blowing the shofar. 

Later, word will come that Ravi has been detained. Because he fainted at the announcement, he is being taken to jail in an ambulance. Attempts are made to block the ambulance and ultimately two city council members are arrested including council member Jumane Williams being dragged away in a choke hold.

                                         ****

Monday is the annual King Memorial day. Today is not a day of rest, it is a  day of protest and marching. The special guest at Judson Memorial where we begin is Ruby Sales,

Ruby Sales

who as the little girl Ruby Bridges was the first to integrate the William Franz Elementary School in Louisiana.

Ms. Sales tells us our movement must be international and have hindsight, insight and foresight. And that Anti-Islam and Anti- Black are connected and the same.  What's happening today is not new, but has roots deep in the American soil.  And that we must rid ourselves of empirism with remorse, restitution, reconfiguration,reconstruction, reconciliation and resurrection. 

In the freezing cold, we go outside or another Jericho walk, And back inside the church, there is an overflow crowd for the press conference with the council members.

New Sanctuary press conferecne

The question before us is where will stand in this rising?  Council member Jumane Williams says We stand for all who are "other" anywhere and that we must uproot this system.

We now know that Ravi, too, has been sent to Chrome.  He and Jean were able to see each other before Jean was deported. Both have lived here over twenty years. Have wives and children. Are intimately and integrally part of their communities. And the Trump administration is determined o send a message to those who would seek to stand up for immigrants.

                                                 ****

Back uptown, I join in the 16th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march for peace and justice.

At the Upper West Side march

This year's theme is "Immigration" and even with the freezing cold, a large crowd as come  out to march from congregation to congregation singing, chanting and praying. At Pastor Heidi's church, Trinity, two vulnerable immigrants take the risk to tell their story, just so we understand.

Telling their story

At the march's conclusion, Borough President Gale Brewer,

Manhattan Boro President Gale Brewer in solidarity

our former council member, lifts up Council members Williams and Martinez. There is clear public concern about Trump's actions.

                                          ****

At Ravi's court hearing on Tuesday, the judge expresses dismay that ICE would move when a natural "stay of deportation" hearing  date as fast approaching. ICE's chilling response was basically, "We did it because we can..."

                                      ****

Wednesday was the memorial service for my friend Philip Newell.

Philip's memorial service

His wife, Madelyn Tramm chose this day because it was in the center of the week celebrating Dr. King's life. And she chose the Riverside  church for the service because that was where Dr.King preached his famous Sermon criticizing the US in Vietnam. Not all were aware that Philip and Dr. King had bene study partners at Boston, Philip drinking beers and Dr.King...Diet Pepsi?...Madelyne noted that Philip's last word was a loud and clear declaration, "Exonerate!"...perhaps himself, perhaps all who struggle to believe in their own forgiveness. Speakers noted that Philip believed that faith was not about pieties, propositions and proscriptions but purpose, proclamation and prophetic witness.   And that he always believed at the Bible should be read as a social contract. with theological depth and resolve.  And that one must love and be immersed in life.  And that if you want to stay married, you must forgive each other from the bottom of your heart every day. 

Sitting in the congregation I can't help but wonder when I die, who will come? What will they say? What can still be done between now and then?

                                                 ****

The judge ruled that Ravi must be returned from Chrome to Elizabeth, New Jersey. And today, that he must be released from  detention. Deportation still seems imminent.

Saturday, 100s of thousands marched again in the Women's March. It's spirit was buoyant and defiant, voices --and fists--raised at Trump Tower, the Trump Hotel and FOX news.

At the march

at Trump Tower

Diverse voices

Spirit of the day

Steady flow of marchers

The BBC ran a report on deportations that most Americans haven't figured out yet. People we've known for decades, neighbors,  are disappearing day by day. We are already deeper into an alternative reality than could have been imagined. 

Steady loving confrontation, King called us to in Selma.  That's what we need. 

With thanks for the life and witness of Philip Newell

11/25

Philip Newell

I  got the news while standing in the security line in the Schoenfeld Airport in Berlin. My mentor and friend Philip Newell was dead at age 90. Objectively speaking, I probably learned more from Philip than anyone else in my life. Memories and sadness all at once.

Philip’s invaluable role as part of the logistical infrastructure of the Civil Rights movement and his quiet pastoral support of key leaders will likely be documented elsewhere. He could be the trusted friend of these leaders  because he never sought the spotlight for himself. When asked about those days, he would smile and say, "If everyone who said they were on the Pettit Bridge with Dr.King had actually been on it, it would have collapsed.”

When I first met him, 40 years ago,  as a young urban minister in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Philip was one of a vanishing, well, vanished, era of church bureaucrats who saw their work as seeing what was going on in church in the world and providing all the help possible. As Philip said it, “ If God wants something to be done in the world, it is already being done. My job is to find it and bring all the resources I can.” And he did. He knew how to find resources— and also preserve them so that they would be there for those who were really doing something. 

I was amazed how as a consultant, he could quickly gain the confidence of an interviewee and discover what mattered to them, what motivated them  and what they would commit to. ( That was a skill that worked equally well with restaurant servers. And there’s this: more than once on a trip we'd go to a sports arena and go to the Will Call window and ask for seats left for “Father Newell”. And look incredulous when there were none. Somehow seats always showed up. )

He would look at you and say ” I'm looking for the kind who of person who wakes up in the morning, hits the shower and says to himself ‘what can I do today to move the mission  for Gods people in this city forward?’ Are you that kind of person?” And you very much wanted to be and have him believe you were.

He was the church’s connection to organized labor and the network of community organizers around the country. He was equally at home with John Calvin and Karl Marx and a believer in the Gospel of Sol (Alinsky.) He taught me, as per Paulo Freire, that our call is to help others become “the subjects of their own history.” He introduced me to Ignacio Silone and Bread and Wine. As he read the passage where the father grieves his son just murdered by the fascists, Philip would choke up, tears in his voice and eyes.

He enjoyed a good meal, a good glass of wine and a good cigar. He was particular. The first time I ordered him a Corona and it arrived with a lime in it, he was very clear: “ I don’t want damned fruit in my beer,” He was comfortable at all levels of society. He had the height, the voice, the mien, to be a tall steeple preacher, but no desire. He preferred the small struggling churches, people at the grass roots. His greatest disdain was for those with self-inflated egos who sought the spotlight for themselves. 

He opened the national church to me. Brought me to New York twice, once as an interim consultant and once to the call at West Park that lasted 22 years. And he performed my marriage.  I kept at this work in part because I believe I owed him a debt. 

I learned from him: 

• Never trust liberals. They never count the votes. Which translated into never go into an important meeting without knowing the vote count going in. 
• Leaders are people with followers, it’s that simple. 
• Power is never the problem. The lack of power is. 
• Movements don't last. Organizations do. Organize. 
• In organizing, you can never skip a step. And relationships are everything.
• Organizations that are truly of their community don't depend on grants for their ongoing life, they live by serious money, locally raised.

It was a way of understanding the life of faith  that  shaped my own thinking. Those lessons prove true over and over, in both my successes and failures.

He was not always an easy man. And no stranger to tragedy. But truly  blessed by the  graces of a decades long marriage with Madeline Tram.

He was a man. A mentor. A friend. I loved him. And I will miss him. 

There is a Jewish tradition that the foundations of the world are held in place by a select number of hidden righteous that no one sees or knows. Today there is one less.

Thanks for your life and witness, Philip. RIP