Susan Stack, Rest in peace

2/18

Thank you, Susan....

Late last night I learned that shortly after noon yesterday, my friend Susan Stack had died a few short  weeks after her 65th birthday following a year long struggle with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. In her own desire to maintain control over as much of her life as she could, Susan kept her medical situation (mainly) to herself and resisted hospitalization as long as she could. Susan maintained her fierce hold on life to the end.

For over 30 years of her life, Susan served the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the ministry of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association.  She was one of the church's last connections back to the church's old national offices at 475 Riverside Drive, New York City, leaving a city she loved to move to Louisville so she could continue to serve. Through a changing cast of Executive Directors over those 30 years, Susan always fought to keep PHEWA true to its founding vision, and the legacy of the director with whom she first served, Rod Martin.

During those years, as the person on the other end of the phone, Susan was in many ways a true "first responder" to needs ...and crises..of those who called into PHEWA's office. For countless people across the country, Susan was the voice, the ears, and the heart, of the ministry she served.  And thereby, for many, of the church they loved. For many, Susan was the human embodiment of what it meant to be a concerned, caring and responsive Presbyterian Church. Whether it was connecting someone to another who could give the advice needed or helping someone bring a new justice issue or concern to General Assembly, Susan more than any of us was that church.

Susan gave up her opportunity for early retirement in the hopes that she could continue to serve her crunch. Sadly, that was not to be. When Susan left, the church, perhaps without fully realizing it, lost the greatest...and most irreplaceable...relationship based resource bank that could ever be held in one person.

Susan loved her cats. And the Mayan Cafe. And whatever team Tubby Smith was coaching. And there are people she was committed to, whose lives were enriched by Susan, in ways no one ever knew about. Yes, she could be obstinate and prickly. But she was, in the words of her PHEWA colleagues, fierce and passionate. Especially for justice. And she had literally made the church the center of her life, a singular commitment beyond most of us. And yes, there was pain when she felt that she may not have been loved to the same extent she loved. 

Behind her desk at the Presbyterian Center, she kept photos of PHEWA families and their children, as part of her extended family. She also kept a gallery of photos representing those she called "the saints of the church," the faithful witnesses who inspired her to keep going on. Today she has clearly joined that number. Susan has joined the saints.

Thank you Susan. 

Remembering Guatemala

10/14

Dennis Smith 2017

Being with my old friend Dennis Smith has brought  back memories of our time in Guatemala. These memories were made even more present by the fact that two days ago, it was announced that the second trial of Efrain Rios Montt for genocide was set to begin again.  

I remember that as our Presbyterian Task force prepared to leave for Guatemala, one task force member decided to remain in Mexico City and our then South American staff person had to be persuaded to go.  That was the level of anxiety that preceded our visit.

I remember Dennis coming to visit our hotel room, turning the radio way up loud to thwart obvious bugging  attempts. I remember passing a table of officers in a steakhouse and knowing by their accent they were Argentine advisors. (Israeli advisors were a little more behind the scenes.... )

We spoke with indigenous fellow Presbyterians telling us of  whole villages disappearing, cultures eons old being wiped from the earth.

We were called to visit the  country’s President Efrain Rios Montt.or ”El Viejo” as he was called. Over coffee on a balcony veranda, he pointed to a faded mural of a Mayan Indian ritual including human sacrifice and the bloody removal of a heart. “You see”, he said, this is what we come from.”

We were taken to visit the headquarters of Montt’s California based evangelical church, “El verbo.” We were greeted at the church’s headquarters, surrounded by a razor wire topped chain link fence, by loudly barking German shepherds. A short man in a leather jacket opened the door and let us in. When we asked him about genocide, he folded his hands, crossed his  knee, leaned forward and said, “You must understand, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” And nodded as if that was that. Not humans, but “rulers of darkness…”

The primal beauty of the country was in  stark contrast to the apparent apocalyptic reality of the violence that surrounded our visit. 

We prepared our report and took it to the 1983 joint assembly of the two branches of US Presbyterians in Atlanta fully prepared to call out Montt’s genocide and call for end to US aid. Guatemala was a clear part of US Central America strategy and the Reagan administration’s relationship with Montt was on of the  many things I could never forgive Reagan for. 

Montt was the darling of American evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. His open declaration of wanting to create a “Christian nation,” his Sunday night broadcasts demanding personal piety and socially conservative moralism while hiding genocide and his tough talking peasant program ‘frijoles and fusiles” (beans and rifles)  made him an iconic leader. In a word, Montt 

was to the Christian Right what the Sandinistas were to progressive Christians.

As our report was being debated in a late night General Assembly session, we were taken by surprise by a   strategic move by the conservative evangelicals. They had brought in two old school missionaries who sang Montt’s praises. A substitute motion was introduced, lifting up Montt’s faith and asking that we recognize him as a brother in Christ  and pray for him to prevent “a worse bloodbath..” The assembly was confused, we couldn’t get a commissioner or mission rep to a microphone, and  the substitute motion was approved. The Presbyterian Church was on record praying for Brother Montt.

Later that night I came as close as I would ever  come to throwing a punch at a church meeting when the gloating head of  Presbyterians for Biblical Concerns (what an unfortunate acronym that was!) came over to goad me about Montt, but friends intervened.

In another year, Montt was overthrown. (Though like a character in a franchise horror movie he never stopped coming back ..) Subsequently, the UN Commission on Historical Clarificationn declared him responsible for “acts of genocide” and perhaps as many as 200 thousand dead . It was estimated that at it's peak the war claimed 3000 lives  a month and 10000 between March and July 1982. In 2013, Montt was convicted for the murder of 1771 Mayan Ixil people in one village. While that was overturned on a technicality, he is up for trial again. His fragile physical state has led to a pretrial humanitarian decision that he will not serve time. 

In 1999, US President Clinton surprised us and  apologized to the Guatemalan people.

That same year, Guatemala President Portillo apologized to the people as well.  

The Presbyterian Church has yet to apologize…

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The Presbyterian Church essentially put its arm around Rios Montt while he killed his own people and   indigenous people who were also Presbyterian. That apology is still due….