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Christian Spirituality in Surprising Sources

The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., recently spoke at a global missions conference in Puerto Rico (May 18).

Through a video of the bishop's presentation--brought to my attention in a blog by my former vicar and friend while I lived in Massachusetts, the Rev. Titus Pressler (see https://titusonmission.wordpress.com posted on May 16, 2016)--I was re-introduced to a powerful book that speaks loudly and pertinently to the phenomenon of Christian spirituality: Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospel, originally published in separate parts between 1963 and 1969 and compiled and re-issued in 2012 by Smyth&Helwys in Macon, GA.

Jordan was the agriculturalist-farmer-translator who in 1941 co-founded Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, shortly after earning a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1976, he was instrumental in the founding of Habitat for Humanity, but it is his vernacular translation of the New Testament, the Cotton Patch Gospel that clearly spelled-out Jordan's spirituality, and Bishop Curry uses Jordan's writing to underscore what he sees as a new "Jesus Movement" in the Episcopal Church and its mission.

This is not the hippie-inspired Jesus People Movement of the 1960s, Curry notes, but rather a renewal of the "Movement" that arose from the disciples of the New Testament. He relates this phenomenon to his audience at the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce gathered for the 21st Global Episcopal Mission Network Conference through a synopsis of Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospel. 

That version relocates the story of the gospels and the early church to rural Georgia, in particular, to Gainesville, a city northeast of Atlanta near Lake Lanier. In Jordan's translation, Bethlehem becomes Gainesville, Atlanta becomes Jerusalem, Joseph and Mary flee to Mexico, the disciples are Rock and John and Bart and Phil and Jud, to name several, and Jesus--known as Jesus Davidson--is not crucified, he is lynched!

Cotton Patch Gospel is a powerful and compelling challenge to 21st-century Christians living in a racially diverse and divided America. The re-issued version contains an introduction by former President Jimmy Carter  (who grew up within a few miles of the Koinonia Farm); a foreward by the late Baptist minister turned writer Will D. Campbell, who left an academic post in Mississippi to become a 1950s civil rights activist; and an afterword by Tony Campolo, the Baptist sociologist and evangelist recently retired from Pennsylvania's Eastern University, who has consistently challenged evangelical Christianity's spirituality in areas of social justice. The brief essays by the three C's (Carter, Campbell, Campolo) are worth reading on their own.

In re-reading (honestly, my previous exposure was a cursory sampling) the Cotton Patch Gospel, I discovered a powerful spirituality in Jordan's translation (Jordan did the work using the Nestle-Alland twenty-third edition of the Greek text--the latest edition available in 1957), perhaps best exemplified by his rendition of the Sermon on the Mount:

"The spiritually humble are God's people, . . .;

"They who are deeply concerned are God's people, . . .'

"They who are gentle are his people, . . .;

"They who have an unsatisfied appetite for the right are God's people, . . .;

“Men of peace and good will are God’s people, . . .;

and so on. (Matthew, Chapter 5).

[In addition, the Cotton Patch Gospel inspired a powerful musical in 1981 by Tom Key and Russell Treyz. The music and lyrics for the oft-performed play were written by the popular folk-singer, the late Harry Chapin. Playlists of Chapin's songs and some scenes from a variety of productions of the musical are available on YouTube.]

---------------------------------------

On a similar front:

Last month I discovered in my father-in-law's library another book probing Christian spirituality in an area that few expect to find it: Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction for Believers (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), by Presbyterian Howard L. Rice, the late chaplain and professor of ministry at San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Rice spent most of his academic career at SFTS on crutches or in a wheelchair after being stricken by multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis that was changed to spinal cord damage when he retired. He was a pioneer in bringing to popular attention the writings of John Calvin on Christian spirituality and, as a follower and colleague of Morton T. Kelsey, helping to develop seminary programs in spiritual direction and Christian spirituality.

Rice also was an ardent reader and appreciator of the fiction of C.S. Lewis, and argued, counter to the heavy rationalism associated with Calvinism, for more attention to and appreciation of imagination, emotion, and mystery in theology and Christian reflection.

From Rice I've lifted this tiny list of important Reformed (and Puritan) writers and declarations on spirituality:

John Calvin;

Lewis Bayly;

Francis Rous;

Richard Baxter;

Samuel Rutherford;

John Owen;

John Bunyan;

Henry Scougal;

Elizabeth Singer Rowe;

Gerhard Tersteegen;

Jonathan Edwards;

Charles Hodge;

Emily Herman;

Howard Thurman;

John Knox and the Scots Confession;

Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus and the Heidelberg Catechism;

Heinrich Bullinger and Huldrych Zwingli and the Second Helvetic Confession; and

The Westminster Confession and Catechisms, best known among English-speaking Presbyterians and members of other Reformed denominations.

I’m working my way backward through this list and confess to a humbling and eye-opening (and heart-bowing) experience.

Almost all of the names on this list were largely ignored by students of Christian spirituality in the 20th century; although, that ignorance has been undercut by the 2001 publication of Calvin's Writings on Pastoral Piety (admit it, we cringe at the word piety!) edited by Princeton scholar Elsie Anne McKee in the Classics of Western Spirituality series published by Paulist Press.

I’m just grateful for Howard L. Rice and fathers-in-law.

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

Mother's Day--
Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

It is no wonder that one of my mother's favorite songs was the hymn, "Let the lower lights be burning," composed by Philip Paul Bliss, a nineteenth-century musician and evangelist.

Living and growing in Wesleyville, one of Newfoundland's poor but hearty outports on the island’s northeastern Bonavista Bay, and with a father who captained a fishing schooner, my mother was well educated (formally, she finished the equivalent of eighth grade) about the importance of the "lower lights."

The history of Bliss's 1871 hymn suggests he wrote it after hearing a sermon by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody that included a story of a ship running aground while entering Cleveland harbor (on Lake Erie) because the lighthouse had failed.

Moody made the distinction of the upper lights, God's starry heaven, the navigation aid to mariners worldwide, and the "lower lights" provided by coastal lighthouses that warn ships of danger as they approach shallow rockbound coasts. These lower lights--the strong beams from the lighthouse--were critical beacons of warning and guides to safety for ships approaching their berths. The lower lights provide sailors their way to safe harbor.

Moody's story noted that God takes care of the upper lights, but it is the Christian's duty to "let the lower lights be burning" as a means of guidance and rescue—and for Moody and his evangelist friend, Bliss, for the saving of souls.

Here are the inspired verses Bliss wrote after hearing Moody:

     "Brightly beams our Father's mercy
     From his lighthouse evermore,
     But to us he gives the keeping
     Of the lights along the shore.

     "Let the lower lights be burning,
     Send a gleam across the wave.
     Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
     You may rescue, you may save.

     "Dark the night of sin has settled,
     Loud the angry billows roar.
     Eager eyes are watching, longing,
     For the lights along the shore.

     "Trim your feeble lamp, my brother,
     Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
     Trying now to make the harbor
     In the darkness may be lost."

I never really appreciated how much that hymn awakened the lived experience of my mother, though I often noted she sang it lustily and mostly from memory during the frequent church “singspirations” at our Baptist church in Brooklyn. As a young girl, my mother had worked at a waterfront department store—the only job for which she drew pay during her 93 years--and became familiar with the ways and wares of a life dependent on the sea.

Bliss’s words are meant to inspire us to serve others, especially those in peril. I believe my mother, who later in life, when her four children were grown and gone on their own voyages, became a Red Cross volunteer, and who, as she aged became a devoted reader of the Book of Psalms, was inspired to be a keeper of the “lower lights.”

I recall as a young man being inspired along similar lines after reading J. D. Salinger’s classic novel, Catcher in the Rye. I was particularly impressed with Holden Caulfield’s dream story of him serving as a guard for children playing in a field of rye close to a dangerous precipice. It was the protagonist’s job to watch over the children and catch any who wandered too close to the perilous edge. He was the “catcher” in the rye. I recall telling a church study group focusing on “ministry” that I’d determined I too wanted to become a “catcher in the rye.”

I’ve learned that sentiment has been inspired as much by my mother as by Salinger.

And here's a rendition that inspires and reminds me of "singspirations" at the church of my youth.

Judy, Henry, and Jack (Judy Boitnott, bass; Henry Boitnott, 
mandolin; and Jack Zell, guitar and lead singer), stalwarts 
of the Roanoke Valley Fiddle and Banjo Club,
performing at the Copper Hill Church of the Brethren, 
Copper Hill, Virginia, in the rural Blue Ridge Mountains, 
circa January 2008. This video is posted at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO_7Y0slxNU

A Faith Floss post:
February 10, 2016: Ash Wednesday

Does God require a login and password?

I returned today after a long absence to the meditational prayer Website of the Irish Jesuits known as Sacred Space http://www.sacredspace.ie, where I was surprised to learn that  there was a problem with my username or password.

Then a spiritual quandary confronted me: Does God require a login and password when we come to pray? I suspect not. The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit, the scriptures say (Psalm 51:17).

So I  guess the universal login for signing on with God is: brokenspirit; and the universal password must be: havemercy. And if the password must be unique or encrypted or something like that, we could make it haveJohn3:16mercy.

Not a bad password anywhere, I think; although, I've never particularly understood that verse's popularity on placards at sporting events. Perhaps those placards should read "Jesus Saves," a bit of graffiti that was a favorite of a  young woman I knew growing up and one of the frequent signs in the Baptist church we attended.

But such public displays came to be a joke around New England when I was in college. The joke went like this: "Jesus saves--and Esposito slaps in the rebound!" Of course, it helped to appreciate the quip if one were a Boston Bruins fan--or at least a fan of ice hockey--and knew that Phil Esposito had a habit of hanging around in front of the goal and exploiting rebounds to become one of the game's premier scorers.

The point of my whimsical meditation, of course, assures me that God's Website encourages free access. And by the way, it's Jesus who slaps in life's rebounds.

Breakfast

I have always favored breakfast. And, I love to eat breakfast food for lunch and dinner, too.

I think this has been true since childhood when my mother served me scrambled eggs and then later taught me how to scramble my own. One of her little tricks was to add a quarter teaspoon of sugar, pancake syrup, or vanilla extract to the scrambled batter. Or, as my wife and her parents later insisted: add a dollop of mayonnaise.

One of the great surprises of nutrition research as far as I'm concerned is the conclusion that eggs are good for us. This ranks second or third only to those nutritionists' assertions that coffee is beneficial in restricted amounts as is dark chocolate.

As a younger writer I often ate breakfast at a restaurant counter and finished my coffee and toast while writing in my journal. In college, my dormitory mates and I often drove across the river to the next city for all-night breakfast served at a local diner. I can remember at that time thinking my avocation in life might be to become a short-order cook at a diner.

Restaurants such as Ihop, Dennys (which was a favorite when my family lived in Tokyo), Waffle House (despite the jokes it engenders, it makes the best home fries--and there are three of them within a mile of our house in Georgia**), Perkins, Sonic, Bob Evans (which much too late in life I learned was my late older brother's favorite eating place--well, after all, Mom probably taught him to scramble eggs, too) and Cracker Barrel all specialize in serving breakfast all day.

A development in the restaurant world is the growing popularity of gourmet breakfast shops. A recent article by list-maker Malika Harricharan* rates the ten best breakfast shops in Atlanta; I'm certain there's a similar list provided for a major city near you.

I'm told that sometime before the end of this year (2015) McDonald's will be serving breakfast all day in many locations. About time, is all I can say.

Whether eggs are served with ham, bacon, sausage, grits, fries, or even fish, they always comfort and enrich me.

And, be at ease, my friends. Breakfast was apparently important in the life of Jesus.

The gospel of John tells us that the resurrected Jesus instructed the disciples who were fishing offshore to heave their nets to the other side, and moments later as his followers with their new huge catch moved ashore toward the fire he had built on the beach, Jesus invites them with the words: "Come and have breakfast."***


*http://www.10best.com/destinations/georgia/atlanta/restaurants/breakfast/

**After his victory in the 2014 Masters Golf Tournament, golfer and big-tipper Bubba Watson apparently treated his family and staff to a meal at Waffle House (as per waitress at restaurant).

*** (John 21:12).

Planting Spiritual Sequoias

Planting Spiritual Sequoias

            A friend and colleague, who retired from his school superintendent’s job just a few years before I left the same school, was killed last month in a three-car pile-up on an Interstate highway in southern Wisconsin.

          Larry Dean Kooi and his wife Gail were en-route to family celebrations with their children and grandchildren in Minnesota, having driven from their retirement home in northern Georgia. Larry slowed for a construction delay on the highway and his vehicle was rammed from behind and pushed into the car in front of him, according to press reports. Larry died instantly apparently, and his wife was hospitalized for several days after the crash.

          From every place Larry had ever led or advised a school, messages of sympathy came to his family underscoring his reputation as a wise, thoughtful, fair, caring, listening and loving man of Christ.

          Larry, a native Iowan, as far as I know had never lived in the vicinity of big Sequoia trees, which are native to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California and among the largest and oldest known trees on the earth. He and Gail did travel quite a bit and may have visited the national park that is home to the gigantic trees.

          However, Larry told me once in our casual conversations that he had a favorite poem, and it was about Sequoias, but he couldn’t remember who had written the verses. I researched a little bit and came up with the poem “Planting a Sequoia” by Dana Gioia. Larry was thrilled to have rediscovered the text.

          It is well worth reading Gioia’s poem so I have copied it below:

                              Planting a Sequoia / by Dana Gioia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son's birth—
An olive or a fig tree -- a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my            father's
orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs, 
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant's birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can — our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of
    bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother's beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to 
     you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

               (“Planting a Sequoia” by Dana Gioia from The Gods of Winter, Graywolf Press, 1991.)

Dana Gioia’s website is at:  http://www.danagioia.net/poems/sequoia.htm

Even if Larry never visited the Sequoias, they held a place of admiration in his consciousness. And I had the privilege of knowing and working with this poetry appreciating educator who planted spiritual Sequoias everywhere he lived and worked.

It seems humorously poetic to me also that Larry, with three successive vowels in his four-letter last name, admired a poem by a poet with four successive vowels in his five-letter surname writing about a tree with four successive vowels in its name.

I chant those vowels as a prayer for Larry: ooi-ioia-uoia!

Lent Madness 2014--Part 1

I’m in the midst of following my tournament bracket—not the March Madness of the NCAA, but the LentMadness.org selections leading to the Golden Ring crown.

This morning I chose Simeon (of the Gospel of Luke and the Nunc Dimittis of Evening Prayer) over Phillips Brooks (19^th-century Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts and long-time rector of Trinity Church in Boston, popularly known for penning the Christmas hymn, “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”).

Unless one knows of the Forward Movement [www.forwardmovement.org], a devotional (Forward Day by Day) and publishing arm of the Episcopal Church operated in Cincinnati, Ohio, LentMadness.org is a stranger. For about five years two priests of the church, the Rev. Tim Schenck and the Rev. Scott Gunn, have been running this tournament of spiritual champions during the days of Lent. They see it as a fun and educational way of providing Episcopalians (and others who enter) a casual means of getting to know some of the saints.

In the Episcopal Church, saints have been honored and recorded in a volume known as Lesser Feasts and Fasts, edited and reissued every three years, and most recently revised, reedited, and published as Holy Women, Holy Men.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church has no formal process of canonization of saints so the General Convention, which meets triennially, decides who gets into the publication and is honored with a commemorative feast day in the church’s calendar.

The Revs. Schenck and Gunn, both avid basketball fans, grasped the idea of the NCAA’s March Madness and turned it into a tournament game featuring stars such as Alcuin, John of the Cross, Anna Cooper, Thomas Gallaudet, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nicholas Ridley, Johann Sebastian Bach, and John and Charles Wesley. Schenck and Gunn act as a selection committee and set up the brackets with 64 chosen saints. Those who sign up vote on a daily basis to determine a victor, who is crowned as the Golden Halo Winner during Holy Week. Throughout Lent, the tournament goes through a Round of 32; a round of the Saintly 16; a round of the Elate 8 (that’s not a typo; look up the word elate); and a Faithful 4.

To date, more than 5,000 voters have made daily selections in the 2014 tournament by clicking on a winner after reading informative and educational biographies of each competing saint. Many of those who sign-up also post comments on why they voted as they did; why they think a certain person should have been included; or why some other’s choice is unwise. Buried in the comments are lots of theological, worship, and social justice debates. (By the way, nothing bars one from entering the tournament at any time and voting in the remaining rounds.)

For me, this Lent Madness tournament coincides with my own developing interest in knowing more about the saints.

As one baptized a Methodist and a Baptist and confirmed an Episcopalian, I’ll discuss my discovery and growing interest in the saints of the church in Part II.

A Little-Known Martyr and Saint

I have lately been spending time learning about some saints.

Take, for example, Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant, born in 1907 and beheaded by the Nazis in 1943, five years, two months, and four days after I was born.

Jägerstätter was 36 years old when his life was taken, but I never heard of him until 2013. He was a conscientious objector tried in Berlin for refusing conscription into the German army and executed as "an enemy of the state."

Jägerstätter, a farmer and church sexton, reported as ordered for military induction rather than flee as many of his friends advised. He refused to serve and spent the next five months in prison before being murdered.

The story of this little-known martyr is documented in a 1964 book by Gordon Zahn: In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Press, 1964, 1991).

For more information than I can provide, I suggest you view the embedded video presentation below from the Institute of Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

(This is a lecture by Notre Dame historian and theology professor Robert A. Krieg, and the video runs for almost one hour.)

The video is readily available at YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdxBBLXhAJA


I learned of Jägerstätter in Robert Ellsberg's 1997 collection, All Saints: Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses For Our Time (NY: Crossroad, 1997).
Ellsberg is editor in chief of Orbis Books in New York City, and is the son of Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame.

Ironically, Daniel Ellsberg's decision to copy and disclose the secret papers of the U.S. government in the wake of the Vietnam War was influenced by his learning of the experience of Franz Jägerstätter in World War II Germany and Austria. 

Later, the younger Ellsberg, after learning that Jägerstätter's letters and papers had been published in German in 2007, and knowing of Jägerstätter's influence on his father, arranged for their translation and publication by Orbis in 2009. His choice of translators was Notre Dame's Krieg.

As Krieg quips in his lecture: "The Holy Spirit is alive and well."

Pope Francis and the radical theological importance of leisure

Pope Francis converses with two Argentinian journalists on “his life in his own words” in a new book released this week by Putnam (Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words. 2013).

New York Times reviewer Mark Oppenheimer says the conversations reveal “cute facts” about the new Pope but “not much interesting theology.”

Oppenheimer is sharp enough, however, to see a slight “radical note” in the pontiff’s words. That note, which has to do with faith at ease, lies in Pope Francis’ admonition for us to “relax.” And contrary to Oppenheimer’s assertion that these conversations contain “not much interesting theology,” they may point to the single most important theological consideration addressing the overwhelming consumer culture in which we toil.

Asked by his interviewers, “Do we need to rediscover the meaning of leisure?” the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics responds: “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.”

The Pope lays the blame for modern culture’s inability to truly relax largely to the destruction wrought by the culture’s creeping elimination of a day of rest—a Sabbath.

Oppenheimer’s review provides a capsule history of Sabbatarianism in America, noting that it has been “a Protestant thing,” but his survey indicates that in America keeping the Sabbath has largely been a social and legal debate, not a theological one.

I began this blog, “Faith at Ease,” by calling attention to the exposition of German philosopher Josef Pieper’s 1948 book, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, in which the author suggests that the oft-quoted admonition of Psalm 45, “Be still, and know that I am God,” is more appropriately translated as: “Be at leisure, and know that I am God.”

Leisure, from Pieper’s perspective, is not just a time-out or a break from the usual action; it is a celebration of creation and its commands; it is, as Pieper’s title says, “the Basis of Culture.” Contrary to Oppenheimer’s “slight” aside, leisure is theology at its most basic, what John Dominic Crossan reminds us is the culmination of the Biblical Creation narrative in the book of Genesis.

[Readers may want to view my earlier posts on this topic. 

Regarding Pieper: 

http://faithatease.blogspot.com/2007/02/be-at-leisure-and-know-god.html and 

regarding Crossan: 

http://faithatease.blogspot.com/2009/03/ease-and-worship-gleaning.html]

Incidentally, the new book reveals that a favorite movie of Pope Francis is “Babette’s Feast,” a Danish film that won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Motion Picture.

I heartily urge you to see this film if you have not yet watched it. The story is a tale of grace and giving, and it will undoubtedly encourage you the next time you partake of a leisurely and sumptuous meal.

All is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir

Recommended reading: Brennan Manning's All Is Grace, with John Blase. [Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2011].

I'm not going to review Manning's memoir; there are many such reviews on the Web. A good start might be with co-author John Blase's review in the Huffington Post. 

Manning is almost 80 years old and is receiving constant care as he suffers from what is described as "liquid brain," a thiamine deficiency associated with alcohol abuse. Its formal name is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. Most commentators see All is Grace as his final publication.*see note at end of review.

For me, ever since I read his signal 1990 book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning represents a life of faith at ease even though his biography illustrates someone whose tortured life is hardly at ease--unless one considers the gift of grace.

Others have seen this. A preliminary chapter of All Is Grace entitled "Reader Testimonies," contains a brief note by the spiritual writer-editor-teacher Robert Benson, who nails the influence of Manning:

"I learned the truth of the gospel from Brennan, the same gospel you will find in this book: That in the end, my sin will never outweigh God's love. That the Prodigal can never outrun the Father. That I am not measured by the good I do but by the grace I accept.That being lost is a prerequisite to being found. That living a life of faith is not lived in the light, it is discovered in the dark. That not being a saint here on earth will not necessarily keep you from being in that number when the march begins." (emphasis mine)

Want to hear the jazz of faith at ease? Read Manning's memoir. And pray for his ease as he deals with his disease.

*[On Friday, April 12, 2013, Richard Francis Xavier (Brennan) Manning died.]  

"Fear not": a reminder I need every day

Those who do such counting tell us the Bible uses the phrase "Fear not" or some permutation of that sentiment more than 300 times. One counter has suggested these words are mentioned 366 times, once for each day of the annual calender (including leap years).

If we were to include phrases such as, "Be at peace," the number goes higher; in fact, one Bible reference suggests the word peace appears more than 500 times and if we add the notion of quiet, the number increases still more.

Peace, quiet, and "Fear not" suggest to me that my faith should be at ease.  Yet, I fear.

Yesterday was World Peace Day, urging particularly that all pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Watch and listen while praying:


 

This embedded video is posted at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Choirparts?feature=watch

For copyright details, see the above site.

"Dream Muse"

Dream Muse

by Allan Roy Andrews 

I seek the diction for my poem

and lonely as a cloud I roam

the pages of anthologies;

but finding there no words to please,

I gentle go to that good night

and in my dancing dream I write

a poem as clear as ear has heard

then wake--and can’t recall a word.

Posted on the Website "Author Amok" 

[ http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2012/04/30-habits-of-highly-effective-poets-3.html  ]

April 3, 2012, with permission.

It's always a wonderful and somewhat serendipitous pleasure to find others wanting to post my poems on their Websites. This poem was actually solicited on the blind during National Poetry Month this year, but it took me about another month or more to actually visit the Website and see my attempt at humor posted to the world.

Mother of Exiles at 125

Mother of Exiles

By Allan Roy Andrews

I grew up a neighbor to the Statue of Liberty.

From the apartment in which we lived during my youth in Brooklyn, I could glance down the street toward New York Harbor and see the statue on Liberty Island (which we knew as Bedloe’s Island; it was renamed in 1956). The statue gleamed at night as floodlights shone upon it; during the day it showed the green tint of weathering copper.

On October 28, 2011, the statue celebrated the 125^th anniversary of its dedication.

New York City children in the late 19^th century donated pennies that went toward the building of the pedestal upon which the statue stands. Newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, promised to publish the names of every donor to the pedestal fund. The French, who presented the statue to the United States--a gift celebrating America’s 1876 centennial--called it “Liberty Enlightening the World.”

Almost every New York City school child recalls the 1883 poem of Emma Lazarus dedicated to the statue. Thousands have heard or read Lazarus’s poem; not many, however, recall its official name, “The New Colossus,” a name the poet chose to emphasize that the Statue of Liberty was “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame” providing a defiant defensive stance, but one that would be a beacon of “world-wide welcome.”

Lazarus, a well-known New York poet, was asked to write a commemorative poem to be auctioned as part of the pedestal fundraising, and she responded that she couldn’t write a poem about a statue; however, she turned her compassion for Jewish Russian refugees—many of whom she taught--into a compelling appeal on their behalf. She understood the statue’s imagery and its powerful message to those sailing into a welcoming haven.

The most memorable lines of her sonnet are words given the “mighty woman with a torch”:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe 
        free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed 
        to me,

I  lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Lazarus turned the French appellation of enlightenment into a compassionate symbol of freedom and opportunity, a promise of liberty to those oppressed in foreign lands. In her sonnet, she called the woman with the torch that gleams with that message of welcome the “Mother of Exiles.”

Lazarus was not on Bedloe’s Island when the statue was dedicated in 1886. Her poem was read but barely noticed and little recalled following the celebration. 

The poet died the following year. She was 38. Her poem later became immortalized on the pedestal of the statue in 1903.

Despite being raised in New York City, I’ve never visited Liberty Island; I’ve never stood at the base of the statue or climbed up inside its magnificent structure. I’ve never taken a tourist’s stance toward Lady Liberty; to me, she was a neighbor and friend. Even as the son of immigrants I’ve never felt a need for a compulsory visit to her island home. Nevertheless, with a little help from Emma Lazarus, I knew deeply what the Mother of Exiles exemplified about my country.

A victim of frequent neglect, the statue has been refurbished twice, once in 1938 and again in 1986. On October 29 of this year she was closed again to inside climbers so alterations could make her safer.

We may recover her safety and sheen, but we have neglected to polish her symbolic message.

Sentiments such as those promoted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), for example, suggest the statue’s beckoning of openness in this era is “an invitation to national disaster.” Playing on mean-spirited and misguided fear-arguments of job losses and national security, FAIR apparently would rather we muffle or extinguish the lamp of freedom blazing above New York Harbor as we seek to ferret out terrorism and illegal aliens. Emma Lazarus would disagree.

What is now in need of refurbishment in a time of selfish anti-immigration attitudes in several state legislatures of America are the sentiments of compassion, freedom, and welcome to the legitimately tired and poor yearning to breathe free, sentiments that Lazarus symbolically attributed to the copper-clad gift from France.

Protectionism often inhibits enlightenment. Should I decide soon to take my family to Liberty Island, it won’t be to focus arrogantly on Liberty enlightening the world or on some warped sense of national security. Our visit will be to appreciate the Mother of Exiles and her enduring message of openness to poor and tired immigrants and refugees.

ALLAN ROY ANDREWS, a Brooklyn native whose parents sailed into New York harbor in the 1920s, is a retired editor of the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper and a poet living in Augusta, GA.

Taking on the prosperity gospel

A review of: David W. Jones and Russell S. Woodbridge, Health, Wealth & Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2011)

By Allan Roy Andrews

          Let’s get a few things clearly in the open.

            The church of Jesus Christ is not in the profit-making business.

            The gospel of Jesus Christ is not proclaimed to make anyone financially wealthy.

            The gospels of the New Testament have more to say about poverty and helping the poor than about gathering riches and becoming wealthy.

            Happiness, in biblical terms, is not something humans pursue or earn (sorry to disillusion fans of the truths proclaimed as “self-evident” by Thomas Jefferson, et al.); it is a gift from a loving God, who asks nothing for his grace and love.

            God doesn’t keep books or hire accountants or collect taxes and fees.

            Nowhere in God’s kingdom is there a place for an emphasis on acquisition of “things” and “monies.”

            The only legal tender in the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.

            Furthermore, the Acts of the Apostles, an extension of the Gospel attributed to Luke, makes clear that the early church was a community of sharing where those who had provided for those who did not have.  (OK, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty that marks a large segment of American conservative Christianity: think welfare and social justice!) That’s right, the gospel that’s recorded in the church of the second chapter of Acts is a church driven by the Holy Spirit to minister to, provide for, and to protect those who, in the language of the New Testament, are lost.

Social Justice as Evil

            Just to get us into the crux of the critique that Jones and Woodbridge are outlining in this good but truncated book, if you listen close enough to the message proclaimed and the innuendos that percolate in the messages of the prosperity gospel preachers (most of whom, not ironically, minister on television), you’ll discover that welfare and social justice come across as evils and anathemas.

            Unfortunately, Jones and Woodbridge shy away from detailed discussion of this phenomenon. They are content to argue that “Jesus gave no systematic, detailed economic plan” (140), and their only confrontation with evangelical thinking that might challenge this point is in a footnote where they describe any “preferential option for the poor” as a “theologically moderate” position (181, fn10).

            Let’s face it, anyone who reads the gospels with honesty and openness cannot help but see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is revolutionary and counter-cultural; although, Jones and Woodbridge favor a spiritualizing escape from this emphasis:  For them, Jesus “teachings on wealth and poverty are wide-ranging and their spiritual impact is what is usually emphasized” (141).

Prosperity Gospel

            The so-called “prosperity gospel,” with its promoting of health, wealth and happiness, is not only “overshadowing the gospel of Christ,” as the subtitle of this new book declares, it is waging all-out war with the gospel of Christ and making a sham of the authentic love, compassion, and peace that Jesus demonstrated and that the apostle Paul listed among “the greatest” of all gifts from God.

            With that lengthy introduction, let’s commend Jones and Woodbridge for introducing and competently condemning the prosperity gospel as it is proclaimed by several leading TV evangelists, past and present, among them: Oral Roberts, Kenneth E. Hagin, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, and a trio that Jones and Woodbridge describe as “soft” prosperity advocates, T. D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, and Joel Osteen (several others are mentioned historically).

            Jones and Woodbridge, both members of the theological faculty at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a Southern Baptist school  located in Wake Forest, N.C., on what once was the campus of Wake Forest University before the latter relocated to Winston-Salem, are astutely attuned to the theology of the prosperity gospel.

            They single out the errors of doctrine they detect as: 1) a distorted view of God; 2) the elevation of the mind over matter; 3) an exalted view of humankind; 4) a focus on health and wealth; and 5) an unorthodox view of salvation.

            Once establishing these erroneous teachings, the authors devote several chapters to their “corrections.” They begin by demonstrating that “suffering is a normative part of the Christian life” in contrast with the extreme opposition to suffering that the prosperity gospel proponents advocate.

            The second corrective emphasis of Jones and Woodbridge is on the biblical teachings regarding poverty and wealth, which may well be the section of the book that separates the authors and their Southern Baptist orthodoxy from many other evangelicals who share their concern with the errors of the prosperity gospel preachers.

            Next, Jones and Woodbridge demonstrate how the promoters of the prosperity gospel contradict the scriptural call for Christians to be generous givers, what may be called the erroneous practical theology of the prosperity gospel.

            This is not the place to take deep issue with the authors’ evangelicalism; they are worthy allies in a spiritual battle with the hucksters, con-men, and greed-mongers who dominate the prosperity gospel’s televised preying on susceptible victims.

Root Problem: Consumerism

            However, I fear the authors’ personal positions on social and economic policies, which they appear to mask as irrelevant to the discussion of the prosperity gospel, only hide a root problem; that is, that almost to a person, the evangelists of the prosperity gospel are steeped in consumerism and a capitalistic profit ethic that drives their ministries.

            Jones and Woodbridge, in their theological battle with the prosperity gospel, have given little attention that addresses what A. W. Tozer incisively recognized as the particular distortions of the gospel in a society that runs through marketing and sales profits.

            Theologian Lyle W. Dorset helps us see this.  He wrote of Tozer:

Tozer wrote and spoke against a growing trend of churches being run by business models rather than biblical principles, and he criticized the way Christ Jesus was being marketed and sold rather than lifted up to convict men of sin, righteousness, and judgment. In short, he railed against cheap grace that was producing an ugly and impotent church.* 

            This book, as good as it is, simply ignores that the television celebrities who pose  as prophets of the prosperity gospel are steeped in the culture of a profit-driven, spiritually impoverished society, and that their message is more crass advertising and marketing than it is gospel, more mammon loving than God worshipping.

            * Lyle W. Dorset. “Profiles in Faith: Aiden Wilson Tozer,” in Knowing and Doing: A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind, Springfield, Va.: C.S. Lewis Institute, summer, 2008), accessed April 20, 2011, at http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/files/webfm/knowing_doing/ProfileTozer.pdf

                To appreciate a more focused and, I believe, a stronger case against the consumerism and materialism that dominates the writing and preaching of prosperity-gospel advocates, examine the comments of several so-called "Red-Letter Christians." 

Six-Word Essays on Time

By Allan Roy Andrews

               Now always dies

in clock time.

Streams of time

eventually dry up.

Life gives, but

Time takes away.

Clocks truly lack

faces and hands.

Has anyone seen

a clock smile?

Moment by moment

time abandons us.

The six-word essay is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, who took up the challenge of telling a story in just six words.

The form has been popularized in recent years, largely through the online publication of Smith Magazine http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/ and Narrative Magazine http://www.narrativemagazine.com/.

Whimsical Theology I: The humanity of Jesus

Incarnation at Ease:  Thoughts on bread, beer, and John Prine’s “Everybody”

By Allan Roy Andrews

          An anonymous 20^th-century devotional writer, reflecting on Jesus’ proclamation in the gospel of John that He is the “bread of life” (John 6:35), casually asserts that bread is “the most basic food there is.”

          Without challenging the historical and liturgical implications of Christianity’s prayer for our daily bread or the cultural significance of bread as a fundamental and necessary sustenance of life (as in prisoners, the hungry, and the fasting staying alive on bread and water alone), I wonder about putting bread in this exalted position.

          After all, aren’t the basic ingredients of bread the same as, or at least similar to, those that go into the making of beer?

          What would it do to our theology—especially our view of the Incarnation—if Jesus had proclaimed, “I am the beer of life!”?

          Many, from Martin Luther to Brennan Manning, would rejoice at such a seeming earthy assertion.  This notion implies we might meet the savior as easily in a local pub as in a church sanctuary:  What a drinking buddy we have in Jesus!

          Sure the notion is a bit whimsical, but not, I think, without merit.  Our attempts to understand how God could become a man (pitching his bodily tent among us) must allow that being fully human might mean drinking beer as well as eating bread with us (and would allow us to give thanks for our daily grains in all their forms).

          Such thoughts form what I like to think of as whimsical theology, and one of my favorite proponents of this thinking is the singer and songwriter John Prine.  Consider Prine’s encounter with Jesus in the lyrics of his song, “Everybody.”

         

While out sailing on the ocean;

While out sailing on the sea;

I bumped into the Savior,

And He said, "Pardon me."

I said, "Jesus, you look tired."

He said, "Jesus, so do you;

Oh, sit down son

'Cause I got some fat to chew."

Chorus:

Well, he spoke to me of morality,

Starvation, pain and sin.

Matter of fact, the whole dang time

I only got a few words in.

But I won`t squawk--

Let `im talk--Hell, it`s been a long, long time,

And any friend that`s been turned down

Is bound to be a friend of mine.

Chorus:

Now we sat there for an hour or two

Just eatin' that gospel pie,

When around the bend come a terrible wind,

And lightning lit the sky.

He said, "So long, Son, I gotta run;

I appreciate you listenin' to me."

And I believe I heard him sing these words

As he skipped out across the sea.

Chorus:

See, everybody needs somebody that they can talk to,

Someone to open up their ears

And let that trouble through.

Now you don`t have to sympathize

Or care what they may do,

But everybody needs somebody that they can talk to.

Everybody needs somebody that they can talk to.

Lyrics ©1972 John Prine

           I'll drink to that!  Just remember:  One cannot live by beer alone.