Farewell, Dolly Parton

I'm as sad as everyone about the death of Dolly Parton.  Let me record a few thoughts:

--I'm glad that I was a child in the 70's, that my mom listened to A.M. radio, which meant I heard all kinds of music, including Dolly Parton's songs, both old and new.  The radio stations of my childhood played anything, so you could hear a Dolly Parton song, then a Beatles song, then an old Elvis song, sprinkled with modern pop by groups like Bread, the Carpenters, and so on.

Modern algorithms would not have sent Dolly Parton music my way.  But I must confess that it has taken me many decades to appreciate her music, and I still wouldn't choose her music for a long drive or an evening at home.

--I didn't see her acting during my childhood.  I didn't see 9 to 5 until a few years ago.  I did love Steel Magnolias.

--I've never been to Dollywood.  I would go, if I won tickets.

--I'm not an expert on business, but from my outsider view, she seemed to have business smarts that most of us will never possess.  She know how to capitalize on success while always seeming/being sincere in her enthusiasm.  That skill probably can't be taught in Business school.

--In terms of gender and presentation, she always intrigued me.  There have been years when I was frustrated and annoyed by her over the top femaleness.  Let me just be blunt:  the attention to her breasts was so offputting to me.  As I got older, her costumes intrigued me--the woman liked what she liked, and she loved sparkles.  

As I've gotten older, I've been in awe of all the ways she worked the system without losing her soul.  But I've also been sad about how hard it must have been for her, and about how many others did not survive, which wasn't her fault.

And I've been happy about how she blazed a trail for others--and then kept making sure the trail stayed clear (and to stretch the metaphor, she went back and made roads).

--Her songwriting skills -- wow.  I was amazed at how many songs she wrote.  I loved when she was interviewed and would talk about her creative process, about grabbing inspiration when it came and writing it down on scraps of paper, even the barf bag on an airplane.  

--Her musician skills -- wow.  She played with so many people through the years, and the fact that she could do so speaks to her singing skills, her skills on so many instruments, her expansive vision of what music could and should do.

--She didn't always talk openly about her faith.  Sure, she talked about the faith of her childhood.  I'd have liked to have known more about her grown up faith.

--Of course, she showed us that faith by all the people she helped, by the life she lived.

--Her philanthropy has always been what impressed me most about her.  She gave back, above and beyond, in so many ways, and much of what she did, we will never know about.

--And she continued to do good until the very end, in all the ways she was doing good:  music, support of other artists, business, philanthropy.  Her continued vibrance is why so many of us are feeling sad.  

Liberation Holidays: Juneteenth

Today we celebrate our newest federal holiday:  Juneteenth.  Of course, many populations have been celebrating Juneteenth since the news of freedom first came to the last enslaved people in Texas in 1865.  This is the first year that I've been in a workplace that recognized the holiday.  In 2021, I was working for a small school that was very stingy with holidays, so we didn't have that holiday or MLK day or Presidents Day.

In 2022, I was no longer working for that school.  I was driving back across several states, coming back to Florida from the onground intensive at Southern Seminary.  I was already a certified spiritual director through their program, but I went back to take advantage of the education, to have a reunion with my small group, and to see a friend graduate from the program.  Two weeks later I would turn around to drive back up to Arden to buy the house that I'm writing in this morning.  So far, I have never regretted that purchase, which is not usual for me when it comes to housing or moves or jobs.

Or maybe it is becoming usual.  I don't have regrets about the spiritual direction certificate or my MDiv.  My main regret about my job at SMC is that I didn't have it sooner.  I love this house in a way that I haven't loved any other house.  Maybe my lack of regret is a pleasant part of being in late midlife.

I am tempted to tie these ideas back to Juneteenth, but I don't want to trivialize the holiday or the history.  While regret can enslave us, it's a very different enslavement than other forces and humans that enslave.

Wat are the forces enslaving so many of us? We think of iron shackles, but there are other societal constructs that hold so many back: debt, geopolitical forces, violence, educational systems.  And let's not forget that literal slavery hasn't disappeared. 

So on this Juneteenth, let us think about the captives who need our help to be set free. Let us also think about all the captivity narratives that hold us enslaved. Let us embrace liberation narratives. Let us envision what life would look like if all were truly free.

All the Battles Worth Watching, One after Another

We spent a long chunk of time yesterday watching One Battle After Another.  It's a movie that's been out for awhile, but only recently free to stream on Amazon Prime.  I had forgotten how long it was, but happily, we started it in the late afternoon, not at 7:30 at night.

It wasn't until the later part of the movie, during one of the long (LONG) car chases that I became aware of how long it was taking to finish the movie.  It was compelling from the beginning until close to the end, compelling in ways that surprised me.

I was impressed with all the chunks of narrative that did manage to come together.  Paul Thomas Anderson deserved those Oscars for best director and best adapted screenplay.  There were moments when I did some math to try to figure out the revolutionary aspect of it all--if the daughter is 16 or 17, then the revolutionaries were active in 2008 or 2009?  The planting of bombs in government buildings and calling in bomb threats from a pay phone seemed so 1972 to me, but clearly, that timeline wouldn't work.  It was a nebulous revolutionary movement in the movie, so I was willing to suspend my initial disbelief.

There's another revolutionary movement in the movie, and it's the "Latino Harriet Tubman situation."  This movie has a lot to say about a great many issues, and one of the disadvantages of a vast movie is that some issues get short shrift.  I'd have liked more about all the Latino issues, especially the nods to the sanctuary movement that are hiding there in plain sight for those of us with eyes to see.  It's in the storylines about migration where we see revolutionaries who are working for social justice and working against a government that's against the flourishing of all people--unlike the other revolutionaries, the main characters who seem to be just blowing things up for the thrill of it all.

I try very hard not to fault movies or books or TV shows for not being the story that I wish they could have been.  In the end, I was happy to have a well-made movie to watch, a movie with much to mull over, a movie worth re-watching, as so few things are deserving of a second look these days.

Slaughter of Innocents and Non-Compliance with Tyrants

Today is one of those church commemoration days that doesn't get observed in a big way, at least not often.  December 28 is the day when we remember the Holy Innocents, those babies under the age of 2 who lived in Bethlehem, the babies that Herod killed when the wise sages from the east brought news of the arrival of a new ruler, heralded by a new star.  

Some might see it as a strange day in the midst of the Christmas season. Others might see modern corollaries, scared despots who will do anything to maintain their stranglehold on power.  Sadly, we have no shortage of twenty-first century rulers who would slaughter the innocent in their quest to maintain power or gain more.

This morning I'm thinking about the wise sages who inadvertently created this crisis, by visiting Herod and telling him what they saw in the sky.  Herod asks that they come back so that he, too, can go and pay homage.  They are warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.  They return home a different way.  Here's a carving in a European cathedral (Autun Cathedral in France) that depicts the moment of warning:

This morning I am thinking of all the ways that ordinary people can disrupt evil.  There are all sorts of ways of non-compliance.

This train of thought leads me back to a poem I wrote in 2019, a poem with multiple strands: Epiphany, the ongoing debates/actions concerning immigration, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad. Ultimately, this poem arrived, and Sojourners published it in late 2019 or 2020. It fits my mood for today.


Border Lands


I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Reading Day, 2025

If you came to this blog hoping that you'd find a meditation on World AIDS Day or the anniversary of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955, head over this post on my theology blog.  I did some brief researching of AIDS statistics, which are sobering:   according to a UN Fact Sheet, 1.3 million people worldwide contracted AIDS in 2024 alone--that's just one year. Since the beginning of this epidemic, 91.4 million people have been infected, and 44.1 million have died of the disease.

Today will be a different work day for me.  My students at Spartanburg Methodist College have a reading day today, followed by several days of final exams, but I don't have to report to campus. Grades are due at SMC on Dec. 8, and Dec. 10 for my online classes. So I have lots of grading this week, but it will feel easy because there's no commuting to Spartanburg.

This morning felt luxurious in some ways:  I can put off my walk until later in the morning, so I've had a slower morning than most Mondays have been.  I'm trying not to think about next semester, where I'll have a class that starts at 9, so Mondays won't be slow-paced at all.  Maybe I will keep an extra pair of sneakers in my office and go for my walk later in the mornings on MWF.  I won't get much in the way of hill training, but it would be good to have that option.

I will start grading later.  Today is one of the few days where I don't have meetings or appointments scheduled, so I'm trying to savor the slowness.

I still have that hollow-brained feeling when it comes to composing poems, but I do have the capacity to read.  Earlier this semester, I heard the author Richard Osman interviewed on NPR, in advance of the Netflix version of his book, The Thursday Murder Club, the book which is now a series of books.  I hadn't heard of any of it before, but the interview whetted my appetite.  The book is just as delightful as I hoped it would be.

Yesterday my spouse was sewing on the machine, which meant that watching TV wasn't really possible.  I decided to put away my sewing, switch to Christmas music on Spotify, and sink into that book.  It was a wonderful part of the afternoon.

Tomorrow I'll go get the next batch of books that I've ordered from the public library--next up will be Ian McEwan's latest, which has gotten great reviews.  I'll read it first, since I suspect I won't be able to renew it.

A reading day, a holiday spent reading--delightful!

Peace in Our Time: Hopes and Hesitations

When I was young, my imagination was consumed with the idea of being held hostage or being kidnapped.  I blame the Symbionese Liberation Army, the ones who kidnapped Patty Hearst in 1974, when I was 8 years old.  The hostages held in the embassy in Tehran (from 1979 until 1981) also held a large amount of my attention.

Yesterday as I drove down the mountain to Spartanburg, I heard the special BBC coverage of the release of the 20 Israeli hostages still living, the ones held in Gaza for over 2 years.  I have not spent the last 2 years consumed by worry about those hostages.  I have tried not to spend time imagining what they're going through--the bit that I did know made me sure that it's been a brutalizing experience, and I don't want terrorists inhabiting my brain in that way.

When I was 8, I had no idea what Patty Hearst was going through.  I worried about being snatched away from my family, and this was a time before that fear was widespread.  Later, with the hostages in Iran, I wondered more about logistics than the possible abuses.  Did they live at the embassy?  Did they have books to read?  As a young woman, I wondered about the other women:  did they have enough tampons?  I also wondered who was doing the cooking and cleaning.  And of course, as the days turned into months and years, I wondered how this would all end.

Yesterday as I listened to the BBC coverage, I thought about how hard it will be for these former hostages to be reintegrated into Israeli society.  Of course I hope that it won't be.  Some people are better at turning ghastly experiences into forces for good in the world.  But many more people don't have those coping skills.

Later in the day my spouse texted me:  "Peace treaty signed!"  As we relaxed on the deck in the late afternoon, we talked about our hopes and hesitations.  As I said in previous posts, we've been alive for a long time now, and we've seen past presidents create peace treaties or peace frameworks, only to have them crumble into pieces in a very short time.

But we both agreed that it was wonderful to feel hopeful, even if it's a guarded hope.  I will say that if this peace is still holding in a year, I'd be willing to say that various folks deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Peace in the Middle East?

It has been a week of Nobel awards; this morning, along with many others, I'm waiting to see who wins the Peace Prize.  It's been a week of grim anniversaries:  the 2 year anniversary of the war in Gaza is the primary one that consumed much of the news.  But it's also a week where there might be a chance for peace in the Middle East.

I've also been alive long enough to know how impossible it seems to have peace in the Middle East, and how fragile any progress can be.  I've seen deals rejected, deals that seemed like good ones to me.  I've seen people dig into paths that will lead to certain ruin.

There are people wiser than I am who have many more words than I do.  But it seems like we might be at a hinge point here, and I wanted to note it.  

I've been thinking of other intractable conflicts which suddenly were solved, most notably the one in Ireland.  When that was signed in the late 90's, I thought that it had a slim chance of success.  And here we are, decades later, and peace has held.

May it also be so now. 

Fish Fries and Mission Questions

Yesterday afternoon we went over the mountain to Bristol, Tennessee for the last fish fry of the season as Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church.  It's one of the community events that the church does, usually 4 of them throughout the spring.  

It's an amazing deal.  Ten dollars per plate, which includes fried or baked fish, green beans, pierogi, mac and cheese, cole slaw, and a roll.  That ten dollars also includes a beverage and a vast array of desserts.  While most people don't treat the event as an all you can eat extravaganza, we do give seconds if asked.  The money raised goes local charities, primarily the food pantry.

It's not an evangelical event, not in the traditional way.  Most of the people who come to the event already have a home church.  Most of the people who come already know about the church.  It's a small community, so most of the people who come have a personal connection to those of us at the church preparing and serving the food.

In a variety of classes and workshops on mission, I've been told that an essential question for churches is this one:  would your larger community miss you if you were gone?  Does the larger community even know that you are here?

Long before Faith Lutheran starts to advertise, the phone calls come in January, phone calls asking when the first fish fry will be.  Our church raises not only money for the food bank, but members work there, distributing food to the community.  We don't do the kinds of things that other churches might do:  no one uses our building but us, for example.  We don't offer computer literacy lessons or other kinds of classes that community members might want.  We are far from the legislative places where big decisions are made--we won't be demonstrating as a single church.

I often think of what I might do if I was their full-time pastor.  I'm not convinced that the church can grow much in terms of gaining new members.  There might be more to do in terms of being an essential member of the community, in terms of networking.  But again, it's a small community, so it's likely already happening, although perhaps not in a way that mission experts would be able to quantify.

How many members, how many individuals impacted?  I am grateful that I don't have to think in terms of these numbers.   I can just show up to enjoy a great meal, exchange stories with people who come, and give thanks for a wonderful community.

A Great Teaching Day: Nuclear Apocalypses and Civil Rights Primers

Yesterday was a great teaching day, although I didn't fully savor it.  I had several seminary projects due last night, one of which was a presentation, so that stress was simmering in the background.  My commuting has gotten a bit nightmarish, with slow downs and stops that add an hour to my trip home.  By the time my seminary class started, I was more stressed than normal.

So let me savor the teaching day here.  In my Nonfiction Writing class on Tuesday, we sketched out the remaining class days--there are only 6 of them, or there were on Tuesday.  My students wanted to think about propaganda yesterday, so we began with the Daisy ad from LBJ's 1964 presidential campaign, the ad which combines a cute toddler pulling apart a daisy with a nuclear explosion.

I knew that we were going to discuss the ad, so I spent yesterday morning watching this video that compares The Day After to Threads.  It talks about The Day After as a form of propaganda/teaching.  We only watched the first part, because I didn't want to expose them to Threads, which is quite graphic and gruesome.  We had a good discussion.  The students had never seen either film, but the commentary was understandable (as we watched it, I wasn't sure that it would be).

Then I went to teach my American Lit survey class.  It was the day to discuss Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  I wanted to use some music to set the mood as they came in, so I cued up this album (by the magic of YouTube):

I had the CD cover on the screen, and one of my students walked in and said, "That looks like they're having fun."  Hmmm.  So I used it as a later teaching moment.

I've actually seen the real photograph--there was a display of Civil Rights photo at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art.  As I recall, it's part of a three part set.  I said to the class, "What you can't see on this side is the firehose of water being aimed at peaceful protestors."

We talked about protest, about the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, about the unjust situation that King described in his letter.  We talked about modern issues of injustice that need our attention and how we might affect change (write letters, protest, run for office, write a poem or a song).  I talked about how the Civil Rights protestors of the 50's and 60's came from a church background and what that meant.  And then to conclude class, I had them write about the best way to do that, while we listened to two songs from the album, "This Little Light of Mine" and "(Ain't Gonna Let Nobody) Turn Me Round."

It was a good mix of history, modern politics/issues of social injustice, civics reminders (your legislators will take notice if you write or call, and they may change their minds), literature, and song.  It was less a focus on literature than most class meetings, but it felt important.  And it will lead nicely to Claudia Rankine's Citizen:  A Lyric on Tuesday. 

The Feast Day of Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero is now officially a saint, and today is his feast day.  On this day in 1980, he was killed, a martyr for the faith.  When I made this collage card years ago, I couldn't believe that he'd ever be canonized:

Many scholars believe that he was chosen to be Archbishop precisely because he was expected not to make trouble. All that changed when one of his good friends, an activist Jesuit priest, was assassinated by one of the death squads roaming the country. Romero became increasingly political, increasingly concerned about the poor who were being oppressed by the tiny minority of rich people in the country. He called for reform. He called on the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brethren. And for his vision, he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass.

I was alive when he was martyred, but I didn't hear or read about it.  I remember reading about some of the more famous murders, particularly of the nuns, and wondering why people would murder nuns or missionaries who were there to help--I had yet to learn of the horrors of colonialism throughout history.

In my first year of college, I was asked to be part of a service that honored the martyrdom of Romero, and this event was likely how I heard of him first.  Or maybe it was earlier that semester when our campus pastor took a group of us to Jubilee Partners.

Jubilee Partners was a group formed by the same people that created Koinonia, the farm in Americus Georgia that most people know because they also created Habitat for Humanity--but they were so much more, in their witness of how Christian love could play out in real practice in one of the most segregated and poor parts of the U.S. south.  In the early years of Jubilee Partners, when I went there, the group helped people from Central America get to Canada, where they could get asylum in the 1980's, when they couldn't get asylum in the U.S.

My consciousness was formed by these encounters and by other encounters I had throughout the 80's.  I met many people in the country illegally, and I heard about the horrors that brought them here.  Then, as now, I couldn't imagine why we wouldn't let these people stay.

Many of us may think that those civil wars are over, but many countries in Central America are still being torn apart by violence.  The words of Romero decades ago are sadly still relevant today:  "Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression."

But his teachings go beyond just a call for an end to killing.  His messages to the wider church are still powerful:  "A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

And even those of us who are not part of a faith tradition can find wisdom in his teachings:  "Each time we look upon the poor, on the farmworkers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton... remember, there is the face of Christ."

If we treated everyone we met as if that person was God incarnate, what a different world we would have!

But for those of us who are tired from the work of this weary world, here's a message of hope and a reminder of the long view.  This prayer, while not written by him (it was written by late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted for a homily by Cardinal John Dearden, and misattributed to Romero), is often called the Romero prayer:  "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own." 

On this day that honors a man who was not always honored, let us take heart from his words and from his example.  Let us also remember that he was not always this force for good in the world; indeed, he was chosen to be Archbishop because the upper management of the church thought he would keep his nose stuck in a book and out of politics. 

In these days that feel increasingly more perilous, let us recommit ourselves to the type of love that Romero called us to show:  "Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world."

Resisting the Evil of Empire

Today is a good day to remember that resisting the evil of empire does work, and that we can resist without losing our essential selves.   Here's my sermon for today's lectionary text--and if you're in Bristol, TN at 10 a.m., feel free to join us at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, where all are welcome.

February 23, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 6:  27-38

You have probably heard the words in today’s Gospel used to justify a pacifist approach to the question of violence.  Perhaps worse, you might have heard people use this text to tell us that we must endure violence on earth so that we can get our reward in the afterlife.

But you might not have thought of these texts as resistance texts, texts that show us how to resist the world we live in, a culture which has never been a turn the other cheek kind of place.

In his book Engaging the Powers:  Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Walter Wink explains this text in the context of the honor culture of the time of Jesus.  There would have been strikes to the cheek in a particular way, with a particular hand, the hand used when hitting an inferior, and the purpose would be to put a person in his or her place.  If I offer the other cheek, then my attacker would have to hit me with the other hand, which would be the hand used when one is an equal.  It is a way of asserting one’s dignity.

Similarly, if ordered to give a coat, and I strip naked by giving my tunic as well, that would be an act of dishonor, and not only would I bring dishonor on myself, as I stripped naked, but I’d also bring greater dishonor on the one who set these events into motion.  In Matthew’s version, we get the sentence about being forced to go a mile and going an additional mile.  People who heard Jesus say this would know that he was referring to Roman soldiers, who could force people to walk a mile, carrying a pack.  A Roman soldier who ordered someone to go more than a mile would be in trouble, so walking an additional mile while carrying a pack is a way of sending a message to that soldier.

Of course, resisting in this way carries a risk.  It’s not as passive as it seems, and it risks enraging the one who seeks to remind us of our place in the social caste.  In the time of Jesus, in many cases, the enraged person could have one flogged or put to death for impudence.  It’s important to remember that the culture of Jesus was a vastly different culture in many ways than our own.  Very few people had the kind of human rights that we say are important, that we can go to court to protect.  In the time of Jesus, there was very little in the way of recourse if one was wronged.  It was a culture based on social hierarchy, with very little movement between class and caste. It was also a culture ruled by Romans who were not going to tolerate social unrest, Romans who would not hesitate to slaughter dissenters.  The Romans liked to remind those whom they conquered of the inferiority of the conquered.

But in some ways, the culture of the empire was not so different than ours:  people pitted against each other in a quest for scarce resources, a few people lifted up while masses of others faced a variety of oppression.

The rest of today’s Gospel gives us additional instruction in how to resist a culture that seeks to distract us by turning us on each other.  Some of the instructions make sense.  We can give to those who beg—that seems like an easy task, one that many of us do already.  If our goods are taken or repossessed, we can let them go—that’s not far from other instruction we’ve gotten from Jesus.

We can love our enemies, but what does that mean exactly?  Jesus gives us one concrete command:  we can pray for those who abuse us, whether the abuse is physical or emotional or monetary or any other form.  As we pray for those who oppress us, we keep our hearts soft.  We remind ourselves of the humanity of us all.  We pray not just for the transformation of the abuser, but we also pray to keep ourselves from being transformed.

At the very least, we can pray. We can pray for those people who are doing the heavy lifting of resistance. We can pray for those who are transforming their societies for good, whether they live in our country or on the other side of the planet. We can pray for the softening of the hearts of the hard ones. We can pray that we have the wisdom to recognize evil when we see it. We can pray that we have the courage to resist evil in whatever forms it comes to us.

These are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that evil elements will not turn around and destroy us. Likewise, these are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that we don’t become the evil that we are resisting.

Jesus shows us how to live in this world, how to resist evil without being destroyed by evil, and our world certainly has plenty of evil that needs resisting.  So how do we do it?  Love is the answer, and it has continued to be the answer.  We’ve had great religious and moral thinkers through the ages return to this principle of loving our enemies as a tool of transformation.

And it’s not just transformation on a personal level.  Let us not forget that nonviolent resistance can change governments and countries.  Think of the changes that we’ve seen in our lifetime.  I would call our attention to 1989, when the wall between the two Germanys came down.  Did you know that this moment in time was sparked by weeks of prayer services and candlelit marches?  Did you know that a Lutheran church played a key role?

In October of 1989, a Lutheran pastor in Leipzig, East Germany started holding Monday night prayer meetings.  At the same time, there were evening protest marches, with tens of thousands of people coming into the village square, holding candles.   One Communist official in Leipzig said, “we were prepared for everything except the prayers and candles.”  There were rumors that people would be allowed across the border, so people went to the border crossing.  The guards there hadn’t gotten any official notice.  They were outnumbered, and they knew that they had a choice:  they could start shooting and commit mass murder or they could lift the gates and allow reconciliation.  They lifted the gates, and the world was changed.

It could have gone differently, and for every example I give, there are others which have not ended well, like Tiananmen Square.  And yet, just because liberation hasn’t come yet, it doesn’t mean that it won’t come.

Walter Wink, writing in 1993, notes, “In 1989 alone, there were thirteen nations that underwent non-violent revolutions. All of them successful except one, China. That year 1.7 billion people were engaged in national non-violent revolutions. That is a third of humanity. If you throw in all of the other non-violent revolutions in all the other nations in this century [the 20th], you get the astonishing figure of 3.34 billion people involved in non-violent revolutions. That is two-thirds of the human race. No one can ever again say that non-violence doesn't work.”

You might be tempted to say that we’re talking about events from 1989, which is getting to be a long time ago.  You might look across the globe in despair at how little evidence of nonviolence or nonviolent resistance you see.  But rest assured that resisting despair, resisting violence, and praying for our enemies is much wider spread than we might think.  This process is like the flower bulbs that many of us planted months ago.  Even though the larger world seems frozen and dark, those bulbs have started their work, and soon they will burst forth in glorious colors to brighten the drab world.  Likewise, our prayers for peace, our prayers for justice will do their work—and 40 years from now, we won’t recognize the landscape we live in, a landscape we changed through our resistance to the culture that offers violence as the only solution.

Tuesday Fragments: Administration, Teaching, and Governing

I am not sure I have a single thought or collection of thoughts that would make a unified blog post.  So, let me collect some fragments and see what kind of collage emerges:

--Last night I had a virtual seminary class:  2 hours, with a 15 minute break, in my desk chair.  This morning, I was deeply sore.  I've noticed this phenomena before, and this morning I thought about articles I've read that say the biggest killer of health is too many hours sitting.  I spent my first 45 years not sitting; the way I teach has me up and about, and I was a runner/jogger for many of those years.  Then I moved into administration.  Hopefully that 12 years in administration didn't take too many years off my life.

--Yesterday was my 3 year anniversary of being severed from my last administrator job from a school that would shut down completely in 2024, the job I went to after leaving the school that would shut down completely in 2018.  This year, the anniversary slipped by unnoticed.

--I am interested in what happens to the Department of Education.  I am irked by what is happening at USAID.  I am convinced it's not about saving money, no matter what these DOGE folks say.  These are the most underfunded parts of government.  If you want to save money consequences be damned, set your sights on the Department of Defense.

--This is the strangest time in U.S. history that I have ever seen, and I am not thinking I will see normal times again in my lifetime.

--But let me remind myself of past times of poor prospects that suddenly brightened.  Let me remember the fall of the wall that separated East and West Germany.  Let me remember Nelson Mandela being released from prison.

--Today I'm going to write an essay about Laura Ingalls Wilder for my English 102 classes.  I'll take it in tomorrow, we'll look at it, and we'll talk about how to turn it into a research paper.  In some ways, it seems like a waste of time.  In some ways, it delights me.

--I taught 3 sections of English 102 yesterday.  The 10:00 class, my first class, was the lowest energy; my last class, the 2:00 section, had the most engagement.  In the past, a mid-morning class was always the best, and by afternoon, everyone was snoozing at their desks.  My afternoon class has missed the most class meetings because of snow days and the MLK holiday, so maybe that's it.

--Today is American Lit survey day.  It is interesting to be teaching the literature of the late 1800s and early 1900s in this time when our current president is praising President McKinley.  On Thursday we talked about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle; I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to discover how very relevant it still is.  

--I was surprised that none of my students in the class is a vegetarian or a vegan.

The sky is lightening--let me get ready for a morning walk.  We have a week of springlike temperatures, and I want to take full advantage!

Sketching While the World Burns

Today is the feast day that celebrates the prophetess Anna and Simeon, the two people in the Temple who were first to declare Jesus as Messiah when Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the Temple for the presentation to the priest, a purification ritual.  They had been waiting to see the Messiah for many decades; Simeon was told that he would see the Messiah before he died.

I think of all that they must have seen in the decades while they waited, all the times they must have wondered if they were delusional.  There are many mornings where I wonder if I am delusional, trusting in the different world that God promises is possible.

I got home from preaching about the Feast Day of the Presentation to find people across social media in a state of disbelief and outrage about remarks made about Lutheran Social Services, with Mike Flynn accusing them of laundering money.  Good grief.  It would be laughable if I didn't know so many people would take this seriously.

I've worked for LSS in my youth, and I have continued to be part of groups that partner with them.  I have seen the good work that they do.  I am also old enough to remember that many of these social service agencies grew bigger as past presidents like Reagan cut government services saying that religious groups should be taking care of the needs of impoverished citizens.  And now, after decades of doing that, there's criticism and blow back/up.

Yesterday I wanted to watch something that might make me feel a bit more brave, so while we have another 2 weeks of Disney+ subscription, we watched A Wrinkle in Time.  Again, I was disappointed in this movie.  On the small screen, it's even more disappointing.  I feel a bit guilty for feeling that way, since the movie involved so many important women in its making.  Sigh.

I did some sketching and reading before deciding it was bedtime.  I was inspired to try flower doodles, and here's what I did last night:

I was inspired by my friend's flower doodles.  I like hers better:

If I continue to doodle flowers, maybe I'll add color to the paper first.

I do wonder about doodling flowers while the world burns.  But I also know of the importance of down time.

I think of a sketch I made years ago, after writing a poem about Anna.

And now it's time to turn my attention to teaching, or more accurately to get ready for my teaching day.  Onward!

Remembering Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter died yesterday, and far greater minds than mine will weigh in.  I was 11 years old when Carter was sworn in as president; I was roughly the same age as Amy Carter.  I was a kid who was interested in politics, so I paid attention to all sorts of news stories.  But of course, I was a kid, so I didn't understand everything I read or heard.  Throughout Carter's presidency, I head a lot of adults who were upset with Carter, the man, the president, and all the policies.

I am old enough to remember when people hated Carter, especially as he was leaving the White House and for a decade or two afterward.  By now, many of us know the good work that he did post presidency.  If you want an article that explains why Jimmy Carter was not a failure of a president, as you may have been taught, this one in The Washington Post by Stuart Eizenstat does a good job.  You should be able to read for free:  https://wapo.st/4gwS2JW

And again, I realize that many people, especially younger folks, are aware of the good work he did after his presidency--and so much good work, in human rights, in global health, in helping to protect natural resources, in building houses for those who had none, in continuing to be part of the community, on and on the list could go.  I was always astounded at reports of how he continued to teach a Sunday School class, for example.  I am grateful for how he showed us such variety in ways to live a life faithful to one's core values.

My favorite article of the morning reading, the most comprehensive assessment, an article in The Atlantic by James Fallows, has this quote, and I'll leave the spacing intact:  "Whatever his role, whatever the outside assessment of him, whether luck was running with him or against, Carter was the same. He was self-controlled and disciplined. He liked mordant, edgy humor. He was enormously intelligent—and aware of it—politically crafty, and deeply spiritual. And he was intelligent, crafty, and spiritual enough to recognize inevitable trade-offs between his ambitions and his ideals. People who knew him at one stage of his life would recognize him at another.

Jimmy Carter didn’t change. Luck and circumstances did."

Here's a great closing quote that I found in Heather Cox Richardson's post:  "President Carter said, 'When I was in the White House, I thought of human rights primarily in terms of political rights, such as rights to free speech and freedom from torture or unjust imprisonment. As I traveled around the world since I was president, I learned there was no way to separate the crucial rights to live in peace, to have adequate food and health care, and to have a voice in choosing one’s political leaders. These human needs and rights are inextricably linked.'"

As so many others have said, we were lucky to have a man like Jimmy Carter.  May we all find inspiration as we try to figure out way to live according to our values.

A More Welcoming Church--The Methodist Edition

Long, long ago, during grad school days, one of my friends came home quite angry.  "Do you know that you can't be gay and be a Lutheran pastor?"

I replied, "You do know that I'm not in charge of that, right?"  At that moment, I would have described myself as non church going, even though I was part of a Lutheran group that met on the campus of the University of South Carolina.  That student group was more inclusive than I imagined the larger church could ever be.

Decades have passed since then, and the Lutheran church, the ELCA variety, is more inclusive, although there is still a way to agree to disagree.  Pastors who are not white, male, and heterosexual may still find it tough to find a church willing to have them as a pastor.  Individual churches still have latitude to discriminate, and that doesn't make me happy.

I thought of these decades of changes that seem impossible and then seem to happen in a flash.  I was paying some attention to the national gathering of United Methodists in Charlotte, NC.  I knew that they hoped to resolve the issues that have been tearing them apart for the past several years when they couldn't meet in person.  And so, yesterday, I was happy to hear that the UMC voted to become a more inclusive church.

I know a bit more about the background because I go to a Methodist seminary, and last year, I attended an information session that occurred after chapel during lunch.  A year ago, as some of my fellow seminarians were graduating and taking calls in Methodist churches, I listened to their fears of what would happen if this vote went a different way.

I am so glad that my former classmates aren't waking up this morning with difficult decisions to make.  I am so glad that the United Methodist Church voted to become more inclusive.

Out in the Cold on MLK Day

Here we are, another MLK federal holiday, this time falling on the actual birth date of MLK.  Here we are, another Iowa caucus, but this year, the coldest weather ever faced by caucus goers.  It feels like we're in the middle of some substantial shifts, but it's too early to know how it turns out, too early perhaps to even understand the substantial shift.

Or maybe, as we think about the contours of history that shaped Martin Luther King, my state of mind is not unusual.  There have always been forces at work against the ones arcing towards justice.  Call those forces evil or capitalism or powers and principalities.  Call it ennui or inertia.  Maybe we always have apocalyptic weather somewhere to match the mood.  

One of the benefits of blogging/journaling is that I have a record.  There have been times that seem bleak, times that seem hopeful, and often, I don't remember it all accurately.  I do remember times that surprised me, both for good and for ill.  I remain committed to hope, even as I am aware of all the ways that our current situation could go terribly wrong.

It's also a benefit of having done wide reading in the field of history.  We've been in worse shape before.  I would still rather be a woman living right now than at any time in the past.  If I could time travel in a male body, would I?  Nope--I want the benefits of modern medicine of 2024, not modern medicine in 1955, when I would be more likely to have a heart attack in my male body.  I want the benefits of modern technology.  I want the societal improvements in terms of social justice, even as I am aware of how those rights are in danger of eroding.

This post is not the MLK post I thought I would write.  I am currently listening to the always brilliant Rebecca Solnit interview on On Being; it's an older interview, but it holds up well and is perfect for a day where we're celebrating MLK and shivering in the cold of electoral politics.

Strategies for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

For my internship with the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA, I get to do a variety of activities, many of which I've written about as they have occurred.  Some of these activities have had me doing something new, like leading middle school confirmands through bread baking.  This past week's internship activity was a writing task, not anything out of the ordinary for me.  But it was satisfying nonetheless.

Way back in the summer, my internship supervisor and I had brainstormed ways that I could be useful, and writing for the e-newsletter was one of them.  We looked ahead at upcoming events, and one of them was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, on Nov. 25.  Back in the summer, that day seemed so far away.

I wrote to one of the Synod staffers who has been hired to coordinate women in ministry to see if she had anything planned.  I didn't want to duplicate efforts or step on her toes.  I had been thinking about an article that talked about the day and offered ways for ordinary people to do something.  There are lots of days that have us discussing various issues.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed, and I thought a list of possible activities would be a good counterpoint to despair, cynicism, and hopelessness.  My supervisor, when hearing of my proposed article, said, "Go for it."

I made the list, and I put it in a bulleted form so that my supervisor could edit it if need be.  Much to my delight, he didn't.  I turned it in Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon, it was online.  Go here to read it; I like that it's a mix of educational, spiritual, and advocacy type activities.  There's a bit of politics, but it's the non-partisan type.

Back when I was planning my week, I thought I would have the whole week to work on it, but I'm happy to have had the due date of Tuesday.  Later today, Quilt Camp starts, and I am happy to have almost everything else cleared off of my schedule.  I am ready to lose myself in fabric in the best possible ways.

Dearly Departed

It is incredibly windy today; my county is under a burn ban until the end of the week, because the fire marshal expects dry, windy conditions to continue.  This dark windiness feels appropriate to this time of year, as Halloween shifts to All Saints, as the warmth of October gives way to a leafless November.  

It's a time when death is on the brain, even if no celebrity has died.  I've been reading the articles following the death of Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing on Friends.  In some ways, it wasn't a surprise--he's had intense struggles with addiction for decades, and while so many had hoped he had beaten his demons, even if he had, it's tough on the body.  Still, he was very young, 54.

One of the better pieces I've read was written by Patti Davis, an op-ed in the New York Times, about Perry's addiction and her own experiences.  Here's a nugget:   "I want to tell you something about addiction: No matter who it is or what substance that person is hooked on, loneliness is at its root. For whatever reason — and I have no theory as to why — there are those of us who feel isolated in this world, as if everyone else had some secret formula for getting along, for fitting in, and no one ever let us in on it. That loneliness resides deep inside us, at our core, and no matter how many people try to help us, no matter how many friends reach out, support us, show up for us, it never entirely goes away. It’s vast and shadowy and also part of who we are. Something happens when we discover a drug or alcohol: Suddenly we have a companion holding our hand, propping us up, making us feel we fit in, we can be part of the club. It’s there for us in the empty hours when it seems no one else is."

This morning, I was up even earlier than usual.  I was having odd dreams, fights about drywall in my dreams.  I had that residual restlessness from bad dreams, so I just got up.  I read an e-mail from the dean of my seminary about recent outbreaks of both antisemitic and anti-Palestinian graffiti at American University next door.  I felt weepy, both at the hate that comes in all varieties and at my dean taking the time to write to us all with words of hope in a time of deep distress.  

Her e-mail/letter ended this way:  "Friends, your calling matters. Working toward shalom is working toward a world where everyone enjoys the blessings of abundant life that God intended for all God’s creation, a place where everyone thrives. There are many ways to support peace efforts, to love our neighbors, to lament, to care for the vulnerable, and to pray unceasingly. If you are at a loss for words, pray anyway. Remember that the Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know what to pray (see Romans 8:26-27). Our chapel remains open for prayer. To echo Martin Luther King, Jr., there are many ways to let the light of God’s love shine into the darkness. Let's stand together for shalom."

I lit a candle and watched both the wind beyond the glass, and the little flame that didn't realize all the forces that would snuff it out if given much of a chance.  I thought of how autumn has shifted to a time of dry, dead leaves and immense amounts of pine straw. 

I said a prayer, for mercy on all our souls, the living and the dead.

Blessings of the Quilts

When I thought about the advantages of moving back to our Lutheridge house and doing seminary classes from a distance, the chance to be part of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity's quilt group was one of them.  This group meets every Wednesday to make quilts for Lutheran World Relief.  This year, we made 128 quilts, and today they will be blessed during worship.

All of the fabric is donated.  Often it's donated when a quilter dies and the family doesn't know what to do with all the accumulated fabric.  As a result, we've got amazing fabric to work with.  We've even inherited some partially finished projects that we incorporate.  On days when there hasn't been a free sewing machine for me to use or a quilt to knot, I've enjoyed going through the boxes and pulling out fabrics that go together.

One woman has transformed her basement into a quilting studio, and she does a lot of the work of assembling the tops throughout the week.  Others of us have other commitments, like work and family and other charity groups.  Two of our members also create quilts for the Project Linus group that gives quilts to children in hospitals.  That group has much stricter requirements, like all the fabric has to be new, so much of the work of the Wednesday quilters wouldn't be able to be donated there.

We meet most Wednesdays, but there have been stretches when so many of us were out of town and/or with other commitments, so we decided not to meet.  But usually, we sit and sew for an hour or two or three every Wednesday.  Some weeks, only two of us meet.  Some weeks, we have eight or ten.  

It's amazing what we can accomplish if we just sit down and do it.  And it's not just the quilts we make.  We've shared highs and lows, and gotten to know each other better.  We've helped the family of Afghan refugees living in the parsonage feel welcome and learn a bit of English.  We've created quilts that will go around the world to provide comfort.  All this, for just an hour or two a week.  It's a larger life lesson, I know.

Hurricane Season, Pride Month, and Shifting Into Summer

Today is June 1, which means different things to different people.  Let me write a collection of snippets loosely connected by the fact that it's June 1.

--Hurricane season starts today.  I am glad that I'm living in the mountains.  Last year I wrote that I was glad not to be a Florida homeowner, and that was before Hurricane Ian.  I am still glad to be a homeowner of a house in the mountains.  I know that when a storm like that hits the state, or even when a small storm hits the state, insurance rates go up for everyone.  I look back at what we paid for homeowner's, hurricane, and flood insurance, and I am astonished we could stay there as long as we did.  It required us to work a lot of jobs to keep our financial heads above water, even as the water (both literal and metaphorical) was rising below us.

--It is the start of Pride month.  What does this mean in a time of legislatures that are bearing down on transgender people?  I listened to a great episode of 1A that explained that many of the things that legislators say they must prevent, like genital surgery of minors, simply isn't happening.  Here, as with many issues, I firmly believe legislators shouldn't insert themselves into medical decisions when they aren't trained physicians/clinicians.

--It's a month of Synod Assemblies for some Lutheran synods (ELCA brand, the kind of Lutheranism that is more inclusive), and I have no idea if any of them will be addressing any type of oppression at all.  I know that my home synod, the Florida-Bahamas Synod, has a bishop election, and often other items get put aside so that elections can move forward.

--I will not be going to any synod assemblies, although there are several that hold my interest (I live in the North Carolina synod, I have an internship this school year with the Southeast Synod, I go to a school that's part of the Metro DC synod, and I have had a scholarship from a church in the Virginia synod).  I begin my part-time preaching job in Bristol, Tennessee this Sunday, so getting away for a synod assembly doesn't make sense.

--Yesterday I sat down to write my sermon for Sunday--what a delight.  I know the writing process won't always be this easy, but I am writing about God the Creator as a focus for Trinity Sunday, the creator in the first Genesis story that's part of the Revised Common Lectionary selection for this Sunday, the one who declares everything "good and very good."

--I am reminded of what I wrote with chalk on a sidewalk last month:

--Last night, we went to a picnic at the lake at Lutheridge, a picnic to introduce the summer counselors to the people of the residential section.  Here's a picture taken by my next door neighbor:

--It was interesting to reflect on our various ages.  Most of the counselors are fresh from a year or two of college, and only a few of them are people who have been a counselor for more than two years.  Most of the residents are 15+ years older than my spouse and I am.  I think we baffled both sets of people at the picnic last night:  you're living here full-time, and you're not exactly retired, and one of you is in seminary?

--Forty years ago (I first typed thirty years ago, and then did the math), I graduated from high school, at the end of May.  Part of me feels it's impossible that so much time has gone by.  Part of me is astonished at all I have accomplished.  I am interested to see what happens in the next 40 years (while also realizing that I am likely to be dead at the end of those 40 years; next month I will celebrate my 58th birthday).