Don’t Call Yourself a Christian Unless He Tells You To

A friend recently sent me a film clip of a brawl between monks of different Christian communions over turf rights at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Fighting had broken out on First Day, 11/9/2008, when Greek Orthodox monks blocked a procession of Armenian Orthodox. My friend had titled her e-mail “One more reason I don’t like to be called a Christian.”

This was not the first time I’d heard such feelings expressed, but it always grieves me to see people of high ideals distancing themselves from “the Christians” because of the low behavior of some who call themselves Christians. The effect is to denigrate either Jesus Christ Himself (from whom, ironically, they may have learned those high ideals) or millions of men, women and children who, over the past two thousand years, chose forgiveness over revenge, faithfulness over treachery, truth over deceit, love over hatred, and their own suffering and death over making others suffer – precisely because they were Christians following Christ. I allow that others may have done the same because they were Buddhists following the Buddha, or Jews following Moses and the Prophets. But you cannot deny that a river of spilled Christian blood cries up from the ground, witnessing that to be a Christian is an honorable thing.

My friend wrote below the link to the film clip, “But I will answer to: Student of Jesus.” I answered her:

“…if the followers of Jesus don’t answer to the name of Christians, and in Christ’s name rebuke and disclaim unchristian behavior, from ‘Christian’ militarism, racism and imperialism to ‘Christian’ squabbling over turf rights at the so-called Holy Sepulcher, then other Christians suffering shame and pain over these things won’t have any strong Christian elders to turn to for comfort and encouragement. And Jesus, our Teacher (and to some of us, our Savior and Vine, our Prophet, Priest and King) will find His cross surrounded only by [politicians that tell lies to start wars, media demagogues that persecute gay people,] and the Ku Klux Klan. He deserves better representatives on this earth than that, I think. And the Truth He witnessed and witnesses to requires them, too.
 
“But I call myself a Christian only because I feel He wants me to. I regularly turn for Christian counsel and encouragement to godly companions who call themselves simply Quakers, or Buddhists or Muslims or Jews, as their Divine Inward Witness directs them. As far as I’m concerned, their Divine Inward Witness is Christ, and Christ speaks to me through them. I have to respect the faithfulness that leads them to persist in referring to their Divine Inward Witness as the Light, the Buddha-mind… or Allah, or Adonai Elohenu. I’m not humoring them. I’m respecting God’s wisdom, and their discernment.”

I ended by saying “don’t call yourself a Christian unless He tells you to.” I was thinking of Paul’s saying “no one can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3b), and Jesus’ answer when Peter acclaimed Him as the Messiah, “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Taught since childhood to recognize ”Jesus Christ” as a name and a common swear-word, we easily forget that recognition of Jesus as the Christ is a gift, a charisma. On the other hand, those who’ve received it may not lay it aside just because they’re embarrassed to be seen with other people that call themselves Christians.

Communion at the Voting Booth

I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me in the voting booth.

I’d thought it out carefully. I’d vote around 10:30, after the people who worked in offices had had their morning chance. It was a good plan. My polling place is in the lobby of a high-rise housing project in Manhattan. There are about six electoral districts that vote there. My ED had two voting machines. (There was only one for the primary.) 

Things looked pretty well organized. First you gave a worker your street address, and she told you which ED you were and what table you had to sign in at. That line was my longest wait–but only ten minutes. I was voter number 388. Spirits were high. One family was there with their children, taking them into the voting booth.

The line for the booths was only a few minutes. My card was collected and the machine was set for me by a fiercely focused African American woman who called me “dear” as she held the curtain for me.

I always forget that I have to cock the machine by throwing the big red lever to the right, so at first I couldn’t get the small toggle by Obama’s name to go down. A moment of panic until I remembered the lever thing.

Click, click, click, click, down the list of candidates, my congresswoman, judges, my state assemblyman–an impressive young man I’m happy is running again.

I stood there for a moment looking at what I had done, looking at the toggles that were turned down beside the names and the Xs in the boxes. I felt two things at once. I felt both deeply centered inside myself and standing outside space and time. It was a moment like no other. I took a long breath and swung the big red lever back to the left.

And then I began to sob. Wracking, shaking sobs welling up from that center I’d been inhabiting, as tears poured from my eyes.

I steadied myself against the lever, as I recall, inhaled, and turned to leave the booth. As I pulled the curtain aside, I met the eyes of the woman who had let me into the booth. 

She looked at me. She more than looked at me, she took me in. ”Did you do it?” she said. I nodded. She nodded, too.

And the rest of my tears began to flow. Outside the building, in the sun, I leaned against the brick wall and cried some more until I was able to collect myself.

I spent this spring and summer working on Oxford University Press’s Encyclopedia of African American History from 1896 to the Present. (In other words from Plessy v. Ferguson to Mos Def.) I’ve worked on many of OUP’s African American titles in the past ten years. The set is locked down and ready to go to the presses, except for the open sections that an editorial team is waiting to fill in based on what happens today.

I have worked, as I said, on many of these projects, on the biographical dictionaries, on other encyclopedia sets, on the collected works of W. E. B. Du Bois. It’s been a privilege and an honor and so humbling to learn the life stories of so many astounding men and women. But this encyclopedia of events, half of which happened in my lifetime, sunk me deeper and deeper into despair as I absorbed how pervasive and unacknowledged, unseen, and unknown the racism of this country is.

This morning I got to push back at all that. This morning I got to say–despite what I absorbed growing up with de facto segregation in the public schools of Pennsylvania, where the black kids sat in the back row and rode in the back of the bus–No. This is the person who is best for the job. This is the person I want to represent me to the rest of the world.

“Did you do it?” she asked. I nodded.

“A Greater Place to Live”

I write this on the evening of August 28, 2008.

It’s the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and my late aunt, Josephine.

On this day, forty-five years ago, I was in summer school at the University of Pennsylvania. We were hearing a lot, in the women’s dorm, about this big march on Washington. We watched clips of it on the network news in the TV lounge that night. I remember seeing speeches . . . and Joan Baez singing.

Eight years earlier, on August 28, 1955, I would have been about to enter seventh grade in Chester County, Pennsylvania. But down in Mississippi on that day, a young black boy named Emmett Till–he was about six months older than me– was being beaten to death. I have no memory of that murder.

I’ve informed myself about it since then. I’d like to give you a YouTube link where you can see some images of Mississippi while you listen to  Bob Dylan’s song about Emmett Till. The last line of the song is the title of this post. (For those with slower modems, the printed lyrics are here.) I felt it necessary to look them up and reread them after I turned off the television tonight. After I’d watched tonight’s speech. After Barack Obama spoke.

I write now, and I don’t understand why I’m not dissolved in tears. Is his gaze holding me steady, I wonder? I couldn’t take my eyes from him. Savior? Celebrity? Another Adlai Stevenson, too smart to be elected president? He looked so vulnerable standing out there on that platform. And he looked so clear about who he is and what he means to do.

I’ve never known this country to be so low–not through the cold war, Korea, or the Vietnam War. Not through Watergate. Not even through Watergate. This is the worst. And yet the young people, the young people (or so I call them) who started moveon.org and talkingpointsmemo and so many other of the blogs and Web sites I depend on and who are representing me on my own city council and in my state assembly–how did they get so good?

I have no kids of my own. I don’t know. I’ve heard it said that we hippies blew it. Maybe we did. But it’s beginning to look to me like some of us parented a generation that’s taking charge. Could they have possibly taken us at our word?

“The system’s broken,” we said in the Sixties. “Everything’s got to change.”

That’s what I heard tonight.

Here’s the text.

This is for my cousins, my aunt Josephine’s granddaughters, Jennifer and soon-to-be-born Baby Girl, Susan and year-old Sailor, and Sarah, and their husbands Rob, Giles, and Ben; and for Josephine’s grandson Jonathan and for her two grandkids, Ben and Marisa, who will be voting in the next presidential election.

Quilting for Kenya on eBay

The quilt made by Iowa Quakers

I just got the following e-mail from Ann Nichols in Iowa. It looks like a beautiful quilt, and I thought you’d like to know about it. It’s an interesting idea to fund-raise on eBay.

Ann Nichols displays the “Out of Africa” quilt which will be auctioned to raise funds to support a nurse at the Kaimosi Friends Mission Hospital in Kenya, Africa. The multi-colored fabric in the quilt is African fabric donated by Eden Grace, of Friends United Meeting (FUM) Field Staff serving in their Africa Ministries Office in Kisumu, Kenya.

The quilt, a mission project of United Society of Friends’ Women, was made by women from five Iowa Friends’ Meetings:  Bangor Liberty, Hartland, Honey Creek-New Providence, LeGrand, and Marshalltown First Friends.

The “Out of Africa” quilt will be auctioned on eBay in mid-September.  The ten-day auction will end September 26 with the auction proceeds donated to the Adopt-a-Nurse Program for Kaimosi Hospital.

To learn more about the quilt and see it on auction, go to ebay.com after September 16 and search for “African Fabric Houndstooth Quilt.”

Simplicity: Shut Up and Listen on un-hoarding

I really loved reading “Simplicity Part 2, or The Great Purge” on Shut Up and Listen.  It’s about un-hoarding or de-hording or whatever you might call getting rid of a whole bunch of stuff, but with a subtle change in perspective which I found really positive and useful.  I don’t want to give it away so you’ll have to read the post.

(For background, you might want to read part 1 first.)

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Well, ‘Father Jake Stops the World’ has closed down (as posted previously). But I just checked in with Geoffrey Chaucer Has a Blog and found that it’s been taken over by a team consisting of the Lords Appellant of England because of the many complaints that Geoffrey wasn’t posting enough. They have announced their intentions to keep a close eye on the media and on fashions and trends.

Indeed, I was delighted to find there were several posts to catch up on–not to mention a daunting number of comments.

Good news for all of us devoted to Middle English blogging!

Grease Monkey Shuns Surveillance

While my daughter’s away at camp, I’m entertaining her with picture postcards featuring “Sock ‘N’ Grease Comix” on the picture side of the card. Grease Monkey, identifiable by the black grease on all four of his hands and his prehensile tail, is a discontented mechanic who goes to Sock Monkey for psychotherapy. His chief complaint is that he feels that he’s being spied on. A third character, Flying Monkey (suggested by the flying monkeys used in the Total Information Awareness Program of the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz), often appears in the corner, outside the window or behind the wall with a video camera, a microphone or a tape recorder. More of these may appear on this blog before camp’s over for the Summer.

Our Mother

I’ve been the silent partner in this blog, for the most part — I think the only posts I’ve made have been silly ones about Talk Like a Quaker Day.

Something suddenly prompted me to post the following prayer/poem, which I completed on August 18, 2007, at Powell House.  It seems to have spoken to both Christians and Wiccans of my acquaintance.  That’s what I was hoping it would do!

Our Mother

Our Mother,
who art among us,
holy do we name thee.
Thy home be here,
thy grace appear
in Act as it does in Spirit.
Prepare with us our daily bread,
and heal us of wrongdoing
as we learn to free those that wrong us.
Test us not beyond our ability,
but keep our souls from destruction,
for in thee is our home,
and our strength,
and our beauty,
now and always.
Amen.

Completed at Powell House, August 18, 2007

Cooking with Simplicity: Not-Refried Pinto Beans

Beans 2/3 of the way through this recipe

I want to share some recipes which are simple, as in easy, basic, and not expensive, recipes that are good for us, and good for the planet.

On another day, I will go into more thoughts about cooking and the Testimony of Simplicity. By then, I hope you will have tried this recipe!

——————————————————

Most Norteamericanos are used to bland, pasty refried beans.  We buy them ready-made into “refried” beans, in cans, if we buy them at all.

But well-made pintos can be delicious, healthy and easy to make.  They don’t even have to take a lot of active preparation.  If you know what you’re doing, a lot of the work can be done while you are up to other things. You can also do steps 1 and 2, and save the beans in the refrigerator for a few days or in the freezer for a longer period, and do step three another day.

I like to make this recipe for “Not refried pinto beans:”

‘Father Jake Stops the World’ Stops

As the FUM Triennial approaches I have been somewhat aware, through the pressure of my editing deadlines, of the continuing struggle in the Anglican Church. I also saw the news (but didn’t study it) that the assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has voted to ordain non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy and will now go through a year-long process of having its individual congregations ratify the decision–or not.

Thinking to catch up on some of this news before I leave for the Triennial on July 8, I checked into ‘Father Jake’ after a long hiatus and found, in a post dated July 2, that Jake is closing down his blog. I’m sad about that, but Jake sounds clear and rightly led in his decision.

I encourage you to explore the site before Jake takes it down. There are many, many links on it to interesting and informative sites. And there are some thought-provoking essays.

These are the words from Father Jake that I want to take away with me:

Am I abandoning the struggle? Some might see it that way. But, as I’ve said before, even though there are most likely many more difficult years ahead of us, I am no longer as concerned about the end result as I once was. In the long run, there is simply no way that the extremist perspective will become the dominant one within Anglicanism or Christianity. Their exclusive view, which insists on separating humanity into groups of “us” and “them,” simply cannot survive in a world in which we are all becoming more and more connected each day. A global perspective will not tolerate their kind of elitist mentality. Nor will such a perspective tolerate the same kind of rhetoric here. So, I think it is time for me to do the responsible thing.

Yes, we must continue to speak out against those who will use the name of God to oppress and imprison the innocent. But, it seems to me, that cannot be our sole focus.

The Pews Forum survey still has me reflecting. 92% of Americans believe in God. That is astounding! We’ve got some great conversations just waiting to happen beyond the walls of the Church. For me, at least, I think it is time to end this focus on internal squabbles, and begin to look outward.

As I prepare to leave the FUM board on July 13 after representing New York Yearly Meeting for six years, I am wondering what looking outward will mean. I know that I am burned out. And I know that I am to take a sabbatical from New York Yearly Meeting.

Great conversations waiting to happen beyond the Church walls . . . .