Category Archives: religion

The Chair

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It was one of those little mysteries that we notice that stays quietly in the backs of our minds but doesn’t nag at us.  But then somebody says something and the mystery is solved although they don’t know there ever was a mystery.

This mystery is rooted in the story of one of Jefferson City’s most prominent 19th Century citizens, the donation of a building to the city, the founding of a church, and the creation of a center to help the city’s needy a century after a man’s death.

And a mausoleum.

Joseph M. Clarke, Ohio-born, Illinois newspaperman, Alabama horse trader, Osage County Missouri plantation owner, state legislator, and Jefferson City banker is at the center of the story.

He was a city developer and philanthropist and upon his death toward the end of 1889, he bequeathed Bragg Hall to the city.  Bragg Hall still stands at the corner of High and Monroe Streets, on the southwest corner. For decades, the upper floors were city hall, with the city council chambers (which doubled as the Municipal Court during the daytimes) on the top floor.

One of the provisions of his will was that the city had to pay for a life-size bronze statue of Clarke to be kept in the building. Portraits of his wife, Lavinia, and of his two sons, Marcus and Junius, also were to be placed prominently in the building. All of them wound up in the council chambers, the statue in the southeast corner where it watched the council proceedings, the portraits of his sons on the east wall and the life-size portrait of his wife on the west wall.  In those days, five councilmen sat on each side of the room and I always felt sorry for the councilmen on the east because Mrs. Clarke was, well, a very severe looking woman and I often wondered if any of the council members felt her withering gaze.

Bragg Hall became inadequate as a city hall in the 1970s and after negotiations with Clarke descendants, the city sold the building and moved to a new city hall.  But the new building didn’t seem to have adequate space for the bronze Clarke and the canvas family members.  Four years later, when the city opened a nutrition center, it was named for Clark. And today folks who have meals there do so under the watchful eyes of Mr. Clarke and his sons. And I think Lavinia is watching their table manners closely.

One of the other things Clarke did was to give the First Christian Church a lot at the corner of (then) East Main and Adams Street as the site for its first sanctuary, to which he also contributed liberally.

All four members of the Clarke family are in that mausoleum in the old cemetery.  One day while I was doing some church research about Clarke, I went to the mausoleum, the interior of which was pretty dusty and cobwebby and peered through the locked door.  There wasn’t much to see except for a very old chair that was slowly collapsing under the weight of dust and decades.

Why is that chair there? I wondered.  Were they expecting visitors?   Were they thinking someone would come in a sit with them for a while?  Somebody would come in and tell them what had happened with their gifts?

That chair was the mystery that stuck in the back of my mind for several years.  Since then, the mausoleum has undergone a maintenance and repair effort.

A few weeks ago I think I learned what that chair was and why it was there.

The Christian Church has been without a minister for more than a year, a situation that will be resolved this coming Sunday when our new minister preaches his first sermon.  In the interim we have had “pulpit supply” ministers filling in, including three retired ministers who are members of the congregation.  We’ve had sermons from two lay members. And on June 26, a young woman who was raised in our church—her parents and her grandmother are still active members—and then went on to become a minister stood in the pulpit and asked what kind of a church we would be in the future, one stuck in the old ways or “will we accept the mantles of change and embrace our own giftedness and passions?”

Her sermon was based on the story of Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament Book of Kings where stories of his miracles are told—one of which is resurrection. Early in the message, Sarah Blosser Blackwell referred to an ancient custom that sometimes is practiced in some homes today:

An empty chair at a family gathering was likely referred to in passing as the “Elijah” chair.  The idea was that since Elijah did not die an earthly death, but instead was taken up into heaven, and we should save him a space in case he returned. According to Jewish tradition, Elijah was known as the messenger of the covenant and, thus, was present at every circumcision, so a chair was left open for his arrival.  Later that became the place of honor for the godfather of the child.

And there it was!

That was why the chair was in the Clarke family mausoleum—the Elijah Chair where he could sit when he returns as a harbinger of the arrival of the Messiah.

I don’t think there’s a chair in the mausoleum since the repairs were made. I could see no sign of it as I peered through the three dingy windows.  It’s unknown if the chair had been put there at the request of the Clarkes or if it was just part of a tradition in 1889.

I kind of think there should be a chair in there now, though.

 

Canning

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John Wesley had a birthday last week. He would have been 219 years old.

He was the founder of the Methodist Church.

Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac” commemorated his birth by passing along “John Wesley’s Rule,” noting that there’s no evidence he actually wrote it.  But it’s a good thing to remember as we breathe the increasingly toxic political air that is being generated in these times.

You might want to print it out and post it in several places in your home.

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.

Sounds like a good platform for a candidate.  A candidate adopting this standard as part of the campaign platform could certainly stand out in today’s political climate.  Certainly wouldn’t hurt to see somebody try it.

It’s Not Over   

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Regardless of your feeling about the U. S. Supreme Court’s abortion ruling last week, here’s something to remember:

It’s not the final word.

It’s not the final word any more than the 1973 ruling in Roe was the final word.  It just turns the tables on the argument.  Abortion opponents have spent the last fifty years chipping away at the ruling and looking for the right legal lever to overturn the whole thing.  Dozens, probably hundreds, of state laws (somebody might add up all of the ones in Missouri) have attacked the issue only to be thrown out at some level of the court system. This one finally worked.

The ruling obviously does not end here.  The anti-abortion element of American society is on the defensive for the first time in almost a half-century. We will be interested to see if a pro-choice population that has watched as pro-life elements have attacked Roe will be galvanized into activism.

It is not generally a good idea to poke a dozing Tiger with a stick.

Survey after survey has indicated a general approval of Choice by Americans.  The Gallup organization in early June reported, “A steady 58% majority believe that the…ruling…should stand while 35% want it to be reversed. These sentiments are essentially unchanged since 2019.”

The wording on Gallup’s poll question has changed somewhat through the years but, “Dating back to 1989, support for reversing the decision has averaged 32%, while opposition has averaged 59%.”

In the most recent poll, the question focused on the impact of an overturn and whether respondents favored letting states set their own standards.  That survey, run last month, showed 63% of respondents thought it would be a “bad thing” to let states set their own policies. Those who said it will be a “good thing” were at 32%.

There has been no doubt this issue has been a partisan thing for a long time. In the most recent Gallup survey, 80% of Democrats and 62% of Independents favored the status quo.  Among republicans, 58% favored what the court ultimately has decided. Only 34% of independents and 15% of Democrats favored reversal.

But the U.S. Supreme Court is not ruled by polls although its makeup might be determined by people whose political positions ARE ruled by polls.

Catholic voters, for example.

A Pew Research Center 2019 survey found 56% of Catholics felt abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Forty-two percent disagreed.  The 56% is close to the 60% of non-evangelical Protestants and 64% of Black Protestants who supported legal abortion. In one of the fastest-growing demographics—people who are not religiously affiliated—83% told pollsters that abortions should be legal in all or almost all cases.

Writing in America, the Jesuit Review in 2018, Patrick T. Brown, a former government relations staffer for Catholic Charities USA, said, “Since 1973, no institution in the United States has been more firmly committed to protecting the unborn than the Catholic Church. Yet Catholics are just as likely to procure an abortion as other U.S. women. Why?

“According to the latest numbers from the Guttmacher Institute, 24 percent of women who procure abortions identify as Catholic, almost the same as 22 percent of all U.S. women who called themselves Catholic in a 2014 survey by Pew Research Center. In the same sources, evangelical Protestants made up 27 percent of all women in the United States but only 13 percent of those who underwent abortions, revealing a greater reluctance toward choosing abortion, a greater reluctance toward revealing their religion on a survey or both.”

Here’s one thing you won’t hear:   Republicans who are critical of “activist” judges when discussing this ruling.  You won’t hear Republicans railing against “legislating from the bench” either.

Again, this ruling tends to reverse the table.

There are fears this ruling is just the beginning of court-established national policies on contraception, LGTBQ+ rights, and gay marriage being dismantled and becoming matters of states’ rights.  Roe does not mean the court’s rulings on those issues automatically will be part of the Right’s version of a cancel culture but those who want them reversed should ponder how hard they want to poke those Tigers and what the reaction will be when they have poked too hard.

This ruling is certain to become a significant election issue in November when we will learn if it and reactions to findings of the January 6 Committee as well as fears of the present court’s future actions will produce less of a Red Wave than many on the Right expect.

Pro-life interests have prevailed.

For now.

But a younger generation born and raised in an era of birth control, abortion, and gender recognition in its various forms might be maturing with different outlooks.

In times such as these and decision such as this, we often return to former New York Governor Al Smith, a Catholic who ran for President in 1928, a time when there was a lot of “anti” attitudes in our nation.  Many think Smith’s greatest liability in the election was his religion.  He warned:

“It is a confession of the weakness of our own faith in the righteousness of our cause when we attempt to suppress by law those who do not agree with us.”

A Reading List

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This is the last week of the legislative session.  Time is even more precious now and the risk that some worthwhile things will be talked to death is greatest.

This session already will be remembered as the year the Missouri Senate became a reading club.  A lousy one.

Not only were the choices of reading material poor, the reading of the material was fingernails-on-the-blackboard irritating.

Not only was their choice of material and their delivery of it lifeless, spiritless, colorless, arid, tedious (we could go on—we found a listing of 50 synonyms for “boring”), it set a low bar for being educational.

If unrecoverable hours of members’ lives will be taken from them, they at least should have the opportunity to turn the torturous time into a learning experience.

To solve this problem, we suggest that the Senate set aside funds to hire temporary personnel who have professional reading skills and employ them as part-time reading clerks—overnight reading hours would demand heftier salaries but it would be a small price to pay for making the Senate a more enlightened chamber.  Accompanying this recommendation is a suggested rule change that any group fomenting a filibuster must commit to staying in the chamber for the duration of the readings, thus guaranteeing that SOMEBODY will learn something.

Herewith, then, we offer a reading list for filibusters in hopes that consumption of those hours will provide participants and listeners alike some value.  We regret that we cannot guarantee that the readers can do a better job than they did this year.

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. While most of us have read the Declaration or have heard it read, this book is a highly-informative explanation of the care that went into each paragraph and sometimes each word of our nation’s foundational document and how the elements of the Declaration fit together and constitute the legal framework that led to the writing of the United States Constitution.

America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By, by Akil Reed Amar, who teaches Constitutional Law at Yale College and Yale Law School. Amar is considered “one of America’s pre-eminent legal scholars” who explains why the Constitution does not set forth all of the rights, principles, and procedures that govern our nation. He maintains that the Constitution cannot be understood in textual isolation from a changing world and the laws that change with it.

The End of White Christian America by Robert P. Jones, a former psychology professor at Missouri State University who now leads the Public Religion Research Institute, that examines what is happening because our nation is no longer an evangelical majority white Christian nation and the political and cultural effects of that change. The book explores that change, its implications for the future, and why those who fear the future should instead understand how the positive values of white Christian America will survive.

New World, Inc., by John Butman and Simon Targett. The authors explain that it was commerce, not religious freedom, that was the motivating factor for the earliest explorations and settlements of our nation.

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. Ms. Vowell is greatly entertaining in explaining who the Puritans on which so much of our standard history is based really were as human beings—and they were pips and not necessarily pure..

Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin, by Joseph Kelly, takes us to the dangerous, desperate times overlooked in our usual histories. We do not often consider that those who came to this side of the Atlantic placed themselves in a hostile world for which most were unsuited to settle with no guarantees that new supplies to sustain them would arrive later  It also explores the papal-approved concept that if a land was not populated by Christians, it was proper—a duty, in fact—for Christians to take that land regardless of the cost to those who inhabited it.

El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America, by Carrie Gibson.  Long before the Pilgrims and the Puritans arrived on this side of the pond, the Spanish were here as conquerors, settlers, enslavers, missionaries, and adventurers.  But most of our history is based on, as poet Walt Whitman put it, the idea that this nation was founded as a second England.

There are several others that could broaden understanding of who laid the foundation for our country and the opportunities and the missed opportunities to recognize them that shape our attitudes today, and not always in a positive way.

If the Senate, or a small part of it, wants to kill time and possibly beneficial legislation (for somebody) in the process, it should at least contribute to improving the general knowledge of our nation, at least for the Senator who should fill his mind while killing everybody else’s time, and for those who might stick around if there’s something worthwhile to listen to.  And with these books, there is.

We offer these suggestions with no hope that they will amount to anything.

But that doesn’t keep individual members of the legislature—and the public—from becoming better citizens by broadening their understanding of our nation’s roots.

 

 

Premonition

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Your faithful chronicler was invited to speak to a group of freshman, sophomore, and junior State Representatives last week. It turned out they all were Republicans, including some Republican candidates for the House.

If Democrats want to hear the nonpartisan speech, I’d be glad to do it for them.

In fact, the words of a Democrat had a prominent role in the early part of the speech.  I had recited some facts about being raised in a Republican family. But I came of age in the Camelot era, a pedigree that I hope is somewhat behind my efforts as a reporter to harass both parties equally.

As I was researching some of the material for the speech, I came across the speech President Kennedy would have delivered at the Texas Trade Mart. As history records, the world ended for him ten minutes or so before he was to arrive there. The conclusion of the speech reaches across the generations since that day in Dallas.  Here’s the part of that speech that made it into part of my remarks last week:

“In this time of division and hostility, of narrowness and demagoguery often fueled by fear of the different instead of the opportunities presented by the things we have in common, it might be good to reflect on some of President Kennedy’s words again.  The other day I came across some words he would have spoken at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963, a day I remember vividly as a young reporter.

Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.

But today other voices are heard in the land – voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality,…doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness…

We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will “talk sense to the American people.” But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense…

We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

It has been too long since we heard that kind of uplifting challenge. And it’s time for leaders with courage to speak that way again.”

The crowd provided a standing ovation at the end of the talk, which was nice. I hope that means they didn’t think they were listening to nonsense.  And that they won’t go out and deliver it.

Outgrowing Ourselves

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Picked up a copy of The Pathway the other day to read while I was having lunch at Chez Monet, which has moved back into the capitol basement to run the cafeteria.  The newspaper is a publication of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

The lead story told me that a bill in the state senate “threatens the First Amendment rights of Missouri Christians.”  Since I consider myself one of those, I thought I should learn about this threat to me.

The bill is the Missouri Non-Discrimination Act. It would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “It masquerades as equal treatment for all, but it results in unequal treatment for people of faith like Colorado baker Jack Philips and Washington florist Baronelle Stutzman, Christians in business who seek to live out their faith in the marketplace.”

The article is critical of MONA and its federal counterpart, the Federal Equality Act, by extending prohibitions against discrimination in hiring or lodging based on race, national origin, and age.

The publication complains the bill would “penalize and discriminate against everyday Missourians for their beliefs about marriage and biological sex.”

This is a ticklish area because there are those who suggest non-Christians are behind such words. Then there are Christians who believe they MUST be behind those words.

The conflict results in some proclaiming that others can’t be Christians if they don’t support this kind of language. Or that some can’t be Christians if they DO support it.

And then there are some who question the Christianity of those who would argue about that.

—which bring us to a fundamental question of whether Christianity is an inclusive faith or an exclusive faith, a Big Church Faith or a Little Church Faith.

The article says, “MONA’s implications threaten our core convictions based on Scripture about our Creator God…..”

I confess that I sometimes wonder how to balance an omnipotent Creator God with a God who seems to make a mistake in creating someone who is gay or someone who does not identify with their birth gender.  Isn’t an omnipotent God immune from making such mistakes?

Or are we really all God’s children?  How can all of us be God’s children if some of us are gay and gay people are to be treated differently by Christians because it turns out not all of us are God’s children after all, or so they suggest.

I gave you only part of the sentence a minute ago.  The full sentence says, “MONA’s implications threaten our core convictions based on Scripture about our Creator God, family, marriage, sexuality, community, decency and religious liberty.”

Is it possible for a family with a gay child to really be a Christian family?  Can a gay or transgender person practice Freedom of Religion or does their gender identity impair their ability to be followers of the Christ?  Are they, at best, second-class Christians if they are Christians at all?

There have been times in our history when good Christian black and white people could not marry and even to be seen together was risky because others subscribed to “convictions based on Scripture.”  It offended Christian decency and was some kind of an insult to a community (small “c”).

Maybe there’s something wrong with me when the simple words of a hymn many of us sang as children keeps going through my head.

“Praise Him, praise Him, all ye little children, God is Love, God is love; Praise him praise Him all ye little children, God is love, God is love.”

When the Disciples rebuked Jesus for touching infants that had been brought to him, he told them, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

He also told the disciples, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Given a chance to follow their natural impulses, children of all races, creeds, and nationalities will play together without judgment.  One might grow to be gay. Another might grow up to be transgender.  But that makes no difference when they are children involved in the innocence of play.

It’s too bad that we have to grow up and require laws that make us play nice together—or to separate us on the basis of some exclusive righteousnss or other.

Sometimes I think we are born as children of God.

And then we outgrow it.

Christian Values

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Governor Parson is catching a lot of flak for his reaction to the Senate’s rejection last week of Don Kauerauf, Parson’s nominee for director of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

Part of Governor Parson’s statement that blasted Senate critics for “feeding misinformation, repeating lies, and disgracing 35 years of public health experience is not what it means to be conservative” seems to have escaped the attention it might have received because he went on to praise Kauerauf for opposing COVID masking and vaccine mandates and being pro-life, qualities Parson referred to as “shared…Christian values.” He suggested he would not appoint someone who did not share those values.

He also mentioned other values:  devoted public service, “honor, integrity, and order.”

It’s the use of the phrase “Christian values” that has triggered controversy, though.  “Does the next director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services need to be a Christian?” asked the Post-Dispatch last week.

Beyond the political implication in the statement and the political reaction to it, there are faith issues that deserve examination—and the issue of how religion and politics can be a divisive mix.

I have often said that nothing screws up faith more than religion.

Faith is a basic quality with which all of us are born.  We don’t know it at the time but when we are old enough to comprehend the basic facts of our first out-of-womb existence, we recognize how essential faith is to our lives.  We are born innately trusting that someone will love us, that someone will feed us, that someone will keep us warm, that someone will care for us until we can learn—step by step—to care for ourselves, that someone will protect us, that someone will give us a chance to achieve life, liberty, and give us a chance to pursue happiness.

Religion is an interpretation of standards that affect all of those things. Religions take different approaches to them.  Some are strict in their standards and demands of loyalty. Others are more giving in letting a person interpret values as their own mind leads them to do.

I have a feeling it would be interesting to have a discussion of Christian values with the governor.  From my standpoint, I have to ask if he thinks it is a Christian value that one person goes unmasked although they might expose another to a dangerous virus?  Is it a Christian value to forego vaccines that might lead to a longer and more abundant life?

These are not questions of criticism. They are questions that call for an exploration of faith—which is more basic than religion.

Years ago, in the early days of the discussion at the Missouri Capitol after Roe v. Wade, a state representative asked during a hearing at which a strong pro-life person had testified, “When does ensoulment take place?”   At what point, the questioner wanted to know of the witness, did a cluster of fertilized cells gain a soul?

Whatever the answer was—and I don’t know if there even was an answer—it was not significant enough to stay in my memory.  But it is an essential question in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. And what does that mean if there is a miscarriage?

The discussion of the governor’s statement led me to wander through various internet sites a few days ago.  Here are some Christian values they listed:

Honesty. Humility. Justice. Generosity. Service. Wisdom. Nurture. Endurance (or Perseverance). Love. Thankfulness. Loyalty. Modesty. Courage. Responsibility. Compassion. Respect. Self-control. Creativity. Suffering. Morality. Protection. Hope. Peace.

The Bible is not always a fail-safe guide. Paul told the Christians at Ephesus, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church…Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands.”

But he also wrote to Christians in what is now Turkey (then Galatia), “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

It is a mistake to think, however, that Christian values are those only of Christians.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan received a report in 2006 from the Alliance of Civilizations that examined “basic values common to all religions.”  He told an audience in Ankara, Turkey that “an embrace of differences—differences in opinion, in culture, in belief, in way of life—have long been a driving force of human progress.”

“Thus it was that, during Europe’s ‘Dark Ages,’ the Iberian Peninsula flourished through the interaction of Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions. Later, the Ottoman Empire prospered not simply because of it sarmies, but because it was also an empire of ideas, in which Muslim art and technology wer enriched by Jewish and Christian contributions.

“Regrettably, several centuries later, our own globalized era is marked by rising intolerance, extremism and violence against the other. Closer proximity and improved communications have often led not to mutual understanding and friendship, but to tension and mutual distrust…

“Today, at the very time when international migration has brought unprecedented numbers of people of different creed or culture to live as fellow-citizens, the misconceptions and stereotypes underlying the idea of a “clash of civilizations” have come to be more and more widely shared.  Some groups seem eager to foment a new war of religion, this time on a global scale -– and the insensitivity, or even cavalier disregard, of others towards their beliefs or sacred symbols makes it easier for them to do so.

“Demonization of the ‘other’ has proved the path of least resistance, when a healthy dose of introspection would better serve us all…In the twenty-first century, we remain hostage to our sense of grievances, and to feelings of entitlement.  Our narratives have become our prison, paralysing discourse and hindering understanding.  Thus, many people throughout the world, particularly in the Muslim world, see the West as a threat to their beliefs and values, their economic interests, their political aspirations.  Evidence to the contrary is simply disregarded or rejected as incredible.  Likewise, many in the West dismiss Islam as a religion of extremism and violence, despite a history of relations between the two in which commerce, cooperation and cultural exchange have played at least as important a part as conflict.

“It is vital that we overcome these resentments, and establish relations of trust between communities.  We must start by reaffirming -– and demonstrating -– that the problem is not the Koran, nor the Torah or the Bible.  Indeed, I have often said the problem is never the faith -– it is the faithful, and how they behave towards each other.

“We must stress the basic values that are common to all religions:  compassion; solidarity; respect for the human person; the Golden Rule of “do as you would be done by”.  At the same time, we need to get away from stereotypes, generalizations and preconceptions, and take care not to let crimes committed by individuals or small groups dictate our image of an entire people, an entire region, or an entire religion.”

We have no doubt the governor is a man of faith. He also is a man of politics.  His statement points to the dangers of putting faith and politics too close to one another.

The universal qualities of faith should be used in setting public policy that apply to all equally. Putting religion into the statutes or the Constitution is dangerous because it makes us unequal,  hostages “to our sense of grievances, and to feelings of entitlement.”  Our laws become “our prison, paralyzing discourse and hindering understanding.” And they diminish equality under those laws.

As we ponder the governor’s statement, we see it as a type of awkward shorthand that is too common in our political world today. We think he wants someone with the qualities of faith and the understanding of his contemporary politics.

For many, it is an uncomfortable and unwelcome mix. And it should generate discussion that goes beyond the person who made the statement and includes and challenges us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Crane: The meaning of Christmas

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(Here we are, the last days before Christmas. For some it’s a time of great anticipation—finding things under the tree or in the stocking, visiting friends and relatives—or panic about what to get someone who has already bought everything during the year or hoping that a last-minute inspiration will jump off a store shelf and into your arms, immediately solving the gift problem at the last minute. We publish Dr. Frank Crane’s thoughts on Christmas every year because they are timeless and never lose their meaning).

UNIVERSAL, PERPETUAL JOY

Christmas means the indestructibility of joy

Christmas is the protest of the human race against gloom.

The one thing neither time nor force can suppress is instinct.

In days past, religion tried to stamp out earthly gladness, play, fun, the joy of man and maid. As well one might endeavor to dam the waters of the Mississippi.

When we have clamped human nature down with our reasonings and revelations, along comes Instinct, and to use the words of Bennett*, blandly remarks:

“Don’t pester me with Right and Wrong. I am Right and Wrong. I shall suit my own convenience and no one but nature (with a big, big N) shall talk to me!”

In the Fourth Century, the Christian World was pretty dismal. This world was considered a dreadful place, to get away from as soon as possible. Consequently, the girls and boys were lured off into heathen sports, for the heathen alone raced and danced and frolicked.

Then the church established the Christmas festival, which was one of her wisest strokes of policy.

In 342 A.D., the good Bishop Tiberius preached the first Christmas sermon, in Rome.

Into this opening poured the play instinct of the world.

This time of the winter solstice strangely enough had been the jovial period of the year everywhere.  Then the Swedes of old used to light fires on the hills in honor of Mother Friga, goddess of Love. Then the Romans indulged in their Saturnalia, the one carnival of democracy and equality during the twelve months of tyranny and slavery. Then the Greeks lit torches upon Helicon in praise of Dionysus. In Egypt of this period the population bore palms for the god Horus, in Persia they celebrated the birth of Mithras, and the Hindus of India sang their songs to Vishnu.

Many of these festivals had become very corrupt. Excess and license darkened the hour of national joy.

The wisest things the Christians ever did was to turn this feast day over to a child.

The child Jesus stands for the childhood of the world, perpetual, evergreen, inexhaustible.

It’s a weary world to those who have lived wrong or too long, but to those who remain healthy in their tastes, it’s a wonderful world, full of undying youth running with sap, recurrent with primal joy.

Christmas means the supreme fact about life, namely: that it is joyful.

It is the opinion of many the greatest music ever composed is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. As a climax for this orchestral composition the master chose a chorus to sing Schiller’s “Hymn to Joy.”

Christmas means that when this world and all its purposes and deeds are wound up, and the last men and women stand at the end of time and contemplate the complete story of humanity, they will not wail or hang their heads, but they will shout and exult.

The truest, most everlasting element of mankind is play, accompanied by laughter.

*Dr. Crane is referring to English novelist essayist, and journalist Enoch Arnold Bennett (1867-1931). The quote comes from his book, Friendship and Happiness and Other Essays, published in 1921.

Of Me I Sing

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(Many of us are too modest to display our singing talents in public, preferring to save our performances to times when there is water flowing about us.  But The Carpenters advised us many years ago:

“Sing, sing a song.  Sing out loud.  Sing out Strong.  Sing of good things not bad. Sing of happy not sad….Make it simple to last your whole life long.  Don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing, sing a song.”

Long before the Carpenters were born, Dr. Frank Crane considered a similar sentiment—)

THE INWARD SONG

The poet speaks of those

“Who carry music in their heart

Through dusty lane and wrangling mart,

Plying their daily task with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat.”

It would be interesting to have the statistics of what number, out of all the human stream that pours into the city every morning coming to their work, are singing inwardly.

How many are thinking tunefully? How many are moving rhythmically? And how many are going, as dead drays and carts, rumbling lifelessly to their tasks?

It is good that the greater part of the world is in love. For love is the Song of Songs. To the young lover Nature is transformed. Some Ithuriel* has touched the deadly commonplace; all is miraculous. The moon, the dead companion to our earth, the pale and washed-out pilgrim of the sky, has been changed into a silver-fronted fairy whose beams thrill him with a heady enchantment. Every breeze has its secret. The woods, the houses, all men and women are notes of that sweet harmony that fills him.

“Orpheus with his lute made trees,

And the mountain tops that freeze,

Bow their heads when he did sing.”

Every man is an Orpheus, so he but carry about in him an inward melody. There is for him “a new heaven and a new earth.”

This world is an insolvable puzzle to human reason. It is full of the most absurd antinomies, the most distressing cruelties, the most amazing contradictions. No wonder men’s minds take refuge in stubborn stoicism, in agnosticism, in blank unfaith.

There is no intellectual faith, no rational creed, no logical belief. FAITH COMES ONLY THROUGH MUSIC. It is when the heart sings that the mind is cleared. Then the pieces of the infinite chaos of things drop into order, confusion ceases, they march, dance, coming into radiant concord.

Marcus Aurelius, that curious anomaly of the Roman world, perfect dreamer in an age of iron, was rich in inner music. The thought in him beamed like a ray of creative harmony over the disordered crowd of men and events.

“Welcome all that comes,” he wrote, “untoward though it may seem, for it leads you to the goal, the health of the world order. Nothing will happen to me that is not in accord with nature.”

None but so noble a mind can see a noble universe, a noble humanity, a noble God.

What a drop from such a level to the place of the mad sensualists and pleasure-mongers who only know

“To seize on life’s dull joys from a strange fear,

Lest losing them all’s lost and none remains!”

What a whirl of cabaret music, what motion and forced laughter, what wild discord of hot viands, drugged drinks, and myriad-tricked lubricity it takes to galvanize us when our souls are dry and cracked and tuneless!

Have you ever had the feelings of Hazlitt? “Give me,” he said, “the clear blue 50sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner—and then to thinking! I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.”

Whoever does something that makes the souls of men and women sing within them does more to make this earth habitable and this life tolerable than all the army of them that widen our comforts and increase our luxuries.

*Ithuriel is one of two angels sent by the archangel Gabriel in Milton’s Paradise Lost  to find Satan, who is in the Garden of Eden.  He is found in the shape of a toad, speaking to a sleeping Eve in an effort to corrupt her. Ithuriel touches him with his spear, causing Satan to resume his true form, after which he is taken to Gabriel.

 

Notes From a Quiet Street

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(being miscellaneous unconnected topics flitting through an aging mind)

This was The Quiet Street a couple of weeks ago. . Soon it will be a quiet ugly WINTER street. Just skeletal trees—the walnut tree on the right already had denuded itself. Snow now and then that turns to dirty slush. We are nearing the time of discontent.  The inner curmudgeon, who hides when it is warm and the trees and yards are lush and green, is beginning to emerge.

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Went to the drive-through line at a fast food restaurant the other day to pick up a large Coke and the lady at the window called me “sweetheart” twice within five seconds when she handed it to me.

Please, if you are an employee of a retail establishment, don’t call your customers “sweetheart,” or “dear,” or “honey” or any other such enderments. Especially if your customer is a curmudgeon who also doesn’t like people to wish him a good day. Be aware your customer, curmudgeon or not, is probably gritting his or her teeth as they walk or drive away.

Every now and then when somebody says, “Have a good one,” I respond, “I do.”  Not that they listen. Sometimes they personalize it: “You have a good one.” I am sometimes tempted to ask, “How do you know?” Maybe one of these days one of them will wonder what I meant.

Serves them right.

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A friend was talking about setting his clock radio on a country-western station that played such awful music that he was instantly awake and motivated into instant action—to turn off the radio.  It reminded me of hearing, during a Sons of the Pioneers Concert (with Roy Rogers Jr.) in Jefferson City a couple of years ago, one of the guys defining the difference between western music, which the Sons do, and country music. It went something like:

“Western music is about the outdoors—the trails, the mountains, the open plains, the sky, the cattle.  Country music is about the indoors—cheatin’ and lyin’ and  cryin’ and diein’.”

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We watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Washington Football Team a few days ago.  They used to be the Washington Redskins but finally decided to abandon the name after years of hearing Native Americans and others complain that the team name was a racial slur.  This is the second year the team hasn’t had a name and didn’t even have a “W” on the helmets in the game against the Chiefs.

We’ve decided the owners need some help in picking a new name.  Perhaps you have some suggestions you could offer in our response box below:

–Washington Anonymous Sources (The Washington Anons for short)

–Washington Leakers

—Washington Insurrectionists

—Washington Peaceful Tourists

—Washington Bureacrats (likely to be considered a slur, too)

—Washington Statesmen (well, somebody needs to be statesmen in that town)

—Washington Monuments

—Washington Lobbyists

—Washington Campaigners

—Washington Partisans

—Washington Deficits

—Washington Malls

What’s in YOUR head? No profanities allowed and remember children watch these teams play.

The Cleveland baseball team will be the Cleveland Guardians next year. Chief Wahoo bit the dust a couple of years ago and the team removed the “Indians” sign from the stadium a few days ago.

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A lot of today’s young people are not attracted to church because the music isn’t their kind of music.  Old Rugged Cross and Onward Christian Soldiers don’t resonate with them. The other day our pastor read the lyrics to an old favorite hymn—-and reading hymn lyrics can sometimes change our understanding of what the song (or the original poem) was all about.  I, for one, like to read hymns.

The Broadway Musical Hamilton is interesting to your vigilant observer because it displays a previously-unrealized musicality that can exist within Rap. When do you suppose church hymns carrying that Rap musicality will catch on—and whether that new kind of music will make church more meaningful to the “Nones” and the “Dones.”

Wonder what Organ Rap would sound like.

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And finally, this headline we could not resist from a few days ago:

COLLEGE COACHING VETERAN JOE LEE DUNN HAS PASSED

Passed what?   A kidney stone?  A nickel he swallowed?

Have his teams always just run with the ball?  Was it a completion?  Did get get a touchdown?  First down?

Ohhhhhhh.  It means he died. We trust that the headline was intentional because it was fitting. However…..

I have a long collection of obituary first paragraphs containing dozens of phrases that people use to avoid saying “died.”

One of my journalism professors told the class one day that “passing away” is a quarterback who hurls the ball downfield. It sails over the hands of he receiver, clears the goalposts and is last seen disappearing over the top of the stadium.

“THAT,” he said, “is passing away.”

People die.