Category Archives: religion

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.

Leaving the Pulpit

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(I bought my first computer from a former priest who was married to a former nun. Dr. Frank Crane, who we feature each Monday, left the Methodist pulpit to become a newspaper columnist.  He explained, “I began to find out that I did not fit as a denominational leader…I was not interested in denominational aims…There never was any clash over doctrines. I believed, and still believed, in the great fundamentals the church stands for. But the machinery repelled me. I could not throw myself into the great and fascinating business of propagandizing the essentials because I had to work too hard at the nonessentials…My whole aim and enthusiasm is for the individual, not for the corporate body.” A century after he wrote those words, mainline churches are pondering what to do—not with ministers who leave the pulpit, but young people who don’t come through the doors.  Dr. Crane left the formal ministry voluntarily; he was not DEfrocked, but he became one of—-)

THE UNFROCKED

There was a curious banquet held at Paris not long ago. There met a  hundred and fifty former priests and former preachers who did not blush either for their past or for their present.

To one class of men society seems peculiarly unjust: to the unfrocked.  The man who leaves the ministry, no matter how conscientious and sincere his motives, is always look up askance. We persist in regarding him as if were tainted with the flavor of desertion and disloyalty.

Why? Is it not more honorable to leave holy orders, when one no longer believes the articles of faith, or when one is convinced of the inutility of the institution, when the  development of one’s mind and heart has led him honestly to these convictions, than to remain and be insincere?

Does not the church itself believe that an honest layman, no matter  what his views, is better than a dishonest clergyman?

For all that, the rupture between the parson and his organization is  always painful. Laymen hardly welcome him. By a strange illogicality we are usually cold to the men who enter our ranks for conscience’s sake. We mistrust them; we put pressure upon them to conceal their past as something of which to be ashamed; as a rule, they have a hard time making a living.

Among the former clergymen at the banquet mentioned we may note three lawyers, two police magistrates, two farmers, a physician, two artists, two capitalists, one mayor, besides commercial travelers, university professors, accountants, and public school teachers.

They have formed a union which proposes, according to its bylaws,  never to proselyte or in any way attempt to induce men to leave the ministry, but to extend a helping hand to those who, on their own initiative, have severed their ecclesiastical ties, and to help them in their endeavors to gain an honest livelihood.

It will do no harm to the church—it can only do good—to make the way as easy as possible for those who have ceased to be in harmony with its faith or its methods to get out.

In most instances men enter the ministry when young. When they arrive at maturity their convictions may in all honor have undergone a change. It should not be taken as a matter of course that their reluctance to continue in the ministry means a loss of religion or of personal integrity. The minister may discover that, while his religious sentiment is as profound as ever, he is not adapted by nature or gifts to be a clergyman.

His retirement from church office may be as heroic and worthy of praise as his entrance into it.

The Basic Question

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(In our quieter moments, all of us probably have questioned our existence. Most of us find it unprofitable to dwell on the issue because it gets in the way of living. But there are those who (often sequestered) ponder this matter. Do we exist only because of combinations of atoms set in motion billions of years ago by the Big Bang? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, what will our discovery of it mean to our understanding of what we are and how we became what we are? Dr. Frank Crane is among those who have asked—-)

WHY WAS I BORN?

There is one question upon the answer to which rests the success or failure of life.

It is the question: “Why was I born?”

A strange fact is that nobody knows the answer. The purpose which the Creator had in mind when he made me has never been known, will never be known.

Curious that the most fateful of all problems should be forever  unanswerable!

We may believe this or that to be the reason; we cannot KNOW.

Notwithstanding this fact, the net result of my life depends upon the  THEORY I form to answer this query.

But how can I tell which theory is best when there is no means of knowing which is true?

There is a way to tell which theory is, if not true, at least approximately  true. This way is suggested by what is called PRAGMATISM.

That is to say: That answer to the question is most likely to be true Which WILL WORK .

We cannot answer the question, “Why was I born?” by investigating Causes. The secrets of life are beyond us. The Creator will not be interviewed.

But we can select an answer by noting RESULTS. For instance:

“I was made in order that I might get all the pleasure possible out of        life.” This solution means wreckage. Its fallacy is proved by insane hospitals, feeble-minded asylums, and by those murders, adulteries, and heartbreaks that constantly attend the end of the pleasure seeker.

“I was made in order that I might escape this evil world and get safely into a better one after death.” Such an answer leads logically to the asceticism that marked the dark ages and the hard morbidity that characterized Puritanism.

“I was born to labor for others” means a race of slaves.

“I was born to live and to enjoy myself upon the fruits of others’ labor”  means a class of snobs .

The most satisfactory answer, in twentieth century terms, is: “I was born to express what forces my Creator planted in me; to develop my instincts and talents under the   guidance of reason; to find permanent happiness by fostering the higher, more altruistic, and spirit impulses and by subduing the violence of the more brutal impulses. I was born to find love and my own work, and through these liberty. In one word the purpose of creating me was that I should be as GREAT as possible.”

Only by this answer do we get strength without cruelty, virtue without narrowness, love without contamination, reverence without superstition, joy without excess.

I do not know this answer is correct. I believe it to be the most NEARLY correct for the simple reason that IT WORKS .

 

What we’re made for 

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(Sometimes we have to be reminded of our proper roles and the proper place in our lives for our possessions and our institutions.  Today, Dr. Frank Crane tells us there is a difference between—)

USE AND BEAUTY

The Sabbath, said the teacher, was made for Man, and not Man for the Sabbath.

The bearin’s of which, as Dickens would say, is in its application.

Any Institution was made for Man, and not Man for the Institution.

The college, for instance. No, friend Procrustes, whilst we appreciate your zeal to make a record for yourself as President, yet we would remind you that we are sending our boy to your University for the good he can get out of it, and not for the benefit he can be to it. He is not there for you to find out how far he falls short of your standards, nor what glory he can add to his Alma Mater; He is there for you to find out what’s in him, and to develop that. We don’t care a hang about your grand old traditions and things, except as they help you in being the making of our particular pup.

The Church was made for Man, and not Man for the Church. And if your meeting-house is just occupied in keeping itself up, parson, why, close it up and start a hennery…We don’t care about how much money you raise, nor how beautiful are your vestments, nor how high your theology, nor how numerous your membership, nor how gay your stained glass. Are you helping friend Man? Are you making him sober, industrious, clean, and honest? Are you developing in him a civic conscience? Or are you simply being good—so good you’re good for nothing? Come, produce! Or quit!

The House was made for Man, Ma, and not Man for the House. Let the boys play marbles in the dining-room, and the girls have their beaux in the parlor, and grandpa smoke his pipe in the kitchen, and everybody raid the ice-box at 11 p. m. if they want to; what better use can carpets be put to than that children’s knees should wear them out a-gleemaking, and what are sofas for if not for spooning, and kitchen-warmth and cheer if not for old folk homing? Use the old home up, and get a better product—of love and laughter and undying memories.

Books were made for Man, and not Man for Books. Use ’em. Thumb ’em. Mark ’em. Go to bed with ’em. Carry ’em on trains. And don’t own books that cannot be carried down through the Valley of Every-day as the soul’s lunch-basket.

The most perfect ornament is that which is of the most perfect service to Man. No cane is so beautiful as the one grandfather wore smooth on a thousand walks; no chair so lovely as that one mother consecrated by many a night of rocking the baby; no table so priceless as that one where father used to write; no pipe so pretty as the one he smoked; no dress so charming as that one that still has the wrinkles in it worn there by the little girl gone—gone forever into heaven, or womanhood.

It’s the human touch that beautifies. Nothing can be warmly beautiful that is not, or was not, useful.

And Democracy is beautiful because it exists for the welfare of the People that compose it, and not for the glory of the Dynasty that rules it.

The State was made for Man, and not Man for the State.

Check your fly

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(There is a fly that insists on sitting on the ring finger of my left hand, or on my arm, as I write this introduction to another of Dr. Frank Crane’s musings on life.  I cannot ambush it; it senses my attack and flees a split second before my other hand comes down on it.  It is a stupid fly because it does not learn of its potential ultimate punishment and continues being annoying. Dr. Crane thinks flies are more than nuisances.  And they are more than insects, in fact there are—-)

HUMAN FLIES

Oh for a human fly-swatter! That is, for some sort of a swatter that would obliterate the human fly.

The most prominent trait of a fly is his ability and disposition to bother. He is essential, concentrated botheraciousness.

He is the arch intruder. He is the type of the unwelcome. His business is to make you quit what you are doing and attend to him.

He makes the busy cook cease her bread-making to shoo him away. He disturbs the sleeper to brush him off. He is president and chairman of the executive committee of the amalgamated association of all pesterers, irritators, and nuisances.

The human fly is the male or female of the genus homo who is like the housefly.

Some children are flies. They are so ill bred and undisciplined that they perpetually annoy their mother until her nerves are frazzled, and make life miserable for any guests that may be in the house. It may be well to be kind and thoughtful toward the little darlings, but the first lesson a child should be taught is to govern himself as not to be a bother.

There are respectful, considerate, and unobtrusive children alas—too few!

There are fly wives. Realizing their own pettiness they gain their revenge by systematically irritating the husband. They make a weapon of their weakness. They soon acquire the art of pestering, nipping, and buzzing, keep the man in a perpetual temper, and blame him for it. You can’t talk to them. Nothing can cure them but an eleven-foot swatter. And these are not for sale.

Some men are just as bad. Married to a superior woman such a man is inwardly galled by his own conscious inferiority. So he bedevils her in ways indirect. He enjoys seeing her in a state of suppressed indignation. He keeps her on edge. His persecution is all the more unbearable because it is the unconscious expression of his fly nature. Also for him there is no cure but to wait till he lights some time and swat him with some giant, Gargantuan swatter. And they’re all out of these, too, at the store.

There are office flies, likewise, who get into your room, occupy your extra chair, and buzz you for an hour upon some subject that you don’t care a whoop in Halifax about. Your inherent politeness prevents you from kicking them out, humanity will not let you poison them, and there is a law against shooting them. There ought to be an open season for office flies.

Where the human flies are proudest in their function of pestiferousness, however, is in a meeting. Wherever you have a conference, a committee meeting, or a convention, there they buzz, tickle, and deblatterate. They keep the majority waiting while they air their incoherence. They suggest, amend, and raise objections. They never do anything; it is their business to annoy people who do things.

I do not wish to seem unkind to my fellow-creatures, but it does seem as if to all legislatures, conventions, and other gatherings there should be an anteroom where the human flies could be gently but efficaciously swatted.

There are Senate flies, as well as House flies, politicians whose notion of their duty appears to be that they should vex, tantalize, and heckle the opposing party at every point.

There are fly newspapers, whose only policy seems to be petty, vicious annoyance.

There are fly preachers, with a cheap efficiency in diatribe and sarcasm, and no wholesome, constructive message.

There are fly school-teachers, who hector and scold; fly pupils, who find and fasten upon the teacher’s sensitive spot; fly beggars, who will not be put aside; fly reformers, who can only make trouble; fly neighbors, who cannot mind their own business; fly shopkeepers, who will not let you buy what you want.

And the name of the devil himself is Beelzebub; which being interpreted means “Lord of Flies.”

 

Making a house a home

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(It might sound a little old-fashioned, but what’s inside a house—or rather, what’s inside those inside a house—make it a home.  Dr. Frank Crane explains the values that make a house a home.)

THE HOUSEHOLD GOODS

The walls of a house are not built of wood, brick, or stone but of truth and loyalty. Unpleasant sounds, the friction of living, the clash of personalities are not deadened by Persian rugs and polished floors but conciliation, concession, and self-control.

The curtains that screen the household gods from the eyes of the vulgar and the curious are not woven of lace, but of discretion.

The food of the home is not meat and bread but thoughtfulness and unselfishness for these keep joy alive.

The real drink is not wine or water, but love itself, which is the only known thing that is at once a food and an intoxicant.

The bed is not to be of down and white linen but of “a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man.”

The lighting is not to be of the sun by day or by electric bulbs at night but by loyal affection, shining always in dear hears, burning always in true hearts.

Your home is not where you layoff your clothes but where you lay off your cares.

The cellar of your house is not be filled with apples or rare vintage but with the memory of sacred intimacies, of little heroisms unknown to the world of sufferings borne nobly.

In the attic, you do no store old trunks, letters and gowns, but you keep there the kisses, sayings and glances that cheered you when you gathered them fresh, and are now a sweet sorrow when dried by time.

The house is not a structure where bodies meet, but a hearthstone upon which flames of souls which, the more perfectly they unite, the more clearly they shine and the straighter the rise toward heaven.

Your house is a fortress in a warring world, where a woman’s hand buckles on your armor at morning and soothes your fatigue and wounds at night.

The beauty of a house is harmony.

The security of a house is loyalty.

The joy of a house is love.

The plenty of a house is in children.

The rule of a house is service.

The comfort of a house is in contented spirits.

The rats and mice in a house are envy and suspicion.

The maker of a house, of a real human house, is God himself the same who made the stars and built the world.

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CRT

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A legislative committee has started holding hearings on Critical Race Theory, a 50-year old academic and legal-studies concept that has been weaponized for political advantage in the last few years.  Among the strongest criticism is that it rewrites history, changing the narrative from a nation founded on Christian values to a narrative that makes white people ashamed of their race (even, some critics say, brainwashing kindergartners into being ashamed of being white).

CRT has become so pervasive in our civic discussion that my Sunday School class talked about it a Sunday or two ago.  More accurately, I talked about it to the Sunday School class.

Faith is a personal thing and while I was comfortable discussing it with that class, I am not one who is comfortable publicly waving it about. But I often find myself in these divisive times turning to Paul’s letter to the Galatians (people living in modern Turkey) that admonishes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” There are slight differences in the wording depending on the version of the Bible you prefer but the sentiment is the same.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where even many professing Christians of all races still seem to miss Paul’s point. Among its virtues, Critical Race Theory points to the many times when the concept of “you are all one” has been violently meaningless.

As for re-writing history: history needs some rewriting so that it is more history than myth.

To pretend that race has not been a major force in the history of the United States is deception, a willingness to accept myth rather than recognize a historical record that should compel us to be better than we are—regardless of our race. To suggest that it does not still influence attitudes and standards is to disrespect those who have walked a different path than yours for generations.

We should not fear raising the issue of ongoing racism in America.  Although I wish it were not true, it is hard for me to dismiss accusations that there remains a current of it in our country—especially after my experience in discussing removal of Jefferson City’s “Confederate Rock” and listening to an African-American woman who favored its removal read an unsigned letter she received that referred to her thirteen time as a “Nigger” and suggest that she is the kind of woman the Ku Klux Klan was created for.

There, I’ve used the word. I refuse to remove its ugliness by turning it into the linguistic pablum that is “N-word.”  We do no service to ourselves as a people by avoiding the issues behind it and barely beneath society’s surface.

I live in a part of Missouri sometimes referred to as “Little Dixie” because of the high percentage of enslaved people before the Civil War—the 1860 census showing almost ten percent of Missouri’s population in 1860 was enslaved.  Cole County, where I live, was at 10.3% and, perhaps because of the heavy anti-slavery German population, was one of the lowest counties in this region.  Across the river, the census showed almost 26% of the population of Boone County was slaves. Callaway County was at 25. A little ways upstream, 37% of the population of Howard County was slaves. One-third of the population of Saline County was enslaved.  More than one-in-five residents of Cooper County were slaves.

Within my lifetime, I remember the day a black couple moved into an upper-middle class white neighborhood in Columbia and in the newsroom where I worked, we listened to the police monitors for any signs of trouble. There was none.

I was ten feet away from Jefferson City’s leading realtor the night he urged the city council to defeat an ordinance saying people of color could live anywhere in town they could afford to live because of what it would mean for property values.

I have seen history and I have read historical myth—-do any of you remember from your elementary or even high school history lessons when slavery was ever discussed except in the context of the Civil War?

Here’s an interesting little piece of information that underlines the history-as-myth proposition:

Massachusetts—where the righteous Pilgrims and Puritans supposedly founded a nation based on Christian values and religious freedom (a myth of its own)—became the first British colony to legalize slavery, in 1641. Did anybody ever hear that in the Pilgrim stories we were taught as children?  Or even the stories we relate each Thanksgiving as adults?

Missouri law has long held that it is a crime “to take any woman unlawfully against her will and by force, menace or duress, compel her to…be defiled.”  Our present statutes use different language but that’s the way the law was in 1855 when a Callaway County slave named Celia, purchased by farmer Robert Newsom at age 14 was raped by Newsom on the way to his home. She had three children, at least one by Newsom, When she was 19 or 20, she killed Newsom in self-defense when he tried to rape her again.  She was hanged because the law against defilement of an unwilling woman did not apply to slaves.

Along the way we might have heard something about the Dred Scott Case but we’ve forgotten that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in that case that slaves—as well as free persons of color—could never be U.S. citizens.

Is it useful to know that the Missouri House of Representatives was completely white for a century before Walthall Moore of St. Louis became the first African-American member of our legislature?  Or that, in 1939, the University of Missouri—under a Missouri Supreme Court order to admit Lloyd Gaines, an African-American, to its law school in Columbia used an “out” in the order to establish the Lincoln University law school in St. Louis for black students?

Is it useful to know that no black person served as the foreman of a Missouri jury until 1945? Or that we didn’t have a state Human Rights Commission until 1957 (and, unfortunately, still have to have it today)? Or that we did not have a black member of the Missouri Senate until 1960? Or that there were no black Highway Patrol troopers until 1965?  That we didn’t send an African-American to Congress until 1968?  Or we didn’t have any person of color on our State Supreme Court until 1995?

Or that Missouri did not elect a black woman to Congress until LAST YEAR?

And that, to this day, outstate Missouri is generally not a place where a person of color stands much of a chance of serving in the Missouri General Assembly?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with recognizing these seldom-mentioned parts of our past or of our contemporary lives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with learning, at whatever age, what our society has been and, knowing that, understanding what our society still can be.

And, to the discomfort of many who are comfortable with the status quo, what it eventually WILL be.

Critical Race Theory makes a lot of people uncomfortable because it challenges us to understand that we live in a complex human society of colliding political, legal, and social interests that are affected by long-standing and often subtle social and institutional norms.

History, not myth, recognizes that we have painfully slowly grown more equal despite ongoing reluctance to do so and demographics and other studies of our evolving society that indicate the trend will continue. Some feel threatened by that slow growth and have taken to flame-throwing attacks that CRT (as former Vice-President Pence put it recently) is “a state-sanctioned racism, pure and simple.”

“America is not a racist country. America is the most just, noble and inclusive nation ever to exist on the face of the earth,” he said.

He needs to read more history and believe less myth.

What is happening here?  This largely academic concept has been around for decades. Why is it suddenly “state sanctioned racism?”

The answer is obvious.  Donald Trump discovered that this largely-academic topic has become something he can exploit for his personal political purposes and there are those who think their political futures or their grasp on political power can be enhanced by agreeing with his ongoing mendacity and his fear-stoking rhetoric.

How deep is racism in our country today?  I can’t quantify it but I know from watching and listening that we have some distance to go before we are the “most just, noble and inclusive nation” that Pence prematurely proclaims. I do not fear CRT’s reminders that we can be better than we are.

I also lack the perspective of being part of another culture—black, brown, yellow, or red—and comparing my culture’s history to my perceptions of the dominant culture.  I do not descend from slaves and sharecroppers, migrant field hands, people imprisoned during wartime because of their national origin, or people living on reservations—but I have been to those places and I have spoken with those only a generation or two or three removed from the times people were herded into camps because of their Asian heritage or whose not-distant ancestors were taken from their Native families to be “Americanized” at schools..

So I do not resent nor do I fear Critical Race Theory because it demands examination of parts of our history that have been glossed over in the story of our nation as a “shining city on a hill,” as President Reagan called us in misquoting Puritan minister John Winthrop. His 1630 sermon aboard the Arbella before it landed at Massachusetts Bay, although delivered in a different time and for a different purpose, gives us a recipe for national greatness that starkly differs fromfrom what is sometimes heard in criticism of CRT:

“…The only way to…provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with…For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”

If we want to be the “city on a hill,” it is clear that divisiveness perpetuated by self-serving narrow attitudes and political rhetoric, is not the face we claim is an example to the world.  Winthrop’s sermon delivered 391 years ago tells us what we yet need to be.

If we are honest, we must not fear confronting our past and dealing with the lamentable vestiges of it that remain. CRT should not be seen as a sudden contemporary push to “shame” the white race.  To the contrary, it should be seen seen as a fifty-year-old challenge to be a better people—of all races—than we have been.

Much of the focus on CRT is on white-black relationships. But be aware that it is much more than that. There are branches to examine structural discrimination against Latinos, Jews, women, the disabled, Native Americans, and white immigrants.

There is no limit to the study of our inequalities, for knowing our inequalities gives us the understanding we need to end them. To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear is ourselves.”   What he said after the actual phrase, however, is valid on this issue—his definition of fear as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” after which he noted, “In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

That’s a hope that will stand us in good stead in a time when some see currying distrust and division as the key to their success, whatever the price might be to the nation.

It is better to remember:

We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Or as the Gospel tells us: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Given a choice of following the words of Paul or believing the words of Pence, I shall always take Paul.

 

Faith, Hope, and Justice

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(A friend of mine observed many years ago:

“I once read about a man

Who went about doing good.

It disturbs me that I am satisfied

Just going about.”

Dr. Frank Crane suggested years ago that faith, hope, and charity—or faith, hope, and love—have an additional component.)

JUSTICE

THERE are many earnest souls occupied in trying to do people good.

There are nine million societies, more or less, organized to improve and to ameliorate.

There are preachers, missionaries, evangelists, reformers, exhorters, viewers-with-pride, and pointers-with-alarm without number wrestling with sinners.

All forms of industry are booming these days in the U. S. A., but the uplift business is still several laps ahead.

It seems ungracious to say a word to any enthusiastic person who is engaged in so laudable an enterprise as that of rescuing the perishing, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick.

And yet, when you take time to think right through to the bottom of things, you must come to the conclusion that there is but one real, radical and effective way to help your fellow-men, and that is the way called justice.

If I want to redeem the world I can come nearer my object, and do less harm, by being just toward myself and just toward everybody else, than by “doing good” to people.

The only untainted charity is justice.

Often our ostensible charities serve but to obscure and palliate great evils.

Conventional charity drops pennies in the beggar’s cup, carries bread to the starving, distributes clothing to the naked. Real charity, which is justice, sets about removing the conditions that make beggary, starvation, and nakedness.

Conventional charity plays Lady Bountiful; justice tries to establish such laws as shall give employment to all, so that they need no bounty.

Charity makes the Old Man of the Sea feed sugar-plums to the poor devil he is riding and choking; justice would make him get off his victim’s back.

Conventional charity piously accepts things as they are, and helps the unfortunate; justice goes to the legislature and changes things.

Charity swats the fly; justice takes away the dung-heaps that breed flies.

Charity gives quinine in the malarial tropics; justice drains the swamps.

Charity sends surgeons and ambulances and trained nurses to the war; justice struggles to secure that internationalism that will prevent war.

Charity works among slum wrecks; justice dreams and plans that there be no more slums.

Charity scrapes the soil’s surface; justice subsoils.

Charity is affected by symptoms; justice by causes.

Charity assumes evil institutions and customs to be a part of “Divine Providence,” and tearfully works away at taking care of the wreckage; justice regards injustice everywhere, custom-buttressed and respectable or not, as the work of the devil, and vigorously attacks it.

Charity is timid and is always passing the collection-box; justice is unafraid and asks no alms, no patrons, no benevolent support.

“It is presumed,” says Henry Seton Merriman, “that the majority of people are willing enough to seek the happiness of others; which desire leads the individual to interfere with his neighbor’s affairs, while it burdens society with a thousand associations for the welfare of mankind or the raising of the masses.”

The best part of the human race does not want help, nor favor, nor charity; it wants a fair chance and a square deal.

Charity is man’s kindness.

Justice is God’s

Fearmongering

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(Some observers of today’s socio-political climate have commented that our fears are being cultivated by those who seek political domination. The antidote is obvious.  Refuse to fear those who are different, or in Biblical terms, “Love your enemy as yourself.”  The poet Edwin Markham encouraged us to be unafraid when he wrote:

He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!

Dr. Frank Crane tells us, in so many word, “Be not afraid…..”)

THE CREED OF THE UNAFRAID

Whoever He may be who sits in the Heavens and rules the universe, I shall not be afraid of Him. And if it be but a force, it shall not frighten me.

Whoever created my soul intended for me to live my life.  Sickness may come to me; it can destroy all of me but not my courage.

I shall not be afraid to love to trust wholly.

I shall not fear my passions but learn to drive them like thoroughbreds.

I shall not be timid on account of my weaknesses, but learn to guard against them.

I shall make friends with Destiny, and adjust myself to events. No man shall cow me. I have a right top standing room on earth.

I shall not falter to look any human being in the face. I believe that ghosts become harmless natural objects when one walks up to them; hence if anything causes me fear I shall examine it and try to understand it.

I shall exercise due caution but shall not be afraid of my food, of microbes, of disease, nor accidents. Against all of these I am best prepared by a clear, fool mind.

I shall not be afraid that I cannot sleep.

I shall stubbornly shut my mind against all morbidity, such as suggestions of failure, insanity and suicide.

I shall treat with contempt all superstitions, warnings, and premonitions, fortune telling, prophecies, and all like humbuggery.

Is shall not fear on account of my past. The consequences of my errors I shall take like a man.

Knowing that death is due to mortals at any moment, I shall live for it now and at all times, it shall find me unafraid.

Our contentious era

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(Twenty years ago or more, when party control of the Missouri legislature changed, one of the leaders of the new minority theorized that his party could reclaim its former position if it just made the new majority look bad enough.  Pretty obviously, that was a wrong-headed idea.  But it pervades the thinking of our state and national politics today worse than ever and a public tired of the many who would rather fight than to work for the people’s best interests might utter, as Shakespeare’s Mercutio did, “A plague on both your houses.”   Dr. Frank Crane could have been speaking of our contentious times a century ago when he wrote about—-)

THE ETHICS OF CONTROVERSY

Everything is disputable. I am willing to entertain arguments in support of any proposition whatsoever.

If you want to defend theft, mayhem, adultery, or murder, state your case, bring on your reasons; for in endeavoring to prove an indefensible thing you discover for yourself how foolish is your thesis.

But it is essential to any controversy, if it is to be of any use, first, that the issue be clearly understood by both sides.

Most contentions amount merely to a difference of definition. Agree, therefore, exactly upon what it is you are discussing. If possible, set down your statements in writing.

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Most argument is a wandering from the subject, a confusion of the question, an increasing divergence from the point. Stick to the matter in hand.

When your adversary brings in subjects not relevant, do not attempt to answer them. Ignore them, lest you both go astray and drift into empty vituperation.

For instance, President Wilson, in the “Lusitania” incident, called Germany’s attention to the fact that her submarines had destroyed a merchant ship upon the high seas, the whole point being that this had been done without challenge or search and without giving non-combatant citizens of a neutral country a chance for their lives. Germany’s reply discussed points that had no bearing upon this issue, such as various acts of England. Mr. Wilson, in his reply, wisely refused to discuss these irrelevant 128things, an example of intelligent controversy.

Keep cool. The worse your case, the louder your voice.

Be courteous. Avoid epithets. Do not use language calculated to anger or offend your opponent. Such terms weaken the strength of your position.

A controversy is a conflict of reasons, not of passions. The more heat the less sense.

Keep down your ego. Do not boast. Do not emphasize what you think, what you believe, and what you feel; but try to put forth such statements as will induce your opponent to think, believe, and feel rationally.

Wait. Give your adversary all the time he wants to vent his views. Let him talk himself out. Wait your turn, and begin only when he is through.

Agree with him as far as you can. Give 129due weight, and a little more, to his opinions. It was the art of Socrates, the greatest of controversialists, to let a man run the length of his rope, that is, to talk until he had himself seen the absurdity of his contention.

Most men argue simply to air their convictions. Give them room. Often when they have fully exhausted their notions they will come gently back to where you want them. They are best convinced when they convince themselves.

Avoid tricks, catches, and the like. Do not take advantage of your opponent’s slip of the tongue. Let him have the impression that you are treating him fairly.

Do not get into any discussion unless you can make it a sincere effort to discover the truth, and not to overcome, out-talk, or humiliate your opponent.

Do not discuss at all with one who has his 130mind made up beforehand. It is usually profitless to argue upon religion, because as a rule men’s opinions here are reached not by reason but by feeling or by custom. Nothing is more interesting and profitable, however, than to discuss religion with an open-minded person, yet such a one is a very rare bird.

If you meet a man full of egotism or prejudices, do not argue with him. Let him have his say, agree with him as you can, and for the rest—smile.

Controversy may be made a most friendly and helpful exercise, if it be undertaken by two well-tempered and courteous minds.

Vain contention, on the contrary, is of no use except to deepen enmity.

Controversy is a game for strong minds; contention is a game for the weak and undisciplined.