A Taste of the Faithful Life
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Life Your Voice and Sing
Racist trolls have gone ballistic over Sheryl Lee Ralph singing the first verse of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in the Super Bowl pregame festivities last Sunday.
I will not dignify any of their comments by repeating them. I would point out that though the song is often called the Black National Anthem, it’s mostly known by its formal title. And it’s under that title that it lands as #519 in the United Methodist Hymnal.
Yes, it’s a religious song.
Yes, it’s a patriotic song.
No, it’s not a racist song.
I suspect that if a white woman sang “Dixie,” the Confederates would have cheered.
But a black woman singing a truly patriotic song, not a trashy ditty from our racist past – whoa, that’s another thing.
For the record, here are the lyrics.
1. Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies,
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.
2. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
where the bright gleam of our bright star is cast.
3. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
thou who hast brought us thus far on the way,
thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;
shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand,
true to our God, true to our native land.
I’m sure the governor of Florida has his troops roaming the land looking for white people who feel aggrieved over this song. Let him. Read the lyrics again. Guess which side God is on. Amen!
Charles Wheeler, Golf and Fear
Notice of the death of former Kansas City Mayor Charles Wheeler reminds me of the only time I met him. It was on a golf course, where he spent a lot of time in retirement. My encounter with Mayor Wheeler that day helped teach me something about playing golf and about living without fear.
I never played golf much, but when I did it was with Linda’s father, Ed. He had taught me to play, and he remained remarkably patient with my inconsistent and sometimes embarrassing performance on the links.
One day Ed and I head out to the Blue River golf course in Swope Park in Kansas City. There are a lot of golfers out that day, and we’re told that we’ll have to pair off with somebody, so soon we are introduced to a guy I’ll call Bill.
The moment I see him, I know I’m way out of my league. The guy has the look. He has the tan, he has the clothes, he has the swagger, and of course he has expensive golf clubs. If he’s not a pro, it’s only because he doesn’t need to support himself with a job of any kind.
When we introduce ourselves, Ed says he hopes Bill doesn’t mind playing with a couple of duffers, and Bill says he doesn’t mind at all. But then he’s never played with me before, has he?
As we’re standing around waiting our turn at the first tee, I notice that there’s quite a crowd gathered. Why, there’s Charles Wheeler, the former mayor of Kansas City. And there’s so and so, who’s the head of some political party. And there’s so and so, who’s the CEO of some big corporation.
There are enough powerful people standing there that we could hold a convention and elect somebody if we wanted to.
But we’re here to play golf, and eventually it’s our turn.
Bill goes up to the tee, takes one or two easy practice swings, and then strokes the ball out onto the fairway. It’s one of the nicest shots I’ve ever seen – straight and true and long, just beautiful.
Now Ed takes his turn. His ball doesn’t go quite as far as Bill’s, but it goes nice and straight.
And now it’s my turn. And as I place my ball on the tee, I realize that everybody is looking at me. Charles Wheeler and the head of some political party and the CEO of some corporation – all these big shots are looking at me.
So I’m telling myself, “Just hit it. It doesn’t matter how far it goes or how straight it goes, as long as it gets off the tee. Whatever you do, don’t screw up.”
It’s that last thought, of course, that gets me into trouble. Instead of being loose and carefree, I am tight and fearful. So I haul off with the mightiest swing I’ve ever made, and when the club hits the ball there’s a crack like a rifle shot, and I just know that the ball is traveling 90 miles an hour.
The only problem is, it doesn’t go straight out onto the fairway. It goes straight out to the side.
Suddenly there’s a shout, and people are running and jumping in all directions. It’s like the parting of the sea in “The Ten Commandments.”
And then I see, as if in slow motion, that the ball is heading right toward Charles Wheeler, the former mayor of Kansas City. It is traveling straight at him at 90 miles an hour, and for a moment he is the one paralyzed by fear.
Finally, at the last possible moment, he ducks behind a little sapling. The ball hits the trunk of the sapling and bounces off in a new direction, and now more people are running and jumping out of the way.
Bill has this look of utter astonishment on his face. He exclaims, “My God, you almost killed Mayor Wheeler.”
Now that is an exaggeration if I ever heard one.
Granted, Mayor Wheeler was somewhat advanced in age, and the ball was traveling directly at him and probably would have hit him right between the eyes, but I doubt that it would have killed him.
Still, I’m thinking I ought to apologize. I walk over to where he is collecting himself, and I tell him how sorry I am that I almost hit him. He gets this sickly little smile on his face and says, “Why don’t you try again? Only put it on the fairway this time.”
Well, when the former mayor of Kansas City, who has just survived an assassination attempt, tells you to take a second shot, that’s exactly what you do.
Only this time, I notice that people in the crowd are giving me a lot more room than they did before, and some of them are hugging trees pretty close. I figure I can’t embarrass myself any more than I have already, so I just walk up to the ball and whack it.
It’s not a good shot, but it’s not a bad shot either. As the ball sails out onto the fairway, I can hear a mighty sigh of relief from the crowd – and there is a scattering of applause, too. I would have bowed, but humility prevented me.
That’s the day I learned how to play golf. That’s the day I learned that you just walk up to the ball and hit it the best you can, and then you follow it and you hit it again, and whether you land in the rough or on the fairway or the green, you make the best of the journey.
And you never worry. You never fear. Because fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear will do you in. Fear creates negative attitudes, and negative attitudes create negative results. Faith creates positive attitudes, and positive attitudes promote positive results.
Don’t be afraid, the Good Book tells us again and again. When we place our full trust in God, we have no fear. We just walk up to the ball and give it a good whack and go from there.
Charles Wheeler didn’t teach me that. But he was there — in the room, so to speak — when I learned it. Rest in peace, Mayor.
Real Holiness
Sometimes it takes a long time for things to get inside my head.
The current schism in the United Methodist Church has its roots in a conflict that goes back more than 150 years.
The Global Methodist Church and its antecedents (including the Good News Movement, the Confession Movement and the Wesley Covenant Association) are all descended from early Holiness factions in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
For example:
During the great Holiness movement “shakeout” from the 1860s onward, most Holiness believers left to join or form Holiness churches, alliances and denominations. But some stayed and have been pushing for their brand of reform ever since.
It has been obvious, for example, that the Good News folks were schismatics in search of a lever that would work. They finally found it in human sexuality, and they’re finally getting their way: a new church of their own. They couldn’t win the battle the way they wanted to by taking over the United Methodist Church, so now they’re forming their own.
The Provisional Discipline of the Global Methodist Church says: “With John Wesley, we believe that a life of holiness or ‘entire sanctification’ should be the goal of each individual’s journey with God.”
Well, that depends on how you define “holiness” and “sanctification,” doesn’t it? Wesley defined them as perfection in love. Haven’t heard a lot of love from the Global Methodist folks; just lies and ill-concealed hatred of those who disagree with them.
No, their version of “holiness,” which we’ll see more and more of as the new denomination matures, consists of following rules. Love be damned, it’s the rules that count.
I wonder how soon the churches that have disaffiliated from the UMC will realize the phony bill of goods they’ve been sold.
Could be like that big church in Texas where the ruling board voted to disaffiliate without submitting the question to members. Just follow your leaders. Do what you’re told. We know what’s best for you. (A fella named Jones runs that church. Why are you not surprised?)
This is a far cry from holiness. Phoebe Palmer and the other great Holiness advocates would be appalled.
Well, the Methodist church has split many times before and doubtless will again. And as the UMC continues to practice “big tent” thinking, some “holiness” folks will stay, just to keep working to unravel the ropes holding up the tent. It appears that’s what they do best. Real holiness? Nah.
Don’t Weep, Just Read ’Em
The attack on Salman Rushdie is the inevitable result of book banning from efforts.
Whether book banning or book burning is sanctioned by the state or by pressure groups or by individuals, it is evil.
The militarization of book banning has but one end, and that is the violent suppression of all non-complaint belief and the enforcement of party line.
It has no place especially in a free society, for if some books are banned, society is not free but captive to the whim and power of a few.
Of course, book banners always couch their efforts in high rhetoric. They’re always trying to save the young and innocent from degenerates.
They want to save our children from those who want to “groom” them for unsavory behavior.
And who, I want to know, groomed the book banners?
Who taught them that this was proper behavior?
Who perverted them?
My daughter Erica gave me a T-shirt for Father’s Day. I wear it a lot. It says, “I read banned books.”
I probably won’t be reading Salman Rushdie, though. I read The Satanic Verses when it came out and was not impressed. But I defend the right of others to read it, even if I didn’t care for it.
* * * *
Giving a sworn deposition the other day, Trump pleads guilty more than 400 times.
OK, technically he pleads the Fifth Amendment, the right to avoid self-incrimination. Non-technically that means he’s GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
He once claimed that he could murder someone in broad daylight in front of many witnesses and still get off.
Given the rabid response of his followers to the law enforcement raid on his Florida compound, he’s probably right.
* * * *
The Trump lie machine says the FBI planted evidence and searched Melanie’s clothes. He is a liar for all seasons. Still, people believe this stuff.
The human capacity for self-delusion and self-destruction is sad but borne out by millennia of experience. The big question today is whether the American experiment in self-rule will survive or crash into fascism.
* * * *
Recently spent two great weeks with family in cabins strung along a lovely trout stream in Colorado. Our favorite place. The time went by so quickly!
Before we’d gone there for one-week trips. Now we wonder how we ever got so much activity crammed into just one week. Maybe that was it. Maybe we crammed things in because we had to because we had so little time together. Now we’re all ready for another two weeks. Not sure when we can make that happen, but we all want it to be soon.
* * * *
One thing our Colorado experience did was reinforce this conviction: I do not want to live in a world without wi-fi.
Arapaho Ranch, where we stayed in Nederland, just up Boulder Canyon from Boulder, has free wi-fi, but in some cabins the reception is not always robust, especially when several people were online at once.
I survived somehow, but I have the need for speed and the desire for connection.
To answer that frequent Facebook meme, I could overwinter in that little remote cabin – but only if it had good wi-fi.
* * * *
Speaking of Facebook… No, this has been a good day. No need to taint it.
How We Got Here
The first sentence is a gem: “At a time when so many books are being written, and so many of them are so long, the reader of any book is entitled to ask why it had to be written at all and, if the book absolutely had to exist, why it couldn’t have been shorter.”
That’s how Walter Russell Mead opens The Arc of a Covenant, subtitled The United States, Israel and the Fate of the Jewish People.
Why did it have to be written? Because it’s an informative, exciting and exhaustive (if exhausting) review of how Israel has fit into American foreign policy.
Maybe it could have been shorter. (It has 585 pages of text and 70 more of back matter.) I admit to skimming some parts. But most of it is fascinating. I found the chapters around Harry S. Truman and the creation of the state of Israel simply riveting.
The title, of course, is a play on words. The Ark of the Covenant was (heads up, Indiana Jones fans) a receptacle for sacred objects of Israelite identity. The arc of the relationship between America and Israel has been long and not always bending toward justice. But Americans have always had an almost sacred fascination with the place and the people – Jews especially, but Palestinians as well.
One of Mead’s major contentions is that it is simply nonsense to say that Jews control American foreign policy. Whether mouthed by pro-Zionists or anti-Zionists, it’s gibberish, totally devoid of facts and totally contravened by all evidence.
Commenting on the Trump disaster, he notes, for example: “If American Jews controlled America’s Israel policy, the U.S. embassy would still be in Tel Aviv, the annexation of the Golan Heights would not be recognized, and the United States would be pressing Israel on settlement policy.”
Instead, he says, “the attitudes and ideas that shape American perceptions of Zionism and the state of Israel are deeply rooted and widely dispersed in American history and culture.”
He calls the Jewish influence theory “Vulcanism,” after an imaginary planet called Vulcan that was once thought to orbit the Sun near Mercury. Like Vulcan, overpowering Jewish influence does not exist.
To demonstrate, Mead charts complex and evolving American attitudes toward Israel from the Puritans through Trump. Especially important is the era following World War II. “The cascading disasters and crises of the postwar years were so immense, so unprecedented, so complex, and so terrifying that it is difficult for people today to comprehend the psychological and mental state of our ancestors on whose heads the great storm woke.”
For instance, the blizzards of early 1947 in Britain were so crippling economically that the formerly great empire was forced to totally revamp its foreign policy, especially regarding Palestine.
In the turmoil that followed, the state of Israel was born. Ironically, Israel was able to survive early attacks by Arabs partly because of arms sales brokered by Arab-friendly Russia, which hoped to drive a wedge between Britain and America. American influence in this era was spotty, buffeted by many factions and nominally guided by Truman’s guile, determination and simple luck.
Mead’s writing is clear, often elegant and often droll. The Democracy Train is the American idea that American ideals are automatically transferable to other countries. This Great Miscalculation has misguided our foreign policy for decades. In pursuit of a lasting peace in Israel, it shows up as a quest for the Holy Grail, though it often seems more like a Hitchcockian MacGuffin, a distracting red herring.
You don’t have to be a history nut or a policy wonk to love this book. You just have to be determined enough to tackle a big and complicated subject. It ought to be required reading in the White House, in Congress, in the governments of all 50 states and in the campaign staffs of anyone running for public office.
It’s already been rejected by Abingdon Press, the United Methodist publishing house. It says it has other similar works already in process. I’ve always given Abingdon the right of first refusal on all my book proposals, and I’ve always been rejected. I think it’s time to put some other publisher at the top of my query list.
* * * * *
Three KU profs are under fire for allegedly faking their Native American ancestry. Kansas City Star columnist Yvette Walker confesses that her family also had unconfirmed stories about a Blackfoot ancestor.
“For as long as I can remember, I believed I had Native ethnicity,” she writes. “I even thought I knew which tribe I supposedly belonged to because it was a part of my family’s oral history.” To test the family memory, she took a Family DNA test. Turns out family oral history was wrong.
My family also has an oral tradition that a woman several generations back was Native American. Not exactly the classic “Cherokee princess” story, but close enough.
I’m about all who’s left to carry on family oral tradition, and my searches on Ancestry.com have found nothing to corroborate this story. I once assumed that it was because racists in my family conveniently “forgot” about the Indian ancestor until it became more socially acceptable to claim her, but by then all details were lost in time. Maybe it was a myth all along.
I did have an uncle who was Native. He married into the family. Sadly, he died relatively young as an alcoholic.
Whether I have any “Indian blood” in me matters less than how I view and treat Native Americans. Since childhood I have been fascinated by various Indian cultures. The more I learn about the genocide campaign against Native tribes, the more I am appalled by the tragedy of racism.
If you’re interested in learning more, I suggest reading The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk. Actually, I wasn’t capable of reading all of it. I had to skim parts. It’s well written, but many parts will simply break your heart.
* * * * *
Back to school time nears already. Where did the summer go? Weren’t summers longer back in the “good old days”? Granted, summer child care can be a chore for busy parents. Maybe advancing age fools me on the passage of time, but I wonder if today’s kids suspect they’re being cheated of days in the sun.
Linda and I just bought school supplies for a Spring Hill 9th grader. We deliberately did not keep track of how much it cost. I can’t imagine the expense of having two kids in high school right now, let alone one. Tell me: Why does any high schooler need five two-inch three-ring binders?