January 22nd, 2010 |
His And Her Nightmare
Is it a parent’s nightmare, or is it a child’s nightmare? Perhaps you can answer that question.
The parent has had a long and stressful day. With no job, and the economy in the trash, she wonders if she will ever find work. With so many rejections, she feels like a reject.
How will she pay the bills, feed her son, and escape sleepless nights? And then, as a gift from some celestial angel, sleep arrives on the scene – she drifts off into a sound sleep. But not for long.
It’s not the alarm clock on the bedside table that blasts her out of bed – the alarm clock that used to buzz her into a new day, breakfast with her son, and a trip to deposit her son at school before heading off to work. It’s the bloodcurdling screams she hears from the room just across the hall.
The child has fallen victim to one of those terrible nightmares that is still very real for him, even though his mother is holding him in her arms, rubbing his back, and trying to comfort him with her presence. Between the sobbing and the tears, he tells his mother that a fire-breathing monster is chasing him.
Like any good parent, she knows what to do first when nightmares show up to haunt her child. She turns on all the lights in the room. A well-lit room will help her son see that there is no fire-breathing monster anywhere in sight
Along with the light, she offers him what she hopes will be comforting words: It’s okay, mama is here. Nothing’s going to hurt you. You just had a bad dream. Everything’s going to be all right, I promise.”
What else is there to do? If light and promises don’t work, and the child’s fears rage on, perhaps she will climb into bed with him or take him to her bed, which by now has grown cold.
This good woman knows what’s needed when nightmares ambush a weary human being, no matter how young or old. She might even wish that there was someone next to her, holding her, comforting her, reassuring her that nothing is going to hurt her, that her life isn’t in fact a bad dream – that everything is going to be all right. Someone close who will utter those promises to her so that she can sleep in peace, and get up in the morning to, as a civil rights leader used to say, “keep on keepin’ on.”
But the next day, when she takes time to record her deepest thoughts and feelings in a dog-eared journal filled with daily entries, this good mother scribbles something so honestly confessional that it scares her. It’s as if the words had volcanically erupted onto the page from that place where fire-breathing monsters might live.
Last night I told my hysterical son that the boogie man chasing him wasn’t real. It was only a dream—a bad dream. I told him mama was there with him, and that nothing would hurt him, and everything would be alright. I know he needed to hear those words, as much as I needed to hear myself say them say them, so that both of us could get back to sleep, and get on with our lives, no matter what.
But there is a lie lurking beneath those words, and if ever there was a need to tell a lie, that was the time for me to tell it. I know the truth, and my son will come to know it later in his life. I only hope he will not blame me for misleading him. He’s too young to face the truth—the truth that there are some things that WILL hurt him—that life is OFTEN a bad dream, that everything ISN’T going to be alright, that mama WON’T always be around with a promised reassurance—that the boogie man is really death- in- disguise and WILL catch up with him sooner-or-later.
When The Earth Moves Under Our Feet
In times past, I have run from a hurricane closing in on a North Carolina beach, and, on another occasion, taken shelter in a motel basement in Tennessee as a series of monster tornados threatened the city of Nashville.
Miles away from that hurricane in North Carolina, and deep in the basement of that Nashville motel, I felt less vulnerable, more secure from nature’s pursuit of me. Running away from a storm or hiding from a tornado lessens one’s feelings of vulnerability, for sure.
But that was nothing like the time when I was eating in a hotel restaurant in El Salvador and felt the building shake and saw dishes begin to slide across the table. A waiter told us, at that point, to leave the building and go out into the street. Fortunately, the earthquake registered low on the seismometer so I was able to finish my meal inside.
But when the earth moves under your feet, you can run but you can’t hide. Wherever you are, the earth may crack open and swallow you. You feel totally out of control and powerless. I may have felt more secure standing in that street in El Salvador but that was only an illusion. Sure, the building wouldn’t bury me, had the numbers gone up on the seismometer, but the shifting fault beneath my feet could just as easily have swallowed the asphalt street and me with it.
An earthquake is a reminder, nature’s alarm clock, a wake-up call to the reality that no matter how many layers of security we have cocooned around ourselves, when the earth claims us it will be on the earth’s terms and not ours. Whatever security we may buy in our lifetime, it has a limited shelf life.
Which brings me to the recent earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti, and to some thoughts I’ve had about the earth beneath our feet and the nightmarish visions of death that chase after us and, thereby, threaten the human desire for security.
Haiti—A Descent Into Hell
On Tuesday, January 12, the people in Haiti had no idea that the earth would quake and spilt open under their feet, crushing and burying God knows how many people. Since then, watching the news coverage of the devastation and suffering has become a journey into the depths of Hell. Haiti, by anyone’s definition, is Hell. Hell on earth, having been swallowed up by the earth.
The word “unbelievable” is perhaps the most over-used word in modern speech. Everything these days is “unbelievable.” It’s gotten so that when I hear some radio or TV announcer use the word to describe some event, I often say, “That’s not unbelievable at all.”
I suspect I should understand that the word unbelievable has become our way of defining something when we have bumped into the limitations of reason and speech. It’s our way of gaining control over an unexplainable event by dredging up the adjective unbelievable to rescue us from being no more than inarticulate creatures. And if unbelievable won’t work, then perhaps science or God can give us language to deliver us from silence.
Describing the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti becomes one of those places where reason and speech reach their limitations. Whenever I hear voices blaming God for the seismic waves that brought disaster and suffering into the world, or voices like Pat Robertson’s blasphemous words giving credit to God for punishing the Haitians with an earthquake, I know that reason and speech have reached their limits.
I don’t like revisiting my own writings, but in this case I can’t resist myself. All I can hope for is that redundancy has value.
In my last issue, the final one for 2009, I made reference to Rebecca Solnit’s new book, “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster.” She quotes Dorothy Day, a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
“What I remember most plainly about the earthquake was the human warmth and kindliness of everyone afterward. Mother and all our neighbors were busy from morning to night cooking meals. They gave away every extra garment they possessed…While the crisis lasted, people loved each other.”
The situation in Haiti seems not only unbelievable, it seems to be impossible. And watching something which seems impossible has a way of stretching all human definitions of what, indeed, is possible. The human heart cannot bear very much impossibility, with its shadow of despair. Empathy and compassion look for ways to trump the impossible with acts of human charity. The national and international response, in terms of money and relief work, has been heartening. A crisis has a way of touching people’s hearts and charitable instincts. Thanks to a multitude of fundraisers and appeals from business and nonprofits, human generosity has once again been on display.
Christians hold a rather strange belief about Jesus, a belief which defies rational explanation. It’s found in the Bible and is affirmed in the Nicene Creed. It is said that Jesus, after he died, descended to Hell and visited the dead with his presence and a saving word. I translate that in expansive liberal terms. Haitians and foreign relief workers on the ground in Haiti have indeed descended into Hell. By their presence and their life-saving gifts of food and medical care, they are doing a Godly thing among the dead.
Unbelievable? Impossible? Only for those at a loss for words.
Our Military Involvement In Relief Efforts
It is sad but true that we Americans don’t really get to know a country’s history or its people until after we have fought a war with them. The same seems to be true about a crisis. More times than enough, understanding comes on the other side of a crisis, not before it takes place..
With the earth still quaking in Haiti and people still suffering and in need of more help than anyone or any nation can get to them quickly enough, it may not seem appropriate to talk much about who the people are who live on the 10,714 square miles of land called Haiti, nor how they got to be the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Nevertheless, I do believe a couple of preliminary observations are worth sharing, particularly about the military involvement in relief efforts.
Within hours of the earthquake, President Obama mobilized the U.S. military and National Guard units. It was Hurricane Katrina all over again, only this time more swiftly and capably. A steady stream of troops and planes carrying supplies, even a military hospital ship, were hustled off to Haiti. It has been an effort applauded by most Americans, but I have mixed feelings about the military involvement.
I applaud the charitable goodwill being displayed by Americans, but the military involvement in the delivery system concerns me. It’s a public witness to the good will that surfaces when a crisis rears its ugly head. But we need to understand more fully the history of our military involvement with the countries we choose to assist with aide, particularly given our so-called “national interests.”
Haiti has a long history of being occupied by colonial powers –Spain, France, England and the United States. U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 until 1934. We have a blemished history when it comes to Haiti. Only six years ago, U.S. military forces were involved in replacing the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
As I write, our military forces, which may soon number as many as 30,000 (4,000 Marines), are already being criticized for the lack of supplies not reaching the injured and dying. I fear that troops heavily armed may find themselves using those weapons.
Here’s my bottom line on military troops being used to do humanitarian efforts in war-torn places.
To begin with, troops, at the direction of the President, are commissioned to fight and kill people, not do social work.
On top of that, the very fact that we have to send the military to do this work illustrates quite clearly that we have no U.S government humanitarian “army,” unarmed and with the expressed mission to bring help to people around the world in trouble. Even the National Guard, trained to do humanitarian work, has been compromised by the diversion and expansion of their mission in fighting wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
And finally, it’s confusing to our men and women in the military, trained to shoot and kill, when they are asked to hand out bags of rice rather than fire bullets, drop water bottles from a helicopter to people dying of thirst rather than bombs on people our country has labels as the enemy. I would add also that the bifurcated assignment of warrior and welfare worker is confusing to the people on the other end of our military relief efforts.
The Link Between The Terrorist And Those Who Are Terrorized
The recent episode involving a suicide bomber, with underpants full of explosives, didn’t succeed in blowing a plane out of the air, but it sure blew the cover off our quest for security and revealed people’s terror over terrorism.
A recent New York Times column titled, “The Terrorist Mind: An Update,” attempted to explore what lies hidden behind such attacks. I was struck by this observation: “Paradoxically, anxiety about death plays a significant role in the indoctrination of terrorists and suicide bombers – unconscious fear of mortality, of leaving no legacy.”
There is another paradox at work here, one that links potential victims of terror to those who choose to play the role of terrorist. You see, both the potential targets of terrorism – that’s you and me – and the one inflicting the terror, are driven by the underlying power of death. The man with a pant’s full of explosives wants to be in control of his destiny out of his fear of death, while the rest of us search for fool-proof, technologically driven security devices that will protect us from our death.
No matter how hard we work at protecting ourselves and those around us, and we should work at that for sure, we cannot achieve the security that will guarantee us deliverance from the terror that might overtake us. We might outrun it in our nightmares but there is no assurance that it will not catch up with us in the real world in which we live.
On Martin Luther King Day Jr. Day, I delivered an address in a local church. I spoke to the congregation about terror and terrorism. I reminded people that terror is not a new subject, or one defined merely by our present world struggle.
Dr. King, like all African Americans in this country, knew all about terror, long before Osama bin Laden arrived on the scene, or the 9/11 bombers. Ground into the terrors associated with the Black experience was a recollection of the whip, chains, lynching, decapitation, torture, and bombings. To be Black was to know exactly what terrorism was all about.
But even with the terrors associated with the Black experience, Dr. King, like other African Americans, knew about the beauties of the black experience. Even with the terror, Dr. King held on to a spirituality that says: “Knowing all there is to know about terrorism, I also know that all human beings are one.”
A verse in Palm 91 reads like this: “You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by the day.”
Translated into a modern idiom, and taking a bit of liberty with the intent of the passage, it might read like this:
Don’t be afraid of whatever terror you are exposed to – whether it be a cancerous growth, murder by an intruder, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, growing old, a terrorist attack, or whatever else might threaten your health or welfare. And if you are fearful, don’t fear your fright. It comes with being a human being. Overcoming your fear is not what’s important. Finding a way through your fear – a way to keep on keepin’ on – that’s what counts.
January 22nd, 2010
December 30th, 2009 |
During the month of December our refrigerator has been in the nervous breakdown mode. That’s because we crammed it full of food for the holiday season meals with family and friends. Now that the season has wound down, it has gone into the nearly-new mode. It has become a repository for leftovers.
As I write, Judy has a pot of soup boiling on the stove. It’s full of vegetables and meat bones—leftovers from Christmas dinner. Like highway buzzards, we have already picked over the remains of a prosperous roast beef, several stalks of asparagus, a tangy fruited Jello dish, and a loaf of home-baked pumpkin bread. Ah, leftovers!
When I think of leftovers I recall the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people on the hillside close by the Sea of Galilee. I remember that there were baskets full of leftovers after all the people had eaten their fill of fish and bread. Don’t press me on the details of that story as to whether it is literally true. I wasn’t there so how can I know. And besides that, I refuse to get lost in the thicket of literal accuracy, particularly when poetic, life-saving truth is involved.
One thing I am sure of is the fact that Manna Meal, our local feeding program for the poor, serves breakfast and lunch to hundreds of people every day of the year and all the food comes in daily by way of donations. It’s all about abundance and surplus and it mimics the spirit of the feeding of the 5,000 story.
I also know that leftovers give visible and tangible evidence about abundance and grace. And when I say grace I’m not talking about what’s said over food before the meal, as important as that is, but rather what’s left over after eating a meal. Relationships renewed over food with family and friends exceeds all calculated serving sizes. It’s a downright gracious experience! It continues to feed one’s spirit long after the digestive tract has taken care of its bodily function.
Leftovers have a seasonal place in our calendar as well. At the end of each year, just prior to the beginning of a new year, it’s customary to indulge in leftovers.
Last Sunday’s New York Times was full of leftovers. One section of the paper was full of pictures of major events for the year 2009 as well as brief articles recollecting each year of the decade. The magazine section ran full page articles on noteworthy people who had died this past year. Critics will take a stab at choosing what they think are this past year’s best books, movies, plays, and televisions shows.
On a personal level, the departure of 2009 provides folks with an opportunity to reflect on what’s leftover from their own 2009—memories of the past, and perhaps and anticipation of what the new year—2010—might bring. Hopes and fears are commingled—life and death symbolized with the departure of Father Time and the arrival of the fresh new babe wrapped in a 2010 banner. It’s enough to boggle my brain—and I do have brains on my mind right now, as you will soon see, if you care to read on.
This issue of Notes From Under the Fig Tree, the final one for 2009, is full of leftovers—bits and pieces of this-and-that for my readers to chew on.
Nursing Home Visits On Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve I, along with my son Stephen, visited two nursing homes. For those who think I spend an inordinate amount of time at demonstrations and rallies for social justice issues, you need to know that hospital and nursing home visits have captured a large part of my life since I was ordained back in 1964.
I might add that the pastoral task of visiting people in nursing homes has, on occasion, dovetailed into prophetic demonstrations and rallies on behalf of hospital and nursing home employees who are poorly paid, work in intolerable situations, and are harassed when they attempt to organize. As always, the pastoral and prophetic tasks of ministry are, by necessity, linked.
Walking the nursing home halls this Christmas, I thought again about the mystery of the human brain. So many of the people I see are there in body but their minds are God-knows-where. The crying, screaming, endless jibber jaber, the vacant looks, all give testimony to the fact that the once-upon-a-time person is no longer present. Christmas past isn’t even a shadowy memory for so many of the drugged elderly and the urine stained and bed-ridden men and women. I can’t help but wonder who these people were as my eyes take in the person they have become.
The human brain is like a ball of yarn composed of wired flesh and blood. Lodged in my head, it becomes action central for all my other organs, empowering me to think. Then, in a most spectacular way, it turns on itself with the power to study its own workings. And what is it about that yarn in someone’s head that causes it to tangle or come unraveled as if some cosmic cat was playing games with it?
The Christmas lights on trees all over the city are rainbow bright with color, while I am reduced to thoughts about the grey matter which covers the cerebral hemispheres in our heads. Strange, don’t you think, that I should trade visions of seasonal sugar plums dancing in my head for thoughts so grey and smells so rancid? And yet, administering Communion to a man flat on his back in troubled pain, or holding a woman’s hand in prayer while someone down the hall screams incoherently, seem so right, so connected to the birth of a child in a stinking stable some 2000 years ago in occupied Palestine.
Flabbergasted By A Man With A Malformed Cerebellum
On Sunday, while working my way through the front section of the paper, I ran into Kim Peek’s obituary. That name may not be familiar to you, but perhaps you will remember who he was after I tell you more about him.
Kim Peek was born with severe brain abnormalities which, according to his obituary, “impaired his physical coordination and made ordinary reasoning difficult. He could not dress himself or brush his teeth without help. He found metaphoric language incomprehensible and conceptualization baffling.” Ah, but what he could do trumped what he couldn’t do.
Peek’s head was enlarged, his cerebellum was malformed and was missing the corpus callosum—the sheaf of nerve tissue that connects the two sides of the brain. Because of this, he was diagnosed as a savant—someone with an extraordinary depth of knowledge and the ability to recall it.
Described as “the Mount Everest of memory,” Peek could rattle off all the area codes, zip codes and television stations in the U.S., and could tell you where they were located.
As a child, a doctor said he was so retarded that he should be institutionalized; another doctor recommended a lobotomy. That is, until Peek read and memorized the first eight volumes of a set of encyclopedias.
Peek memorized so many Shakespearean plays that he would often interrupt an actor on stage when he would miss a line. As for musicals, he was known to stand up during a performance and say: “Wait a minute! The trombone is two notes off.”
By now you may know who Kim Peek was. He was the man portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the Oscar-winning movie, “Rain Man.” Barry Morrow, one of the “Rain Man” writers, gave Peek the Oscar he was awarded for best original screenplay. He said this about Peek: “I was absolutely flabbergasted that such a human being existed.”
Peek spent the rest of his life traveling about the country demonstrating his talent and advocating tolerance for the disabled. It is said that some 400,000 people hugged Morrow’s statuette. When asked by one admirer if he was a happy man, Peek responded: “I’m happy just to look at you.”
For folks who have had a family member or friend die during the year, December can be a cruel month. The holidays and the end of year celebrations, associated with the completion of the year, can be sad. Loved ones are remembered and missed. But perhaps it is the time for us all to risk tears and remember those we love who have died and seek the grace which allows us to say, “I’m happy just to have looked at you.”
The Young Man From Nigeria—What Was Going On In His Brain?
What the hell was going on in that young man’s head? What was Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab thinking when he set off an explosive device in his lap that, if all had gone as planned, would have taken down 279 passengers and 11 crew members on Northwest Flight 253?
We may know what deadly substance this 23 year old Nigerian had in his underwear, but what did he have in his head? We know that he carried a syringe full of liquid detonator, but what kind of chemical reactions were taking place inside the more than 100 trillion synapses in his brain?
I don’t have the answers to those questions any more than I have answers about the grey matter in the heads of those folks I saw in the nursing homes on Christmas Eve.
What can be said at this point is that this young man is as mysterious as any suicide bomber, Patty Hearst, Timothy McVeigh, or a familiar killer in our midst who surprises those who knew him and never thought he would ever do such a thing.
It is reported that Mike Rimmer, who taught Mutallab in Togo, saw him as a model student, even though different from other students his age. When the teacher took the students into a pub, Mutallab complained. “Mr Rimmer, you should not be taking us into pubs. We do not want to be in a building associated with alcohol.”
“He was very interested in world affairs,” his teacher said, “and would stay behind after lessons to discuss issues. For a teacher, that was just wonderful. He was a very personable boy; he could have gone into politics. He could have become the president of Nigeria. But now his future doesn’t look bright at all.”
I look at pictures on television of this young man and, without pretending to know what really was going on in his life, feel like there are some explanations for his actions.
From a rich family (his father is a banker), and educated in private schools, he saw pretty clearly the cleavage between the rich and the poor in poverty stricken Yemen. An outsider with his peer group (in our terms, a religious nerd), classmates labeled him “The Pope” because of his “pious” and “high-minded” attitudes. He came to be called “Alfa” a local term meaning Islamic teacher.
We know that synapses in the human brain are affected by drugs such as curare, strychnine, cocaine, morphine, alcohol, LSD, and countless other chemical substances. Interestingly enough, curare, a paralyzing poison, has a history of having been used by South American indigenous people against enemies. One could easily suggest that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a bright young man with a social conscience not yet fully developed, may well have been poisoned by violent radicals who see violence as the way to confront the enemy. And speaking of violence as a way to confront an enemy, consider Joe Lieberman.
Joe Lieberman On Steroids, Testosterone Or Whatever
As the year comes to an end, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is back in the news with this message: “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively,Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.” That from a whiney sort of a guy who has never seen combat (he dodged Vietnam).
What’s going on in his brain? Is he wandering around in the halls of Congress in an amnesic state? Joe! Joe! The war in Iraq is going on today, not yesterday! And those troops on their way to Afghanistan are scheduled for a future date in a war that may have no end date. On top of that, while Joe can hardly wait for tomorrow’s war, he seems out of touch with the reality that our country has already been at war in Yemen. For some time now, prior to Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s pants-on-fire, our nation has been funding military support for what government they have in Yemen, giving military intelligence to them, and, you can bet your booties that our own drones and CIA activity, have been bombing and killing people in Yemen.
Susan Brewer has written a book with an intriguing title: “Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq.” In it she explores the propaganda—the screaming lies—behind our engagement in our long list of wars. Brewer “scours the record,” as one observer puts it, “to counter the historical amnesia of the public,” documenting how presidents at war portrayed themselves as travelers on the high road to peace and justice, not the low road to battle and dystopia.”
President Obama will be sorely tested by the lap fire on Northwest Flight 253. Don’t kid yourself, we are all imitators, from the time we are born until the time we die. That includes the President of the United States. All we can hope for, in this moment of U.S. “terrorist” frenzy, is that Obama will not mimic his White House predecessor. “Preemptive strike” are the two words I hope will not cross Obama’s mind, or, if they do, he will not go amnesic on us. Preemptive strikes only create more anger and violence.
As we approach the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, we would do well to take seriously the words he spoke one year to the day before his assassination. They are words that we as a nation, with over 700 military bases in 132 countries and an astronomical military budget, need to hear now: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today (is) my own government.”
Real-Life Utopianism—A Paradise Built In Hell
How my brain and yours will react to trauma and crisis is, no matter how well we know ourselves, hardly predictable. The only thing that we human beings can predict with real certainty is that life, no matter how good it is at any particular moment, will deliver some degree of trauma and crisis to our doorstep.
That said, the chief question remains: How will we react to trauma and crisis when it comes knocking—both personal trauma and crisis, and the trauma and crisis we inevitably experience as citizens of this country?
Rebecca Solnit, in her book, “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster,” quotes a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. “What I remember most plainly about the earthquake was the human warmth and kindliness of everyone afterward…Mother and all our neighbors were busy from morning to night cooking meals. They gave away every extra garment they possessed…While the crisis lasted, people loved each other.” That survivor was Dorothy Day, who, through the Catholic Worker movement gave herself to the care of the poor and the oppressed.
I will pause for a moment to let the cynics surface. I can hear them now: “Sure, but how about the looters, rapists and murderers who show up in the middle of a crisis—the con-artists and cheats who prey off people in the midst of trouble? You idealists puzzle me. Do you have amnesia? Have you forgotten the record of man’s inhumanity to man? ”
To my cynical friends, I say thanks for reminding me of the evil that lies close to the surface in all human beings and every institution constructed by human effort. Denial of that reality will get me in trouble. That said, I also have personal experience with an honest-to-God real-life utopianism lived out by people living in the most hellish situations that you can imagine. And not just during moments of trauma and crisis, but lived out well beyond those harsh moments.
I began this issue of Notes talking about leftovers, so I shall end that way.
As the new year—2010—is ushered in with bubbly spirited liquid—a worship service—quiet moments full of the memories of times past—frightful thoughts of what may yet be just around the corner—a traditional kiss and an embrace—a rousing rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” with the familiar words, “Should old acquaintance be forgot”—or whatever it is you wind up doing on the eve of this new year—may you find enough leftovers from a burned-out world to feed your soul as you hunger for love, justice and peace.
December 30th, 2009
December 10th, 2009 |
Last year, I told my readers that just before Christmas Judy sends me out to snip some magnolia and holly to decorate our home. Don’t come back, she says, until you have a bag full of holly covered with lots of bright red berries. Christmas won’t be merry without the berries. So under the cover of darkness I play the anonymous tree-trimmer in town, clip branches, without notice, and return home with a bag full of greenery.
That confession last year drew an ireful response from a reader who thought it disgraceful that I would steal other people’s holly and magnolia. So this year there will be no confessions. I promise to be good for goodness sake.
Tree-clipping for decorations, is an appropriate image for this Christmas issue of Notes because I want to prune a few extraneous branches that surround and conceal the Christmas message.
The Bethlehem event is a radical prophetic parable with social, economic and cultural implications often lost in the baby-in-the manger-story as it plays out in tinsel-land. So I prune without, I hope, doing damage to the joy that’s associated with the birth of Jesus.
No Context—No Creche
Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, in their book “The First Christmas,” talk about the importance of the context in which the Christmas story is written from the vantage point of Matthew and Luke. (There is no birth narrative in the oldest written record about Jesus—the writings of Mark and the letters of Paul.)
Context is critical for understanding anything. For example, how in the world could someone discuss Mahatma Gandhi, with any intelligence, without understanding British imperial India and the powers that Gandhi confronted?
Or how could the witness of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. be appreciated or understood if the subject of the racism he faced in America was ignored or bypassed?
Even closer to our own day-and-age, how could we understand our military invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan without taking 9/11 into account?
It is impossible to understand Christmas without taking into account the political, context and cultural context into which he was born. One could say, no context, no creche.
And because there have been 2000 years worth of adoration and devotion toward Jesus, let alone a fascination and debate around his birth in Bethlehem, one must delve into the story to discover the timeless truth that has been passed on from generation to generation.
What began in ancient Palestine now plays out in our contemporary world. It was, as Borg and Crossan point out, an overture to the story as it is being played out today.
The Day The Roman Troops Came To Galilee
There are numerous stories told by Jews all over Europe whose lives were affected—changed forever—by the arrival of Nazi troops in their town. One need only remember the young Dutch girl, Anne Frank, who kept a diary as she was hidden away in a claustrophobic attic prior to her death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
We can assume as well that the invasion and occupation of Palestine by Rome was, likewise, a significant event for the child Jesus, who as a grown man was finally put to death by the Roman Empire on a hill outside of Jerusalem.
Jesus lived with his family in Nazareth in the territory of Galilee. Galilee, north of Jerusalem, was the locale of militant revolutionary activity against Roman occupation. By way of analogy, Galilee was like the province of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan where Afghan rebels launch attacks on Kabul and U.S. military presence.
The town of Sepphoris is located four miles north of Nazareth. Four years before the birth of Jesus the Roman army beat back a rebellion there by killing and raping people and burning the town. It would have been impossible for Jesus, as a child, not to have known about this event—the day the Roman troops came to Galilee.
Matthew, unlike Luke, does not write about the birth, swaddling clothes, stable and manger, angels, and shepherds. He gets right to the point. Jesus has arrived on the scene and King Herod the Great, the Roman client king of Galilee, the self-proclaimed King of the Jews, wants to kill Jesus. Like Pharaoh, who was willing to kill all the baby boys in order to get rid of Moses, Herod is willing to sacrifice children in his attempt to rid the land of a potential threat to the Roman Empire’s occupation of the land. Imperial powers always want to take our children away from us, and arm them with the weapons of war.
Roman emperors saw themselves as God and the zealotry of revolutionary Galilee was a threat to their kingdom—a kingdom with the mission of conquering enemy territory, subjecting the people, and proclaiming peace through violence. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus, however, called followers not to armed rebellion but to nonviolence. It embodied the prophetic dream of a land where divisions would cease, the fruit of the earth shared, where military weapons would be put aside—recycled into plows—and where peace would reign not by military might but by cooperative effort.
The question arises: Are the differing accounts of the birth of Jesus recorded by Matthew and Luke fact or fable. Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan acknowledge the existence of Jesus, but refuse to choose between fact and fable. I share their belief that the stories are parables designed to point to a truth that needs the assistance of poetic story-telling to deliver a timeless message based in history.
The timeless message is one that all empires have failed to learn—the truth that peace will not be won with military might. Our nation—the most powerful nation in the history of the world—lies at the end of a long list of empires that believe they could rule by establishing military bases around the world. We have over 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world. We spend more on our military budget than the rest of the nations of the world combined. And now we are sending more troops to Afghanistan. We are still incapable of learning the lesson taught by the Prince of Peace— that peace will not come through violence.
Blood Red Holly Berries
A few days ago I walked through our local farmers market. The tables once overburdened with fruits and vegetables were gone. The luscious summer odors— corn, tomatoes, earthy beets and potatoes, apples and peaches—had been chased away by winter.
The good news is that there is a new odor—a winter smell—the crisp, fragrant smell of fresh cut trees, holly, wreaths and roped greenery. Once again it is the holly with dotted with bright red berries that holds my attention.
Holly has been a religious symbol all over the world for over 2000 years. Ancient Romans associated holly with their Sun God, Saturn. And Celtic folks in pre-Christian Ireland cherished holly and decorated their homes with it.
Druid religion ascribed mystical and medical power to holly branches capable of blooming and surviving in the most frigid winter weather. A tea brewed from holly leaves was thought to cure arthritis, kidney stones, and bronchitis. Celts believed that by placing holly branches around the doors and windows evil spirits trying to get into the house would be captured.
Early Celtic Christians saw the holly as a reminder of the crown of thorns Jesus was forced to wear when he was crucified, and the red berries symbolized the blood of Jesus shed because of the sins of the world. Some even believed that Jesus was crucified on a holly tree.
A verse from the song, The Holly and the Ivy, captures the mystical message beneath the red berries of the holly tree. “The holly bears a berry/As red as any blood,/And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ/To do poor sinners good.”
Red bows, red Santa suits and hats, red vests and bow ties, red dresses, red candles, and red punch, identify Christmas in a bright and festive way. And, God knows, that’s not a bad thing. And yet amidst this festive redness one hardly thinks about blood. Unless one pays added attention to the red holly berries and the red “Rose e’er blooming…amidt the cold of winter” alluded to in a familiar Christmas hymn. And, like an ancient Druid, I do.
Red Blood Cells Cross The Mexican Border
Last Sunday’s New York Times business section delivered this headline to my attention: Is Money Tainting the Plasma Supply?
The story was about Mexicans who are crossing over the border from Piedras Negras, Mexico, to Eagle Pass, Texas, to sell their blood to one of only five U.S. plasma corporations. They relinquish their plasma for $30 and can make twice that amount if they give twice a week. The $60 dollars earned by women often equals or exceeds the weekly pay of their husbands—men working for inadequate wages.
There are about 15 other plasma collection centers in border cities from Brownsville, Texas, to Yuma, Arizona. Mexicans, along with Central Americans, not only cross the border to process our poultry and beef, harvest our fruits and vegetables, tend to our children, wait on our tables, and do our gardening—they also bleed for us.
Dr. Roger Kobayashi, an immunologist in Omaha, who is critical even of his own use of this border produced supply of plasma, says this: “You are taking advantage of economically disadvantaged individuals, and I don’t think they are worried about their health.” He is referring to the fact that many of the donors, some workers who have just finished their shifts at Mexican factories, are not able to maintain their own health because they cannot afford the vitamins necessary for replenishing their own red blood cells.
These workers, and their families, who shed their blood, sweat and tears, are the modern- day equivalent of the shepherds we read about in the Bethlehem Jesus story. Shepherds were the poor peasants of their day. They provided the food and the clothing for folks—just like poor workers who produce the Christmas turkey, the table fruits and vegetables, and the trees upon which we hang lights and tinsel.
King Herod foresaw that this Jesus in the manger was a threat to the unjust economic system of the Roman Empire. Later, Jesus overturned the money changer’s tables in the temple. This was an early warning sign that followers of his message would also be called to challenge and upset every unjust economic system based upon violence and inequity.That includes Wall Street greed, Washington’s lobbied corruption, and global corporations that live off of the blood, sweat and tears of the poor.
Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are holiday tunes with words most of us can recite by memory. Walter Russell Bowie’s words from a hymn he wrote may not be so familiar but somehow they speak a challenging word to me as a Christian as I confront the greed and warfare that exists today. “O shame to us who rest content while lust and greed for gain in street and shop and tenement wring gold from human pain, and bitter lips in blind despair cry, ‘Christ hath died in vain.”
I can take back a Christmas gift I don’t need or want. But this Christmas gift from God in Bethlehem 2000 years ago—a gift that promises a crown of thornes yet ultimate peace and joy—is one I am challenged to keep, for better or for worse.
Matter Matters
Over the years, as a preacher, I have lived inside a tension worthy of explanation. It has to do with the material world all of us live in each and every day of our lives. If you put on clothes and feed your face, you have entered the world of matter and it does matter.
Preachers are prone to preach the message that material things will not give us ultimate spiritual satisfaction. But every time I hear someone preach that message, or hear the words from my own mouth, I feel ill at ease.
Perhaps my queasiness is the result of the work I have done over the years with migrant workers, single mothers, immigrants, prisoners, and others who live on the poor side of an unjust economic system, the victims of corporate greed, sinful systems. Time and time again I’ve found remarkably centered and faithful folks in this mix— people appreciative of the spiritual dimension beneath what little they possess.
And yet the myth of the happy worker blessed in his or her poverty is a lie. Poor people, by-in-large, have less education, are denied adequate health care, are unemployed or under-paid, become victims of crime and the criminal justice system, and die younger than folks with money. That reality has informed my entire ordained ministry, along with my faith in Jesus, who addressed injustice on behalf of lost and suffering human beings.
The Christian faith, boiled down to basics, is all about the material world. Heaven can take care of itself. Matter is what matters. It matters what we produce, how we produce it, and that material goods are divide equitably. The Babe from Bethlehem carries a DNA that reproduces more life—life that celebrates flesh and blood wherever it is hallowed and not abused. The materialism that pollutes the Christmas message is an affront to the beauty of the material world. God incarnate means matter matters.
Nature Is Not Singing Here In Appalachia
There’s no more joyful Christmas carol than Joy to the World. With words by Isaac Watts and music by George Frideric Handel, it has to bring joy to our hearts. “And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing.”
Unfortunately, nature is not singing here in West Virginia. Our mountains are groaning and crying out mournfully as they are raped for coal and reduced to rubble. The hills are not alive with the sound of music.
This week I attended and spoke at a demonstration against mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal blows up mountains, buries streams, pollutes water, and endangers people lives, so that our nation can have cheap carbon-laced energy. Mountaintop removal is a sin against God’s creation.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., the director of Waterkeeper Alliance, asked these questions at the rally. What would you call someone who destroyed a mountain daily with dynamite the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb? What would you call someone who poisoned the streams with mercury and heavy metals thus making fish dangerous to eat? The crowd’s answer was obvious—a terrorist. The companies destroying our mountains and reaping profit from the coal extracted and the rubble left behind, and the politicians and state and federal agencies that stand idly by are home-grown terrorists and criminals.
Episcopal clergy and laity have signed a statement condemning mountaintop removal. It ended with these words: “We are moved to speak because we cannot stand by quietly while our beautiful mountains are destroyed, our streams are buried, plant and animal life is extinguished, and our water supply is poisoned. Our souls cry out when we watch the destruction of “summits bathed in glory like the ‘Prince Immanuel’s Land,’ as our state song proclaims. We pray that we may once again be faithful stewards of creation.”
My Gift To My Readers—An Appalachian Carol
While writing these Notes, I’ve been listening to an old Appalachian carol, I Wonder as I Wander. I love it. It’s my gift to you, sister and brother wanderers.
When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall/With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all/But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall/And the promise of ages it then did recall./If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing/A star in the sky or a bird on the wing/
Or all of God’s Angels in heaven to sing/He surely could have it, ’cause he was the King/I wonder as I wander out under the sky/How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die/For poor on’ry people like you and like I;/I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
December 10th, 2009
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