ALMIGHTY GOD, YOU HAVE LINKED OUR LIVES ONE WITH ANOTHER THAT ALL WE DO AFFECTS, FOR GOOD OR ILL, ALL OTHER LIVES: SO GUIDE US IN THE WORK WE DO, THAT WE MAY DO IT NOT FOR SELF ALONE, BUT FOR THE COMMON GOOD;
AND, AS WE SEEK A PROPER RETURN FOR OUR OWN LABOR, MAKE US MINDFUL OF THE RIGHTFUL ASPIRATIONS OF OTHER WORKERS, AND AROUSE OUR CONCERN FOR THOSE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, ONE GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN
Whenever we observe the Labor Day weekend, I make a kind of strange connection. And I think of a priest and monk named James Huntington. Fr. Huntington was the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross, the first permanent, Episcopal, monastic community for men here in the United States. I’ve been an Associate of Holy Cross for over 30 years and used to make my retreat regularly at their mother house in West Park, NY while I was serving at our Episcopal Church Center.
Holy Cross has always been a community committed to active ministry rooted in the spiritual life. They take seriously the admonition like this one: “…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1:22) Last Sunday’s Collect sets out the process for the Christian life – for monastics like the brothers of Holy Cross, but also for everyday Christians like you and me:
“Lord of all power and might, the author and give of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works…”
See the pattern? First, the love of God must be grafted (implanted) in our hearts. Then we begin by practicing the disciplines of our religion (increase in us true religion); as we live that life we begin to experience the goodness of God; and then finally, God begins to bring forth from within us “the fruit of good works.” We start being doers of the word…and not hearers only.
That’s exactly the path James Huntington followed. He experienced what he believed to be a call to the religious life in the early 1880s while attending a retreat at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Then he, and two other priests, began to test that vocation by living a common life at Holy Cross Mission on New York’s Lower East Side, working with poor people and the immigrant population there.
That challenging ministry, especially working with immigrants and young people, drew Huntington to the social witness of the Church and he became increasingly involved with the single-tax movement, with the fledgling Labor Movement, and really led the way for The Episcopal Church to become increasingly committed to what became known as the “social gospel.”
This was an early 20th century movement which applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as wealth perceived of as excessive, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, child labor, and inadequate labor unions. The leaders – some of whom overlapped with Huntington – were people like Richard Ely, Washington Gladden, and especially Walter Rauschenbusch.
This movement was not without its critics, even at the time, in The Episcopal Church and the wider Christian community, but it sowed the seeds of our increasing involvement in issues of justice and peace and the realization – arising again in our day in the so-called “emergent church”– that “Jesus did not come to found a church; he came to announce God’s Kingdom!” That the Reign of God begins now! And we need to work to build a society that reflects those values.
What does all this have to do with Labor Day? Well, of course, Labor Day – as a commemoration on the first Monday in September — was a creation of the labor movement and was dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers and to the contributions they have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. It began to be celebrated in the early 1880s (just about the same time as James Huntington experienced his call to the religious life!)
There is some debate about who originally proposed the Labor Day observance, but records seem to indicate that it was Peter McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, first suggested the day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold” (History of Labor Day, from the DOL)
Of course, no one can deny today that the labor movement itself has been fraught with its own internal problems, but the ideals of its founders, as well as the commitment of people like James Huntington over the last century reflect Gospel values and are well worth celebrating. Perhaps our Collect for Labor Day in the Book of Common Prayer puts it best, in a spiritual context:
“Almighty God, you have so linked our lives with one another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord…” (BCP 261)
While the unemployment rate still way too high in the sure – but oh so slow – economic recovery we are in the midst of, I hope we will redouble our efforts in this country and around the world to see to it that our people have adequate and meaningful work to do. It’s part of being a human being! And the Collect has it about right…
We are so intertwined with each other in this world that everything we do affects all other lives. What we do for good and what we do for ill — affects others. So let’s remember not to just look out for number one, but to realize that we are all in this together. And, as we expect to be paid a living wage ourselves, let’s see to it that others are paid fairly for the work they do. Most of all, let’s remember those who, this day, are out of work. Very few of them want to be. And everyone deserves a chance for meaningful employment.
So, enjoy your Labor Day. But don’t forget where it came from, and what its ideals are. For if we are to become “doers of the word and not hearers only,” we need to follow James Huntington’s example and let God’s name be grafted in our hearts…to put our religion into practice…and to be nourished by the goodness and grace of God…so that we may bear good fruit — the fruit of good WORK !
Donald Trump: “There will be no amnesty.”
“Anyone who is in the United States illegally is subject to deportation.”
“It’s our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.”
(August 31, 2016 speech on immigration)
God: You shall divide (the land) by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the aliens who stay in your midst, who bring forth sons in your midst. And they shall be to you as native-born among the sons of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.
(Ezekiel 47:22)
Choose this day whom you will serve!
This morning in the New York Times, David Brooks writes that, “Hillary Clinton has experience, but does not seem to have been transformed by it. Amid the email scandal she is repeating the same mistakes she made during the Rose Law firm scandal two decades ago. Her posture is still brittle, stonewalling and dissembling.”
Many of us who are Clinton supporters would also wish for more transparency and vulnerability on the part of our candidate. But David Brooks’ opening statement is entirely backwards. Hillary Clinton has experience and she HAS been transformed by it! Sadly, not for the better.
Brooks goes on to say, “If you interpret your life as a battlefield, then you will want to maintain control at all times. You will hoard access. You will refuse to have press conferences, You will close yourself off from those who can help.”
“If you treat the world as a friendly and hopeful place, as a web of relationships, you’ll look for the good news in people and not the bad. You’ll be willing to relinquish control, and in surrender you’ll actually gain more strength as people trust in your candor and come alongside.”
Well, my guess is that — as a young woman — Hillary Clinton did indeed treat the world as a friendly and hopeful place and perhaps even tended to look for the good news in people and not the bad. But after at least three decades of being accused of things by her enemies and a biased press hungry for ratings for things which proved, in the long run, to have no basis in fact, she has been changed. Transformed, to use Brooks’ phrase.
She has been changed into a somewhat paranoid (and, as they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you!) person who can indeed be “brittle” and “dissembling.” Perhaps if the press would become less like sharks in bloody water, hungry to go after any and all accusations made with little or no substance, Hillary Clinton might again be able to “see the world as a friendly and hopeful place” and begin to respond accordingly.
I do not have much confidence in that happening. Having recently given up entirely on MSNBC news and the Chuck Todds and Andrea Mitchells one might suppose would be her supporters in opposition to a repulsive Donald Trump, I have found my blood pressure to be much more within the normal range.
It is the “vast right wing conspiracy” (which, dear friends, does indeed exist) and the so-called “liberal” (but actually “ratings-hungry”) press who have created the sad aspect of Hillary Clinton’s character which sometimes make her look like an abused animal who can be self-protective and even vicious because of being hurt so many times by those who might have been expected to know better.
So, I am willing to cut Hillary some slack on this. And hope that, after she devastates Donald Trump in the national election and is given the opportunity to lead this nation as arguably the most qualified candidate ever to run, perhaps she (and all of us) will once again be able to view “the world as a friendly and hopeful place.”
It is clearly not that kind of place right now.
I always enjoy celebrating the feast days of saints about which we actually know very little! I refer to them as “they also served.” Not all of us will be canonized, or even recognized, for whatever witness we may make to the God we have come to know through Jesus Christ, but we have “also served” and it’s nice to know there are folks like us in the Christian calendar.
Bartholomew is one of those about whom we know little. His name appears in some lists of the twelve apostles and that’s about it. Some scholars believe he was also known as Nathanael and, if that is true, we know a little more. He was introduced to Jesus by Philip, was the one who snarkily asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth,” and yet was described by Jesus as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Perhaps because he spoke his mind!
When Nathanael asked him how he knew that, Jesus said he had seen him under a fig tree (teaching, in rabbinical fashion?). When Nathanael asked, in effect, how Jesus could be that perceptive, he replied, if effect, “You ain’t seen nothin yet.” One day you’ll see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. You’ll realize that this Son of Man is a connector of heaven and earth.
That reference is, of course, to the story of Jacob who received a similar vision of the heavenly ladder once during a long, dark night in the desert. I had a similar experience during “The Desert Course” at St. George’s College in Jerusalem. We spent about a week traveling through the Sinai, tracing the old pilgrim routes, sleeping one night on the desert floor and the next night in an Orthodox monastery.
One evening before bed, around the campfire, our Egyptian guide has us look up into the cloudless yet brilliant sky and said, “Welcome to the Sinai. One moon; ten thousand stars!” And he was right. Later, when I — like the ancestor Jacob — tried to go to sleep with my head on a smooth stone, but snuggled in a sleeping bag, I could almost see those angels — descending…and ascending.
But, back to Bartholomew/Nathanael. Tradition also has it that he brought Christianity to Armenia. Certainly he is venerated there in that capacity and I once visited the site of a monastery which was thought to have been founded by him. Some of my fondest memories, as ecumenical officer for our church, was my relationship with the Armenian Apostolic Church.
They are wonderful people, joyful Christians, and great friends of the Episcopal Church. For, when the Armenian people immigrated to this country, the Orthodox would not allow them to use their churches because they were so-called “Nestorians” (“Oriental” Orthodox) while the Roman Catholics would not allow them to use theirs because they were “Orthodox” (how’s that for irony?).
The Episcopal Church said, “Come right in!” And Armenian Christians worshiped in Episcopal Churches, especially in New York, until they could build their own. They have never forgotten that hospitality and have remained our friends and supporters while much of the Orthodox world has written us off as even being Christians, because of the ordination of women and our embrace of marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.
So, thank you St. Bart! For simply appearing in the list of the Twelve; for giving hope to us who “also serve;” and for being at the root of a tradition which stretches from the Holy Land to India to Armenia and across the Atlantic to these shores. You are indeed…
An Israelite in whom there is no deceit…
I continue to wonder why the world, seemingly pretty united in the effort to wipe out the so-called “Islamic State,” cannot seem to agree on what to call it! President Obama invariably refers to it as ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is a geographical area stretching across Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Iraq) while almost everyone else, including the media, seems to have settled on ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria)
There are, of course, some outliers who just refer to it as IS (the Islamic State) or simply “The Caliphate” (which, in strict terms it is not). But then neither is this entity a state — Islamic or otherwise, based in Iraq and/or the Levant or just Syria). What it is (as Andy Griffith might have put it) is a brutal, terrorist organization.
I propose that the international community settle on the term increasingly used in Europe — DAESH. This is an acronym for an Arabic phrase which means essentially the same thing as ISIL. The difference is, these militants hate us using it! The reason seems to be that it is similar to, and has become associated with, two other words “Daes” (which means crushing something under one’s feet) and “Dahes” (which means “one who sows discord”). Sounds about right to me!
In fact, I propose that we use it precisely because these murderers hate it. I am in full agreement with former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot who, in declaring that he would henceforth use the term, wrote: “Daesh hates being referred to my this term, and what they don’t like has an instinctive appeal to me.”
Daesh members have, according to NBC news, threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone it hears using the term. And Evan Kohlman, a national security analyst counseled, “It’s a derogatory term and not something people should use even if you dislike them.” I completely disagree.
While normally I believe that we should call people and groups by the names with which they self-identify (African Americans, Native Americans, women rather than ladies or girls) those are people and groups for whom I have the deepest respect. A group of murderers, rapists and suicide bombers who seem to take particular delight in beheading their helpless victims after submitting them to God-knows-what kinds of torture does not qualify, in my estimation, for such niceties.
The term Daesh has the added advantage of removing the term “Islamic” from a phrase describing people who claim allegiance to the Prophet Mohammed but pay little or no attention to his teachings or to those of his legitimate followers.
As long as they continue to “sow discord” and “crush people and things under their feet” by such brutal means, let’s call them DAESH. And do so precisely because they hate it!
“You know what encourages this?” said Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin in his explanation of the cause of riots in Milwaukee and other cities, “The growth of the welfare state. These are underclass behaviors. Seventy percent of the kids born in Milwaukee…are born without an engaged father in their life.”
“So I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side and say ‘you’re not needed.’ Uncle Sam is going to be his dad, he’s going to provide for these kids, he’s going to feed the kids. Uncle Sam has been a terrible father. Uncle Sam does not love these kids. He might keep a little food in their mouths and that is about it. But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape the behavior of kids.”
Sheriff Clarke is African American.
That very fact caused me to look even more closely at his interview and I found much to agree with. Surely, the decline of intact families in the African American community has done much to foster poverty, hopelessness and crime. It would indeed be a good thing for the black community to do more self-examination, and even self-criticism, about some of the life style choices many have made which have been destructive.
But I refuse to believe that the welfare system, as flawed as it is and as much in need of reform as it may be, is the cause of the problems which beset the African American community in this country and which leads to frustration, anger, and sometimes even violence.
The cause of these problems in white racism. Pure and simple.
Poor educational opportunities, segregated housing (in fact, if not in law), the incarceration of thousands and thousands of young black men (and women) for trivial drug offenses white suburbanites walk away from every day, a skewed justice system from the cop on the beat to the judges on the bench — all these have led to the problems which erupt all too often in black communities.
Uncle Sam was never intended to replace “dad” in the African American household. I find it very difficult to believe that those fathers who have shirked their responsibilities as parents did so because they were so sure “Uncle Sam” would put food in their kids’ little mouths. Or that they would come rushing home to coach Little League if this country decides to take back that little scrap of food we have shared through our admittedly less-than-effective welfare system.
So, let’s continue to work on reforming the welfare system so that it provides assistance to those who really need it and weed out some who may indeed take advantage of it and provide support and training for those who may have, intentionally or not, become dependent upon it over time.
But our primary work needs to be the hard one of healing our land of the individual and systemic racism which pervades America and which, alone, is the root cause of all that Sheriff Clarke so rightly laments. I am amazed that a responsible African American citizen like him does not see this more clearly.
Even more amazed that he would allow himself to be used by agreeing to an interview by Fox News. Which was in turn cited by that bastion of equality and justice in our land, Cal Thomas, in this morning’s Chicago Tribune.
No, Sheriff Clarke, Uncle Sam’s welfare system is not the cause of black rage. Uncle Sam’s racism is.
The smiling visage of Mother Teresa of Calcutta graces the cover of the most recent edition of the Jesuit magazine, America, to which I subscribe and take pleasure in reading every month. In this edition James Martin interviews Brian Kolodiejchuk who is a Canadian member of the Missionaries of Charity and was the official “postulator” for the canonization of Teresa which is scheduled for next month of the 4th of September.
Brian has also written a number of articles and books on Teresa so I ordered one entitled Come Be My Light which is a compilation of the private writings of this contemporary saint, as controversial as she has become since her death. There are some legitimate reasons to question some of the rather primitive methods and even motives she used in treating and ministering to “the poorest of the poor” even when her Order had received more than enough financial support to do things differently, and perhaps better.
Room to wonder about whether or not she glorified poverty for poverty’s own sake in the lives of those for whom she cared and had no choice about their poverty and not just in her own life and the life of her Sisters which was voluntarily chosen. But one thing which has caused consternation in the minds of many of her followers and which is clearly revealed in her letters is the deep darkness which plagued her for many years and the nearly absent sense of the presence of God throughout most of her active ministry.
So many today throw about the term “dark night of the soul” to describe periods of doubt and spiritual dryness we all go through from time to time. But experienced spiritual directors recognize that this is a trivialization of the phase (made famous by St. John of the Cross).
Rather than seeing such an experience of darkness as something to be “fixed” or lived through, we need to recognize that this may be the final stage of growth in holiness when physical, mental, or even spiritual “consolations” (experiences of the Divine) seem withdrawn but are actually no longer necessary because the one growing in holiness is virtually in the Presence of God all the time with no need for “reminders” or “glimpses” of the Holy One which the rest of us need simply to carry on.
This is not to minimize the pain that this darkness can cause for those who experience it. Often, they long for the “simpler” times in which they seemed to experience God more closely and predictably. But those, like Mother Teresa, who persevere in their spiritual disciplines and in carrying out their active ministries, even with no such consolations, are models for us all to “keep on keeping on” even when the life of faith becomes rough.
Far from disqualifying her for sainthood, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that the anguish expressed in her letters and other private writings to spiritual directors and confessors was simply testimony to how closely she walked with Jesus who himself knew desolation and darkness even on the day of his death. “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”
Few have understood that cry better than the one who will soon be known as “Saint Teresa of Calcutta.”
I sometimes feel like Carl Hiaasen when I drive around my home state of Florida. Carl is, of course, the wildly funny and wickedly perceptive columnist for the Miami Herald who also writes satirical novels about the rape and exploitation of the state we both love. I think he lives somewhere in the Keys now, but was born in Plantation, Florida when it was still a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale.
Both he and I know something of how beautiful this state was before it was ruined. Hiaasen went to Emory University (where I was first accepted into a college) but graduated from the University of Florida (where I actually went…and graduated!). He even once wrote for Cocoa Today, the local newspaper in the town where I served as parish priest in for nine years in the Eighties. So, we have a lot in common, except that he is a much more successful writer than I am!
But we both share a love/hate relationship with this maddening state. As Susanne and I drove west on Interstate 4 this week, from Daytona to Sarasota, we found ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic through Orlando (to say nothing of massive road construction and a tropical thunderstorm like I haven’t experienced since I lived here!). The traffic congestion stretched from Altamonte Springs to just southwest of the Disney project (for those who know the area). And it happened almost exactly the same coming back east as when we drove west two days earlier!
But it’s not just the growth and development. It’s how that growth and development have happened. Little or no regard to the environmental consequences of such massive building efforts (about which Hiaasen writes so scathingly). And, of course, with millions of retired folks who moved here at least partially because there is no state income tax and who vote repeatedly against raising any kind of taxes at all, there is no way to build adequate infrastructure to handle the huge population. They are way behind and trying to play catch-up.
So, there are road problems, water problems, rampant destruction of coastal dune lines and natural barriers to the surging tides. All this to make way for the massive condominiums which block access to, and even the view of, the Ocean or Gulf — it doesn’t much matter which side of the state you’re on. The story is pretty much the same. It is only sheer chance (or maybe complicated factors related to climate change) that has kept Florida out of the cross-hairs of a massive hurricane in recent years.
When that, inevitably, happens lots of those condos will disappear from the beaches and, as an old salt once put it, “It will look like barnacles being scraped off a piece of driftwood by a sharp knife!” Poetic, don’t you think? However, in my worst moments, I must confess to a petulant “It’ll serve them right” attitude. (Of course, I hope these wealthy residents will heed the calls for evacuation first!)
So, why do I still hope to have a place back down here some day? I suppose mostly because of happy memories growing up here and of what it was like to live even in Orlando before the days of Disney. A middle sized town dotted with scores of fresh water lakes good for swimming, boating and fishing. Rows and rows of citrus trees — grapefruit, orange, and tangerine — stretching over the hills west of the city (now, of course, replaced with rolling hills of tacky little houses, most of which look just like one another). An Episcopal diocese which used to be one of the healthiest in the South and which I was proud to serve.
So, I ask again, why do I still hope to have a place back down here some day? Besides the nostalgia, there are still moments beside and within the pounding surf; the comforting sight of a typical Florida forest (or yard) combining palm trees, live oaks, azaleas and poinsettias; fresh grouper that will melt in your mouth (whether or not it is stuffed with crab!); and the discovery, every so often, of “old Florida” where once simple people of little or no means lived and enjoyed a tropical paradise, hoping that tourists would keep coming and leave their money — but would just as quickly head back up North and leave the care and management of the state to those of us who actually cared.
Of course, they didn’t. They moved here — at one point to the tune of 1,000 persons a day, moving into the state to LIVE, not simply visit — and now they are in charge. They own the corrupt politicians in Tallahassee and see absolutely no reason to take on Big Sugar or Big Construction or Big Drugs all of which are destroying the very environment they claim to desire.
Maybe if I ever do get a place back down here some day, I can get involved with folks like Carl Hiaasen, environmental groups, and responsible politicians who are calling attention to, and combating, these corrosive elements in Florida society.
At least we can go down fighting.
Well, he’s 95 so I expect some slowing of speech and forgetfulness and repeating things I’ve heard many, many times before is to be expected. He is actually amazing, living independently although in a retirement center near our adopted hometown of Daytona Beach. Up until a recent fall, he was still driving and he still hasn’t given up hope of regaining that privilege once the fractured hip heals.
Like so many fathers and sons, we had a complicated relationship over the years. The “greatest generation,” at least the men, just never quite learned how to show affection to their sons. And I’m not sure the World War II B-24 bomber pilot ever quite forgave his son for opposing, and opting out of, the Viet Nam war. (Although he categorizes all war as “stupid” these days!).
He’s become much more demonstrative in his old age. Hugs and even the occasional kiss are becoming easier for him and it’s good to hear “I love you” even though it took a lot of years to get there. He misses his beloved “Maggie” desperately and frequently says that no one should live to his ripe old age. “Twenty years to grow up and get educated; twenty years to climb to the top of your ability professionally; twenty years to enjoy it; twenty years of retirement. That should be it! Die at 80. Eighty-five tops!”
I tend to agree with him (after all, the Psalmist says “Three score years and ten; perhaps in strength even eighty”) but as I often remind him: It’s not up to us. Of course, I hope he won’t linger for too long once those amazing powers of determination and grit start to fade away. But, I must say, the last decade or so has brought some much-needed tenderness to a relationship which lacked that for too many years.
It was good for us to be here for his birthday. Don’t know how many more there’ll be (though I’m pretty sure there will be some). I’m thankful for all that he gave me. And, whether he fully appreciates it or not — he’s still giving.
That We All May Be One 