Now as the Year Turns Again, Give us Peace Beyond our Fear

There we were! Don Weber and I happened to be kneeling beside each other at the altar rail as hundreds came forward for healing yesterday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Mason City. Years ago I  turned 18 and he 30 when I worked in his family’s carpet business while attending my first two years of college.

 Now I am 80 and he is 92. The years have turned. How many times each of us has heard the Gospel and received communion since then.  I have gathered in churches all over the world. I felt the presence of all those saints as the sign of the cross was made with oil on our heads Sunday.

 Pastor Dan Gerrietts had invited us to come for healing for ourselves, for others, for our nation, our world. Now as the year turns again,  “Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow, give us peace beyond our fear . . . Teach us all your way of healing.”

While Walls and Fear Kill Children . . .

Luke: “Because there was no place for them.”

Matthew: “Flee . . . for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Herod was infuriated and “killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.”

In the midst of a government shutdown over a wall, when a leader is infuriated, when children die, when the world becomes more dangerous because of targeted fear, and when, as always, there is no room for the stranger, God incarnate comes. Peace to you, brothers and sisters, always and everywhere. Jesus is here among us and everyone.

Advent and Slain and Imprisoned Journalists

Saturday is Bill of Rights Day.  The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution includes the free exercise of religion and the freedom of the press.

This week TIME Magazine named its 2018 Person of the year: “Guardians and the War on Truth”: slain and imprisoned journalists.

On Sunday we light the third Advent candle. Little might the world notice unless we Christians ourselves pay attention. We have lit two. We still can light the third, and the fourth. Most of us will not be imprisoned for doing so.

We, like the shepherds, can “go now” and “see this thing that has taken place,” seeking out the truth, finding the Christ who is the center of all truth and making it known. We will need to be as astute as the wise men in searching diligently for the child born king, worshiping, and then choosing “another road” rather than playing into Herod’s wicked plans.

Our advent journey is a time to pay close attention, to reflect, repent, and focus on the Truth so that we might tell publicly the news which prevails.

Remember the Centennial of Armistice Day, not the Glory of Nationalism

Eleven days until Election day. I urge you to vote (if you have not already). Also remember the 11^th hour of the 11th day of the 11^th month of Nov. 1918. This is the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day, the end of WW I, the “War to End all Wars.” Now called Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in Canada and other nations. French President Macron, hosting world leaders for the centennial, will have no celebration of national triumph. No tanks or missiles in the streets. 

In the U.S. we need peace for our press, freedom of the press--not bombs for them. We need no military at our borders; we need nuclear peace treaties. My father was a veteran of WW I. My uncle was gassed in that war. Remember that war did not end all wars. Nov. 6 is a time for voting. Nov. 11^th is a Sunday, a day of Remembrance, not of the glory of nationalism, but of the Christ who died to end death and of Resurrection: for new together life for all.

Voting Matters. Every Single Person Matters

We voted yesterday! First day polls are open at our County Court House for absentee ballot voting. Our neighbors, new to Iowa, voted, too. It was a friendly, welcoming process. No voter I.D. required. All was in order, carefully done. Now we are free on November 6th to help others go to the polls! Democracy means that we all work to make sure everyone is able to vote!

Commentators wonder which way the final vote on the Supreme Court nomination will swing in the Mid-terms.  Will the Republicans be more fired up? Will the Democrats' determination to change things hold? We cannot know, of course. But I do know these things: We absolutely have to make sure that those people whom others want to keep away from voting are supported.  How many names are being erased? What can I do? Who needs an I.D.? What can I do?  Whose polling place has been changed without someone knowing about it? How can I let them know?

What can I do locally to make sure that information is correct and widely known?  Whom can I tell that their vote matters and that they matter? That they really matter? 

"No" to Gender Justice and So Many Other Rights . . . for Years to Come

With Senator Collins and Senator Manchin just announcing they will vote “yes” to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, I raise again the concerns of the National Council of Churches: (Below) Also today, after decades of work by women and men, the Lutheran Church of Australia again denied women the right to be ordained (2/3 vote needed; only 59.7% received). 

National Council of Churches Statement this week: “Kavanaugh’s political record is troubling with regard to issues of voting rights, racial and gender justice, health care, the rights of people with disabilities, and environmental protections.  This leads us to believe that he cannot be an impartial justice in cases that are sure to come before him at the Court.” October 5, 2018, a day full of clouds here.

Ordinary Days: Do We Have a National and International Emergency?

Each day was so ordinary. Burton and I were seminary graduate students, just a few weeks married, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962. We had books to read, papers to write, but the real question was whether Soviet Union nuclear weapons would fall on St. Louis or on any other part of the U.S.

I had the laundry sorted out to be washed on a Monday morning in the summer of 1967 when it became clear we would need to  leave Detroit by side streets because of shooting on the freeways as the Detroit Rebellion—called riots—were spreading. Fires spread further in 1968. Would the country survive?

I was writing while watching TV in New Haven, Ct. in 1973, as John Dean testified before Congress about Richard Nixon as the nation began to understand the President’s involvement in the Watergate break-in and the cover-up. How much more would we find out?

Our family was at a camp in New Hampshire summer 1974. Burton had a radio with him. People huddled around as we listened to the announcement that Richard Nixon had resigned. No U.S. president before had done this. We could not imagine what would happen to the nation.

September 11^th 2001 was the first full week of the semester at Wartburg Seminary. Craig Nessan and I were teaching Church Administration and Mission class while planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City. We found out more as students and faculty walked toward chapel.

This Friday September 7, 2018, people are busy with ordinary things.  I am preparing for a presentation at my church next Wednesday evening: “Civility: Conversations as Christians in a Pluralistic World.” Earlier this week, after considering whether to prepare a hand-out, I told the Education Director that I thought not because I didn’t know what might unfold in the country during the coming days.  Well, things have unfolded: Committee hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for associate justice of the Supreme Court; publication of Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear; a New York Times op ed on the test of the presidency.

The news media is focused on “who” wrote the op ed piece, the many denials of authorship, and the “volcanic” reaction of the president.

However, history would have us ask, “What comes next?”  Is this just more about an unpredictable president? Simply one more account, particularly Bob Woodward’s book, of a chaotic White House? Or is this an emergency within the nation and a truly international danger laid out clearly about a man with a preference for autocrats and dictators, a U.S. president who has singular authority to make nuclear decisions.

The president’s self-congratulations to the contrary, talk of impeachment and use of the 25^th amendment grow. But these are not merely political questions. The question is a serious one about to whom this nation turns in an emergency? We now know about 1962, 1967 and 1968, 1973 and 1974, 2001. What about now?

Is it up to the “quiet resistance” of unelected but dutiful officials within the White House to contain this president? Are they—are we—depending upon Congress to act? Will this end up in the hands of the Supreme Court? And will this Court have a new associate justice who has argued that presidents should not be “distracted” by civil lawsuits and criminal investigations while in office?

The New York op ed piece ends quietly with us: “the real difference will be made by everyday citizens. . . . Americans.” So, what might we ordinary citizens on this ordinary day be prepared for? Be prepared to be? To do?

Hero's Funeral in 2040?

     Hero’s funeral in 2040 ?

Guest blog by the Rev. Dr. Peter Kjeseth, 

    (Peter is Professor emeritus of Wartburg Theological Seminary, former colleague, dear friend, and justice advocate with a global perspective)

The week-long mega-funeral of Senator John McCain is still being analyzed and evaluated by our pundits and even by those of us who are not experts.  Noteworthy has been the value placed on the negative:

     Who was NOT invited, Trump and Palin, and what was NOT said about his heroism.

     In praising McCain’s courage in the Vietnam war, none of the elite speakers affirmed that he and his fellow warriors won the war for us.

     We lost that war.  Rather he was praised for refusing to be freed before his fellow prisoners of war.  The overriding theme of praise was for his unflinching and bipartisan support of “American values”.

     Fair enough – and deserved!

    But do we dare ask ourselves today who and what might be celebrated and praised -or condemned and rejected – in some hero’s funeral in, say, 2040?  What sort of heroes will emerge from US military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and even Yemen?

   Hard on the end of the McCain funeral, which won global headlines, we see the much less celebrated event of the retirement of General John Nicolson, long time head of US forces in Afghanistan.  His farewell message was unflinching: “It is time for the war in Afghanistan to end.”  This after our 17 years of serial redefinition of mission and total failure.  Will the military/industrial complex and the present Republican leadership seriously consider any real alternative to another round of redefinition and restarting of our “mission” in Afghanistan?  Good luck to incoming General Austin “Scott” Miller, who has already had to report and more-or-less justify a US soldier’s death.

   Even more morally problematic is our ‘proxy’ involvement in the devastating war in Yemen.  Saudi Arabia has now admitted that the August 9 airstrike in Yemen’s Saada Province that killed dozens of people including over 30 children riding a bus to a holiday event was a mistake.  Many voices across the world and in the UN name this event, and others like it, as war crimes.  Our military spokespersons tepidly explain that we ‘only’ provide inflight refueling of aircraft, intelligence help in defining a mission, training and other services.

   Lockheed Martin MK 82 bomb parts are clearly identified in Yemen.  If we dare look at it, there is ample evidence of our massive military supply to the perpetrators of the war in Yemen.

  When we look back on this day from the perspective of 2040, will there be anything heroic to celebrate?

  A question worth considering.

Misusing a Murder: Remember Mollie!

Blessed are they who mourn . . . . Blessed are the merciful . . . .

After University of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts’ body was found buried beneath cornstalks in an Iowa field, the Mexican national man who confessed to murdering her was said to be in the country illegally, working on a farm. An immigration detainer was placed on him. The company owning the farm at first said it had used the federal E-Verify to check on its employee.

         Some national statements turned immediately to the dangers of illegal Mexican aliens. A state leader asked how a broken immigration system could allow a predator to live in “our community.” A local announcer warned U. of Iowa students to be alert and fearful of “others” out there.

        However, Mollie’s aunt, Billie Jo Calderwood, posted this: “Please remember, evil comes in EVERY color. Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire ordeal by friends for all different nations and races. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.”

Respect! Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul, was a Gospel woman for generations of men and women. Cradled in her church in Detroit, she never left it, but rather carried it with her all over the world. She sang "Precious Lord" at Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral 50 years ago in 1968. Her music and her dedication supported the civil rights movement right through to her singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at President Obama's inauguration in 2009. Amazing! "Respect" was her anthem. Amazing woman. Amazing Gospel Grace!

P.S. I googled the Queen of Soul singing "America" at President Obama's Inauguration.  Just to listen to her and to watch the crowd listening to her was wonderful.  To watch President Obama watch and listen to her and be inspired by her inspired me again.  Then I scrolled down briefly to see the comments.  This was all within a few hours of her death. They were all in gratitude.  Except one. What?  One by Donald J. Trump: "Gotta Thumbs down on this one."  I don't tweet things to or about Trump, but this time I did reply to his tweet. I wrote: "Thumbs down on America? Thumbs down on music? Thumbs down on Freedom? "Don't gotta!"

I know even more today how much we need Aretha, and Martin Luther King Jr., and President Obama.

I know how much we need the Gospel.  I know how much we need to sing.  All of us.

Egotistical, Uninformed, Confusing Words are a Danger to the World

This week we have seen and heard, and sometimes cried about Trump's outrageous words with Putin in Finland. We have no idea what he actually said behind closed doors.  Did he know the implications of what he was saying? He changed his tune and then changed it again and then again. Does he comprehend what he is saying beyond what he believes it means to his own ego?

But his words and policies and impulsive actions affect everyone of us and the entire world, if not also the course of history. We become depressed watching, but we cannot laugh it off.  We need to not fall into becoming obsessed with watching nor can we turn away.

My husband and I watched the video of former President Barack Obama's speech's given in South Africa this week.  It was an almost 1 1/2 hour lecture to 15,000 people in a stadium there. Not cute one-liners. No bragging. No crowd-pleasers. No hate speech. It was an intelligent talk about history, a magnificent account of Nelson's life on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It informed us about the changes in the world in the past century.  Obama knows about our country, South Africa and the entire world.  The people paid attention the entire time. You could tell they grasped everything he was saying. They were thoughtful and appreciative.

Actually, after the past 1 1/2 years of Trump's words (he only uses a very few over and over), I found myself forgetting that a presidential speech can be that intelligent and enlightening. I longed for the time when I couldn't wait to hear an Obama speech. I was so impressed by those 15,000 South Africans and how they listened and caught every nuance--such a contrast to the way Trump dismisses and denounces Africans. 

I put here the link so that you can be amazed, informed, refreshed, challenged and hopeful, too:

http://time.com/5341180/barack-obama-south-africa-speech-transcript/

Families Belong Together . . . In the Storm

Five minutes before the appointed 4:00 p.m. time, the rain stopped after huge thunderstorms and floods forced cancellation of the Families Belong Together event in Mason City, Iowa, part of the 750 protests nationwide Saturday, June 30. At 4:01 Burton and I decided spontaneously to drive to Central Park anyway. There we saw it: a bunch of people with signs held high: “Jesus was a Refugee.” “Reunite Families.” We didn’t know what else to do, but we wanted to be together, high water or not. 

We introduced ourselves to each other. Some women had driven in from Titonka, an hour to the West; a couple had driven up from Jewell, an hour to the South, being stopped on #Hwy 35 because of visibility. But they had persisted. The all day television coverage of tens of thousands was important. It might not have included us, in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the country, but we were here.

I Wondered Why My Family Members Had Not Been Taken Away From Their Homes

As a child after WW II I remember our finding out that Japanese Americans had been taken away from their homes and placed in internment camps for “national security” reasons. Even then, young as I was, I wondered why my family--aunts and uncles--immigrants from Germany, had not been taken away from their homes.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Proclamation issued by the U.S. president September, 2017, placing entry restrictions on people from mostly Muslim majority countries that government department reviews concluded presented national security risks.

In 1944 the executive order to lock up Japanese Americans had been based on one general’s report who gave the reason that “racial characteristics” of Japanese Americans predisposed them to assist Japanese forces and that it was impossible to distinguish loyal and disloyal members of that racial group. The war department and navy intelligence disagreed, saying things should be handled on an individual basis and not on a racial basis.

Nevertheless, over 100, 000 Japanese Americans were locked up. Japanese Americans fought the legality of the executive order, particularly a Mr. Korematsu, all the way to the Supreme Court, but he lost the case in 1944. In 1982, forty years after that executive order had been issued, a lawyer found government documents in dusty boxes showing there was no military reason to show Japanese Americans were a national security threat. Mass detentions and persecutions based on ethnicity and “inability to assimilate” were false to the core. The lawyer found Mr. Korematsu. He went back to court. It took a long time, but in 2011, the Justice Department finally made a confession of error in regard to the Japanese Internment camps

Today, the third version of the Muslim ban, is carefully worded, to say there are national security concerns, no bias; this time no religious bias. Have we not learned? Today, the bias is not hidden in dusty boxes, but open in speeches and tweets. Nevertheless, it has been disregarded by the Supreme Court. Thus the First Amendment of the Constitution is disregarded.

As I child I noticed the discrepancy between the way Japanese Americans and German (and Italian) Americans were treated on the basis of the way they looked.  Today I am deeply concerned in the discrepancy between the way people are treated on the basis of what they believe.

Justice Sotomayer yesterday read the minority dissent out loud, citing the flawed 1944 Korematsu Supreme Court case. “The United States of America is built on the Promise of religious liberty,” she said. “The Establishment Clause guarantees religious neutrality.” She added,  “The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle.” This third version has “morphed into a proclamation punitively based.” This new “window dressing cannot conceal an unassailable fact. . . the strong perception that the Proclamation is contaminated by the impermissible discriminatory animus against Islam and its followers.” Sotomayer also said that the ban on Muslims entering the country now “masquerades behind a façade of national security concerns.” The First Amendment “embodies our nation’s deep commitment to religious plurality and tolerance.”

Chief Justice Roberts renounced Justice Sotomayer for citing the 1944 erroneously decided case.  Before yesterday Korematsu’s individual conviction had been overturned and he had received an apology from the Justice Department but the ruling still technically stood. However yesterday Chief Justice Roberts issued a one-line sentence finally overruling the Korematsu Supreme Court ruling.

How ironic.  I would like to believe that today’s decisions could prevent us from repeating tragic mistakes from the past. Can the concentration camps of my childhood really be gone? What about the belief that some people cannot assimilate? Should they? And will we always try to keep out others based on race, religion, ethnicity? What else? Accept executive orders for national security reasons? Will we continue to disregard facts because of our fears?

In Christ We Have Strength for a Long Attention Span

I have been watching this nation’s outrage over separation of immigrant children from their parents. Individuals, mayors, lawyers, church leaders—even corporations--and more have spoken and acted forcefully. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services was interviewed on TV. In the midst of this administration’s cruelty and incompetency, I have been heartened that it is still possible in this democracy for people to force at least some seemingly temporary change in government policy. Freedom of the press still exists although there are so many more layers of secrecy to be uncovered.

So what now? President Trump this morning said that Republicans were “wasting their time” on immigration and should put it off until after the November elections. We are told some children have been reunited with their parents. “Oh, good,” we might say to ourselves. “That’s a relief. Things will soon be fine again.” Really?

Will we so easily move on? After all, we are known for having a fast news cycle and short attention span. Could we be tempted by Melania Trump’s strategically ambiguous jacket back message, “I really don’t care. Do U?”

The issues of immigration are just so complex. “Zero Tolerance” sounds so simple compared to deep compassion. “Believing the Bible” on “obeying the government” seems easier than walking with Jesus in the midst of all kinds of people in pain. But Jesus kept on walking.  He went from village to village, encountering needs, facing opposition, finally to arrest and the cross.

Then disciples were tempted to turn away, give up, get on with their own lives. But the faithful women who came to the tomb with no expectations of success over deathly actions, were shown that Jesus rose again.

So we walk on with Jesus, all the way. There are so many more complexities to come: reunification of thousands; the rise of the private prison industrial complex; refugee issues not just on our southern border, but globally; violence in Central America.  And what about gun violence in the United States? And those brave high school students who this Spring were challenging change: #NeverAgain?  And? And?

In Christ we have the strength for a long attention span.

June 5 and 6 1968 and 2018: Hope in the Darkness

So many thoughts and feelings swirl around my head and heart that I don’t know where to start this June 5 and 6. Fifty years ago Bobby Kennedy won the California Democratic Primary June 5 and then was assassinated, dying June 6. Two million people lined the railroad tracks for his funeral procession from New York City to Washington D.C., all races and economic classes, honoring a man whom they saw as being able to bridge divisions, and bring hope in that dark and dangerous 1968. Over 4000 gather today in Arlington Cemetery to remember and ponder “hope.”

It’s dark in Mason City, Iowa, this morning, the kind of day one wants to just pull the covers over one’s head and refuse to feel or face 2018. What do you make of the news? A Supreme Court decision and the ongoing question of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  The Philadelphia Eagles? Invitation to the White House and presidential preoccupation with popularity. Honoring the nation and the flag by kneeling out of commitment to justice for all. Pardoning oneself or service for others? Children of immigrants and refugees separated from their parents as an incentive for their parents to not come to this country. Primary elections, here in Iowa, and yes, again on June 5 in California.

June 6: D Day 1944. A day that changed the world. Our nation together with its allies risking all in service that turned the tide of WW II. Over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy. In 1968, the United States struggled over the Viet Nam War and we were torn apart over racial and economic inequality.  And 2018? Do we understand what is at stake in nuclear negotiations globally? Do we believe trade wars with allies protect our “God-given” national identity? Do we comprehend the necessity of a vital United Nations as much today as after WW II? Do we daily kneel and listen and work to understand each other across racial divides?

So we wonder. Issues swirl around. Is there an absence of hope? An anxiety? An apathy? What will the November 5^th election results mean? In some places there were large turnouts; in some places fewer than 100 people in a county voted.

June 5: the 58^th anniversary of my consecration as a deaconess. That day I made a commitment to faith and service in Christ for a lifetime. What would that mean? I would not fully know. We cannot know, but God knows and continues to call us. The days have been dark before and divisions dangerous. We pray for wisdom for the choices that are before us these days and for the courage and energy to live into the challenges together.

Distant Relatives! What Does That Have to do with Pentecost?

Jackie, my first cousin, came with her mother to my daddy’s funeral in 1950 when I was 11. That was probably the only time Jackie and I ever saw one another. She, oldest of nine children, lived in Texas; I in Iowa.  Separated by time and space.

Distant relatives. Pentecost.

Jackie died May 4 at the age of 93. Pentecost is Sunday.

Relatives: people “like us.” Pentecost: strangers, gathered from great distances in one place.

DeeDee, a closer relative, sent me Jackie’s obituary and funeral home video from Alto, Texas. I saw pictures of Jackie, for the first time. I didn’t know her; didn’t know as a young woman she sang on  a half-hour radio program in Chicago. I didn’t know she and her husband worked manufacturing airplanes during World War II.

I viewed the video of pictures spanning childhood through the many decades of her life. I related, from a distance. In her face I recognized familiar faces in my family: Aunt Helen, Aunt Ruth, Aunt Dorothy, cousins Beverly, Shirley, Mary, and more.  I met Jackie and also said good-bye and saw that hers was a life of laughter and love.

Throughout my lifetime in the Church I have often wondered, “How is it that we keep connected through the years to brothers and sisters in the faith, people who are not our relatives?  People whose faces do not resemble ours at all?”

Pentecost.  The Church is not a genetic family who look only like us. Church is more than family. It is a Communion.

Acts: When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.

The crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

This Jesus God raised up and all of us are witnesses. 

All who believed were together and had all things in common.

And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

The disciples were surprised.

I’ve often wondered in awe . . .

God creates. God relates.  And God continues to broaden the communion, binding us together in Jesus Christ.  The Spirit surprises us with people who may not resemble us at all, but joins us through adoption, refugee resettlement, immigration, and global justice. In what language are we to listen? What political issue do we need to understand? Whose facial feature is so different and yet heart so similar? I wonder. This Pentecost I may just meet some hungry people who feed the non-hungry? A whole congregation who breaks bread together with glad and generous hearts.

I thank God for Jackie’s life. And I stand in awe.

Five ELCA Women Bishops Elected and Re-Elected!

A powerful weekend of re-elections and elections of five women as synod bishops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Ann  Svennungsen of Minneapolis Synod. Shelley Wickstrom as bishop of Alaska. Election of the first African Descent bishop Patricia Davenport in Southeastern Pennsylvania, election of the second African Descent bishop Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld of South Central Wisconsin, and election of Sue Brineras bishop in Southwest Texas. The Holy Spirit is up to something! Let's dance with her! Congratulations to all!

When We Live in the Midst of History, What Are We Called to Do?

When we live in the midst of history, between the times, we question, doubt and are confused. We live between Easter and Ascension Day, this year April 1 and May 10. We know what happened on Pentecost and after, but the disciples did not. All they knew was that after his suffering, Jesus presented himself alive to his disciples, appearing to them during forty days, telling them not to leave Jerusalem and to wait (Acts 1).

This year we live between the 50^th anniversaries of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, April 4, and June 6, 1968. Looking back, we realize that year was full of turmoil and uncertainty. On March 31 Lyndon B. Johnson, embroiled in the Viet Nam War, announced, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

On April 3, King delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and made plans for a march to be held on April 5. But the evening of April 4 at age 39 he was shot.

During Holy Week 1968 the nation was swept up in grief and anger, named riots. Around 3,500 people were injured, 43 were killed and 27,000 arrested. Would this nation, as violently divided as it had been since the Civil War, survive? We did not know.

Just weeks earlier, the Kerner commission established to investigate the 1967 riots, provided explanations for the deadly upheavals. “Segregation and poverty have created a destructive environment.” “What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” After a summer of turmoil, political uncertainty and violence, Richard Nixon was elected president in November.

I heard a young reporter ask last week, “Were the riots worth it?” That’s not the question.  Any more than “Is the fatigue of the daily news stories unfolding today worth it?” or “Was the disciples’ uncertainty during those 40 days called for?” When you are in the midst of history unfolding, you don’t know what to think or do or feel. Riots were not the plan to be deemed later “worth it” or not. They were the context.

The Fall of 1973 was another such time. I remember it well. October 20 became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus resigned in the same night after refusing Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor appointed to lead the investigation into Nixon’s reelection campaign. News media that night worried on-air about our national Constitutional crisis.

After two years of bitter public debate over the Watergate scandals, President Nixon on August 8, 1974, bowed to pressures from the public and leaders of his party to become the first President in American history to resign. While the President acknowledged that some of his judgments "were wrong," he made no confession of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" with which the House Judiciary Committee charged him.

How do we live in the in-between time, when history is being made?

We live, meanwhile, with the complexities of our daily lives, personal, professional, familial, and ecclesial.

During the uncertainties of the national Constitutional crisis: “How will this turn out?” a Lutheran Church Body, the schism in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod unfolded. The New Orleans convention was in the summer of 1973. On Jan 21, 1974, the students of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis voted 274-92 to “walk out” (until the church body declared which of their professors were being considered false teachers). Then followed the faculty walk out and the beginning of the “Seminary in Exile.”

Lives were changed. Lives are changed. History is changed. How? How do we know? That schism may have contributed eventually to the formation of the ELCA, joining together of the LCA, ALC, and AELC (outcasts of LCMS) in 1988.

What if Johnson had decided to run again? What if King had not been assassinated at age 39? What if Robert Kennedy had been able to win the democratic nomination and Nixon had not won the election in 1968?

What if the disciples had not waited together in Jerusalem, but had scattered?

How do we live in the in-between time, when history is being made?

I, too, have a hard time watching/listening to the news each day. And, to which news stream do I turn? There were fewer channels in 1968; all showed the same pictures of over 100 cities burning.

The disciples were called to wait together in the city of Jerusalem.

Today IS a difficult time, a dangerous time. Investigations, special counsels, constitutional issues, questions: “What is truth?” Indictments, firings, resignations, primaries, mid-term elections, campaign financing. How will this all turn out?  Trade wars or not? Diplomacy or not? Nuclear escalation or not? Bravado. Fear. Can’t we just turn the page of history and find out?

But we are called to live in the midst of history. To wait, yes.  But also, to watch, and to be peace-making, community-building, equality-seeking, truth-telling, witness-bearing, radical Christ-is-alive living disciples. Pentecost is May 20.

A Holy Week to be Freed from Our Foolish Gun-Killing Ways

2018 Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday Procession into Jerusalem coincides with a Valentine’s Day Mass Shooting to yesterday’s March into Washington, D.C.  This year’s Lenten journey of repentance led surprisingly, but surely not unexpectedly, to a “March for Our Lives.”

         This afternoon is the funeral service for my beloved colleague and friend of almost four decades, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Quere, Professor Emeritus of Church History and Theology at Wartburg Theological Seminary. Among his many gifts, Ralph devoted special attention to ministries with youth and to the work of evangelism for the contemporary world.

          This weekend Burton and I are caring for two youth of our own, 11 and 13-year old Jackson and Jennaya Everist, with whom, in our Mason City blizzard, we watched the marches on TV (more than 800 around the world). Jackson and Jennaya processed with Palms in church this morning. The connection was not lost on them. Jennaya prayed at lunch for the marchers and that the voices raised by youth against gun violence might be heard by legislators.

         Ralph Quere, as an historian and teacher of Lutheran Confessions, was never surprised by the human condition of cruelty and violence. And he was always a man of deep faith and great hope. His passion for youth blends with my absolute joy in hearing the voices of youth yesterday. The newscasters who covered the story all day Saturday, for the most part, dropped adult commentary, and let the youth talk. It was good news indeed. Amid excruciating suffering, with clarity and perseverance, the youth spoke. The youth organizers engaged social media—yes—and involved intersectionality. Youth of all colors and economic backgrounds are killed in schools, and on the streets outside of school, and at home. The Lutheran Confessions remind us there are not bad guys with guns and good guys who should buy guns to shoot the bad guys with guns. There are not bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods. We need to be liberated from a killing culture.

        On this Palm Sunday, with a Lent which began with an Ash Wednesday on a deathly Valentine’s Day, we are bid to ponder deeply, and be ready to be awakened from our foolish ways on April 1^st. Easter! Resurrection. Christ is alive.  Ralph Quere lives eternally. We are called to live and to serve and to act and to march for our lives—everyone’s life.

March for Our Lives

NOW! I'm a member of the Silent Generation proud to stand with the students of this generation and the "March for Our Lives" to end gun violence happening right now in Washington D.C., 800 places around the U.S. and the world. It's so important to unite the movement to change the gun culture in order to make schools safe AND the streets, and homes and all communities. We're in this for real change. Now.

"We Know you are a Great Country and that You Can Change"

Last week I had the privilege of speaking (via Zoom) with a class on leadership at the Presbyterian College, University of McGill School of Religious Studies in Montreal, Quebec.  At the end of our engaging conversation on the book, Transforming Leadership (Everist and Nessan) which the students in Montreal had been using as a textbook, I mentioned the Parkland school shooting and how much we could learn from Canada in terms of gun violence. In poignant words they responded with care but also with concern. “We know you are a great country and that you can change.”

Likewise, the Australian delegation, including the prime minister, visiting the United States this week, also noted their care and concern for the United States. They noted how after the horrendous Port Arthur massacre in 1996 that country adopted sweeping reforms to that country’s gun laws.

After a massacre at Dunblane Primary School, Scotland, in 1996, there have been no school shootings in the UK. Gun restrictions now are much, more strict. Children feel safe in school.

Today Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of America’s largest sporting goods retailers, is immediately ending its sales of assault-style weapons and high capacity magazines. They will also require customers buying firearms to be at least 21 years old.  Many businesses are ending their relationships with the NRA. People can make change happen.

This is a great nation, but not one without flaws. To admit that amidst our prominence we have things to learn from other countries may be our most hopeful promise. Those who may admire us also see our glaring, deadly, problems. We can change! They see this. I was humbled by those words from the class in Montreal.

And we hear that from the students in Parkland, Florida. Do you notice they do not refer to their school as just “Douglas High?” That made me wonder just who was this woman after whom the school was named

 Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage and civil rights advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. She became a freelance writer, publishing over a hundred short stories. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass(1947), which redefined the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring (1962).

Marjory Stoneman Douglas lived to 108 and received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perhaps the students returning today to the high school named in her honor have received some of her eloquence, persistence, and outspoken political advocacy for the public good.  We can learn. We can change.

Did You See the Woman with Ashes Mourning the 17 Dead?

Did you see her? The woman in Parkland, FL, her forehead marked in ashes with the sign of the cross, in tears holding another woman in agony over the deathly shooting of 17? It was Ash Wednesday. We had wondered about Ash Wednesday falling on Valentines’ Day. Now hearts were broken. We questioned why a nation could endure 18 school shootings already in 2018 and not repent, turn from its gun violent ways.

The day after, one can discern clearly the congressional/presidential messages from people that call for prayers but omit any call for regulation on guns being the same people who have received millions from the NRA. “Now is not the time” will no longer suffice. We have entered Lent. For real.

Have you been watching the Olympics? I have. All those nations participating in the opening ceremonies. Together. The United States had the largest delegation, but even the smallest nation mattered. Their athletes were honored. Peaceful coexistence envisioned, as both Koreas carried their one banner and the torch together. Of course, the world questioned if this was for real. Could it become the norm?

In the United States we are now asking if all the school shootings since Columbine have become the norm. We know how to do the liturgies of lament: the flowers and teddy bears, the candlelight vigils. We cry together and support one another. We pledge we will turn from our violent ways. Good, determined people put forth legislation, organize, but progress is blocked, and we grow hopeless of winning against powerful forces.  People resign themselves to saying that “Some young people are just evil.” There will be more school shootings. Nothing can be done.

Have you been hearing? A phrase by U.S. Olympic news reporters this year? “Redemption.” Oh, not Lent to Easter Sunday Redemption of Jesus Christ, marked on the woman’s forehead with the ashen cross.  It has seemed to do with slipping away from viewing all athletes coming into the stadium to focusing only on U.S. athletes who win or should win gold. Yes, there are some heart-warming stories of those who lost or couldn’t compete four years ago who won this year. “Olympic Redemption!” It’s an old American story: those who, by their own boot straps, worked their way to the top of the podium.

And then there is the image of the woman with the ashen cross on her forehead in anguish over the 17 dead, 14 wounded in the 3000 student-body school in mourning. Why, literally on earth, are we the nation, who has thought of ourselves as the “Redeemer” to the world, the only country with so many guns and so many school shootings? Valentine’s Day is past. Lent has really begun. May we wear that cross of ashes in public all these forty days, while holding each other in anguish and while daring to summon Olympian courage together to change this nation for real.

The Challenge of Living in an Adversarial Culture

People want to know how to live in this argumentative, adversarial time when the goal seems to be only to win rather than to jointly seek the truth. 

For the past two weeks I led Wednesday Night Alive sessions at Trinity Lutheran Church here in Mason City (IA) based on my book, Church Conflict:from Contention to Collaboration (Abingdon). The conversation among these adults was amazing! Engaging, deep, astute, attuned not only to conflict in the church, but in the culture. 

We dealt with (book chapters)
THE NATURE OF CONFLICT
1. Images of Conflict
2. Types 
3. Patterns of conflict
4. Personal History of Conflict
5. Roles in Conflict
RESPONSES TO CONFLICT (There is a negative and positive side to each)
6. Avoidance
7. Confrontation
8. Competition
9. Control
10. Accommodation
11. Compromise
12. Collaboration

The challenges change over time, but call forth our most skilled leadership now more than ever.

Even the Smallest Children Lead the Liturgy

Silently the children entered the sanctuary. First came the pre-school children, then grade by grade through 8th, over 200, all sizes and tones of colors, came for Friday morning mass at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church.  A sixth-grade boy announced the service was beginning. His class would lead today. The entire parish school takes turns leading week by week, including the kindergarten. This was the people’s mass and all were totally engaged. It was a full hour-long service with children leading every part, except for the presiding/preaching priest.

The reverent silence quickly turned to the beautiful sound of children’s voices filling the sanctuary: opening hymn, confession, Kyrie, Gloria, lessons, sung Psalm verses.  The music of the liturgy was central. There was singing and signing, all by heart, coming from the heart.

Numerous sixth grade children had carefully prepared their leadership roles of reading lessons, composing prayers, providing the choir for the day, (I understand when younger children lead, reading may be a bit slower, but lead they do!) In communal worship, all take their part. No one is mere audience.

The Liturgy is the work of the people. This reverence was not duty but the rhythm of joy. When it came time for the Eucharist, all knelt, the eyes of the youngest barely peering over the top of the pew in front of them. And then they came forward, many crossing their arms for a blessing, older children to receive the bread, and older still for bread and wine.  But all were part of this most holy communion.  And this most holy community.  

The Issue is More Than Obscenities

Today is the 8^th anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. Today the world is enraged that the president of the United States yesterday asked why we should accept more immigrants from s----hole countries of El Salvador, Haiti and Africa rather than from places like Norway. Monday is Martin Luther King Day. What will you be doing that day?

We have known of Trump’s racist outlook from his many previous words and actions. But it is not enough to say someone is racist. This lens of viewing some of God’s created, beloved people as inferior and of no worth has consequences. It creates policy in the United States and globally for years to come.

Words matter. Relationships matter. Consider how many Africans arrived in the U.S. during the Atlantic slave trade. (Does Trump not know Nigerians don’t live in huts?) Consider the hundreds of thousands who died in the Haiti earthquake, and the spirit of the people of Haiti, (See the book, A Witness: The Haiti Earthquake, a Song, Death, and Resurrection by Renee Splichal Larson, whose young husband, Ben, was killed in the earthquake) And did you know that Haiti helped us in the U.S. Revolutionary War?

The Jan 15^th issue of “The New Yorker” magazine cover artwork features Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “taking a knee” in prayer, arms linked with NFL football players. What will you be doing and saying MLK day? Where will you be?

To be focused only on the obscenities of Donald Trump is not enough. We are called to be vigilant of the policies (those in the news and not) being put in place. We are called to deeply understand the issues and their intersection. We are called to be astute to global implications. We are called to care. Yes, about people’s fears, so they can be freed from their deep prejudices.  We are called to care for those who have suffered and suffer still. And we are called to have the courage to speak, lest disdain and dismissal of nations and peoples become the norm in speech and policy. Do we have the kindness and courage and wisdom for that? What will you say today?  What will you be doing on Martin Luther King Day?

Different Times for film "Unrest"

My previous blog told about the film "Unrest" to be broadcast" Monday January 8.  I just discovered that in some places it is being broadcast at a variety of times during the week of January 8-14, so please CHECK YOUR LOCAL PBS LISTING including the PBS WORLD channel. 

In Iowa it will be broadcast Wed, Jan 10 at 7:30 on World

When is Resting Never Enough?

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SoSome of you know that I live with a disability, the mysterious, debilitating chronic disease, ME/CFS, myalgic encephalomyelitis.  I have lived with this disease for 35 years. I have a disease; I am not my disease.  Its cause is still unknown. No cure is available. And it is terribly misunderstood. 

I urge you to watch a film called "Unrest" which premieres on Independent Lens  on PBS Monday night, January 8, 10 p.m. EST, 9 p.m. CST (check your local listings.) Here is the description:

(San Francisco, CA) — Filmmaker Jennifer Brea was a Harvard PhD student soon to be engaged when she was struck down by a mysterious fever that left her bedridden. As her illness progressed she lost even the ability to sit in a wheelchair, yet her doctors insisted it was "all in her head." Unable to convey the seriousness and depth of her symptoms to her doctor, Jennifer began a video diary on her phone that eventually became the powerful and intimate documentary, Unrest. Written, directed, and produced by Brea, Unrest premieres on Independent Lens Monday, January 8, 2018, 9:00 to 10:30 CST on PBS.

Once Jennifer was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), she and her new husband, Omar, were left to grapple with how to shape a future together in the face of a lifelong illness. Refusing to accept the limitations of life in bed, Jennifer embarks on an online voyage around the world where she finds a hidden community of millions who have disappeared from their own lives, confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME. Using the internet, Skype, and Facebook, these disparate people connect with each other, finding a much-needed sanctuary of support and understanding.

At its core, Unrest is a love story. Though Jennifer and Omar may never live the life they originally dreamed about, together they find resilience, strength, and meaning in each other and their new-found community. Says Brea: “It’s my hope that in sharing this world and these people I have come to profoundly love, that we can build a movement to transform the lives of patients with ME, accelerate the search for a cure, and bring a greater level of compassion, awareness, and empathy to millions upon millions of patients and their loved ones wrestling with chronic illness or invisible disabilities.”

“As experts struggle to figure out what causes chronic fatigue syndrome, Jennifer’s film opens a window into what it’s like to live with this devastating illness,” said Lois Vossen, Executive Producer of Independent Lens. “This brave and fearless film introduces us to this community of millions of ‘missing’ people who have lost all normal functions to ME, and is a powerful demand that more be done to understand and cure a terrible disease.”

Unrest made its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and has been independently distributed with the support of Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Fellowship. Visit the Unrest page on Independent Lens for more information about the film, which will be available for online viewing on the site beginning January 9.

About the Filmmaker

Jennifer Brea (Director/Writer/Producer) is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has an AB from Princeton University and was a PhD student at Harvard until a sudden illness left her bedridden. In the aftermath, she rediscovered her first love, film. Her feature documentary, Unrest, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won a Special Jury Prize. She is also co-creator of Unrest VR, winner of the Sheffield Doc/Fest Alternate Realities Award. An activist for invisible disabilities and chronic illness, she co-founded a global advocacy network, #MEAction, and is a TED Talker.

About Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)

 A condition characterized by post-exertional malaise (a severe worsening of symptoms after even minimal exertion), ME causes dysregulation of both the immune system and the nervous system. The effects are devastating enough to leave 25% of patients homebound or bedbound. An estimated 15-30 million people around the world suffer from ME, approximately 75-85% of them women, and 80-90% of them undiagnosed.