I Don't Like the Word SPLIT

I have some pretty strong beliefs - about my own political party,  my spirituality my family members, and society in general.

In all of these areas folks tend to describe themselves by the ideologies of Traditionalists ("Let's do it the way it[s always been done,') the Centrists, and the Progressives ("In light of our continuing to evolve as a specifies, let's look at this in a whole new way.")

But, because of my spiritual beliefs,  I have this - what many people would call - Pollyanna - idea that we, all of these groups, could learn how to co-exist on this, our increasingly fragile planet.

That means I need to accept folks the way they are.  I admit it's hard to do in this time of deep division - and especially when people in other camps are trying to change me - or kill me.  You know the expression "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people are not out to get you?"  I know it's real, scary and complicated.

So, in the world I live in as a United Methodist, I am thrilled that, in trying to honor our various expressions of belief, a cadre of international leaders has developed a plan to keep all of us under one umbrella, even though, world wide, we are divided into these camps..  How could this possibly be?

The media and other groups are calling this plan a split.  But it's not.  The mediation process is called: A Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation.

• No one has to vote to leave the church.
• No one is being asked to leave the church.
• The United Methodist Church, under our symbol,  the cross and flame, will continue to be in ministry around the world.

Last Sunday our Florida bishop, Ken Carter, preached in our church and, since he likes to hike, explained the process like a walk.  A walk in the woods.  Besides being our bishop, he is also the head of the Council of Bishops.  That is the UMC, world wide!  The whole shebang.

So, how did this plan of reconciliation through separation come about?  They sought out an expert in mediation and they found Ken Feinberg, who mediated the September 11th Victim's Compensation Fund, the Virginia Tech and Boston Marathon Victims, and the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster, to name a few.  He's also Jewish and has no personal stake in this plan. Oh, and he offered his professional advice pro bono.  

It was unanimously affirmed by these church leaders from around the world.

This is not yet finished, because, like our government, the UMC is a bureaucracy.  But unlike other groups around the world, this plan doesn't pick sides or encourage me to hate and destroy everyone who doesn't think like I do.  

It does just the opposite.  As my friend Trish, just texted me, "There are so many shades of grey...the sweet spot is surrounded by them."

It's not a split. 

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Like Father Like Son?

Yesterday, Martin Luther King, Jr. day,  I read a number of articles about MLK, Jr., as I usually do.  For the first time in ages I did not read the "Dream," speech but I did see something in the paper that I'd never known.

James Cunningham wrote an insightful column for the Orlando Sentinel in which he told us that MLK Sr, on a trip to Europe in 1934, was moved by Martin Luther, the monk and theologian who spoke truth to power in the Catholic Church which subsequently led to the Protestant Reformation.  This act of extreme bravery also sparked reform within the Catholic Church at that time.

Martin Luther King was born Micheal King, but was so inspired by his experience he changed his name.  Later his son,  also Michael, changed his name to Martin Luther King, Jr.  This was all news to me!

Is the phrase "Like father, like son" a truism?  It's way more complicated than that.  MLK, Sr., famously chose not to endorse John Kennedy for president because he was Catholic.  Kennedy responded with amusement and surprise that MLK, Jr.'s father was a bigot but later won him over.  I read an article decades ago that Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Kennedy had a conversation and agreed that their father's generation  would have to die out before things could truly move ahead.

So, what's my take on all this?  Our parent's values usually have a profound effect on us whether we know it or not.  In order to seek maturity we need to hold on to our parents' values that ring true to us and dump the rest.

We are constantly evolving and moving forward can be a lonely process.

A few decades ago I received a kind note from Martin Luther King, Sr.  telling me that he had read a couple of my poems from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church.  I was grateful but not overly thrilled because I was unaware at that time of his powerful influence for good in his son's journey.  I had come to a simplistic, uninformed conclusion that he was a stumbling block for process.  I wasn't aware that he, as Mike King, chose to change his name after being inspired by the one individual man who changed history by sparking the Protestant Revolution.

Evolving is scary and takes time.  I'm still working on it.


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Thad Seymour - Larger Than Life

Last night as I was reading my latest copy of the Wabash College magazine I  came across a write up on Thad Seymour, who died this past October.  He was the president of Wabash for 9 years and then was president of Rollins College here in Winter Park, Florida for 12 years.  Prior to that he served as dean at Dartmouth for 10 years.
Quite an academic pedigree.

But that's not what set him apart.  He was unique. He was perpetually full of fun and made every person he met feel important.

He was one of the most dynamic men I've ever known and, while I didn't know him as well as many others, I was fortunate to know him both at Wabash in Indiana and Rollins here in Florida.  Nobody lit up a room like Thad Seymour.  Wabash is a men's college and once you're there, you're family forever.  My husband, Ken, was a graduate and, he like every Wabash man I've ever met, was beyond passionate about his school to the very end - as well as being passionate about Thad Seymour.

Thad Seymour came to Wabash during rough times in our country.  Colleges students were protesting the Viet Nam war and demanding equal rights.  Among other things, Thad established the Malcolm X Institute for Black Studies.  It's still going strong.

He made a stab at the college going co-ed but that could not be accomplished.  Even Ken who called himself a feminist (like me) wouldn't go for that.  But Thad Seymour did oversee the hiring of the first female faculty members.  I wasn't sure Ken and other alums could survive this - but Thad charmed them through it.

He and his wife Polly mingled with students at parties and mixers.  Did he lecture them?  No.  He did magic tricks.  Wabash was not financially stable when he arrived but he totally turned that around.  He did the same thing when he arrived at Rollins.  He was immensely popular with students at both schools.

One time when he was new at Rollins, Thad and Polly hosted a party in their back yard for the visiting Wabash basketball team.  Faculty and students from both schools were there.  What I'll always remember was what they served -  a big vat of tomato soup and folded over baloney sandwiches. (It's an Indiana thing.)

Famous photo of Thad Seymour
leading football cheer at
Wabash College. 

A couple of decades later when David come down from Minnesota to visit his new girlfriend (me) I took him on a March for Obama led by Thad Seymour.  (David was a republican at the time but still had a fun afternoon and he too, was totally charmed by Thad.)

After Rollins Thad began his next career.  He founded Habitat for Humanity in Winter Park and Maitland and for the next 30 years or so he and Polly built houses. He was dynamic even into his 90s.

So, how did he affect my life?  In the 70s Ken and I were overwhelmed with his presence at Wabash. In the 80s he overwhelmed us with his presence in Winter Park.  Over the last three decades I saw him often at both Colleges and on Habitat projects.  And this past fall, in 2019, my grandson, Jack, became a freshman at Wabash College.  He was amazed at seeing the Malcolm X Institute for Black Studies at this small college in a tiny town in Indiana.

And, even though Thad's left us, his son and name sake, Thad Seymour, Jr. is the interim president at The University of Central Florida, the second largest university in the U.S.

So the legacy carries on.


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I Am Not a Religious Talker

I don't generally use "religious" words.  And I don't like platitudes - declarative, overused praises that shut down conversation.  "God will take care of you."  "Just pray about it."

I like to use words that everybody understands, words that open up conversation in a way that's safe and encouraging.

So that's why it was surprising to several people, including me, that, first of all, I led the decision in Forum on Sunday morning, and second, I zeroed in on the word "Redemption."

Several months ago a friend gave me a book titled A Grace Disguised, How the Soul Grows Through Loss.  I wasn't sure about this book until she told me it was "harsh."  That intrigued me.  The author is a long time professor, and highly credentialed religious leader and writer.  But the book is about his own tragic, instantaneous loss and how excruciating it was.  And no platitudes or religious words could touch it.  It was massive.  He could easily have claimed the prize for greatest loss.

Except he spends the first chapter letting us know that it's not a contest.  Every single one of us who's reached maturity has experienced catastrophic loss; meaning the results are permanent.

So it was interesting to me that the rest of the book (and a later sequel) zeroed in on the word Redemption.  And even the author, Jerry Sittser, said, We don't usually ask people  How's your redemption going?  It would make us appear insufferably religious and weird.

My take-away regarding this word was that, one, it's not about happiness.  Happiness is a by-product. But it is about growth and empowerment.  And, as many of you know, empowerment is one of my favorite words.

Okay how do I get me some of this empowerment?  The guys and gals in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, got it directly from God, and even then it was difficult.  Because, like you and me, these people were wounded, messed up and flawed.  Again, like you and me.

Jonah and Elijah were  Old Testament prophets who got their direction directly from God.  No middle man.  But let's face it, these two were clinically depressed their entire lives.  (Remember Shirley MacLaine in Steel Magnolias when she said I'm not crazy.  I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years.

That describes Jonah to a T.  In the end of his story he had done what God told him to do but he was still in a bad mood.

We don't usually get messages straight from God.  At least I don't.  And folks who say they do scare me.  But we do get messages from unlikely "Christ figures."  Somebody's words and actions empower us.  For instance, one of my favorite theologians, Richard Rohr, dedicated his book "The Universal Christ" to his dog Venus, who he unapologetically described as being Christ to him.

Several folks in Forum had great insights and examples of how another person had empowered them to carry on in various ways.  I told my favorite story of how my brother Paul's life was saved by his wife, Sandy's tough love.  So for the next 45 years or so Paul was in ministry with other men in a most powerful, difficult way.

Here's my take-away.  We are all wounded, messed up and flawed.  But, despite that and possibly because of that,  we can still be instruments of healing and empowerment.

And we usually even find pockets of happiness along the way.

So, how's your redemption going?


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Small Kindnesses

So I was in Atlanta to be with my daughter and family over the Christmas holidays.  Wasn't feeling up to snuff but it was fun to be there, nevertheless.

On Christmas Eve a neighbor called to say they had extra guests for their Hanukkah dinner and ran out of chairs.  Within five minutes they saw my grandchildren at their front door, each carrying a dining room chair.  Fortunately we didn't need the chairs because we ate in the family room in big overstuffed chairs with me wrapped in a comforter.

I love the New York Times Magazine so my daughter saves them for me.  What a bedtime treat.   I love Judge John Hodgman's column "The Ethicist."  He doesn't offer advice, he delivers justice. The topic could be Bar Trivia, Cat Taxidermy or Office Baking Contests.

But a big surprise to me was a poem I read on Christmas Eve.  You know how I feel about civility and how we need it even more desperately these days, at every level of society.  It's truly a huge part of my basic faith system. The poem is by Danusha Lameris, poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.  It's a great reminder for all of us leading into 2020.

SMALL KINDNESSES

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk 
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by.  Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague.  "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up.  Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it.  To smile
at them and for them to smile back.  For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire.  Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat."  "Go ahead - you first."  "I like your hat."

Danusha Lameris

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Google vs. Old School

My minister, David Miller, occasionally refers to Google in his sermons but always references it as "Google, The Source of All Knowledge."  It always gets a little laugh because everybody knows that it's complicated and not always totally without bias.

But this week I noticed the water pressure at my kitchen sink was weak.  My first thought was "Oh, oh, there's a slow leak somewhere in the pipes and soon the place will be flooded and I'll have to move out for several months while my condo's being gutted and rebuilt."

But then I decided to Google it and discovered what was probably wrong and how to fix it and, after watching an attached YouTube video, I fixed it!

But at the other end of the spectrum are books and fine art and such that I want to see "hands on."  Like in a library or a museum.  A while back a friend of mine gave me a "Page-A-Day" calendar containing great works of art.  It's "old school."  I have to manually (what a bother) change the page every day.  I love this calendar.  Every day is a beautiful surprise.

Yesterday was my birthday.  When I changed the page I saw this painting by the Italian portrait painter Vittorio Matteo Corcos.  It was done in 1896 and hangs in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.   It's titled Dreams.  I guess since it was my birthday I was taken by this young woman who probably had big dreams.  It made me think of my own big dreams as a young woman.  I hope hers were fulfilled.

And later, of course,  I Googled it and discovered I could buy a coffee mug with her likeness on it.  Practical but not whimsical.


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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

A few weeks ago my niece, Sheri, sent me a copy of this New York Times bestseller.  It's a weird and painful take on a weird and pain filled life of a 29 year old women.  She is horribly wounded and terribly lonely.

The book is also incredibly funny.

Eleanor has no social skills and no sense of humor whatsoever and is clumsy, at best, in her communication with others.  She finds it imperative to tell people what she thinks but is totally closed off about herself.  She has a job but no friends and has "completely fine" weekends in her apartment drinking vodka until she passes out.

One of my favorite lines is when she finds herself in an old lady's apartment.  She describes the kitchen this way.  ...and there was a large calendar with a lurid photograph of two kittens in a basket.  

(This reminded me of myself getting after David for sending checks to so many causes because of the photos of sad children and puppies on the appeal.)  

Eleanor does not care for show tunes.  How do we know this?  Here is her description:

There is no such thing as hell, of course, but if there was, then the sound track to the screaming, the pitchfork action and the infernal wailing of damned souls would be a looped medley of "show tunes" drawn from the annals of musical theater.  The complete oeuvre of Lloyd Webber and Rice would be performed, without breaks, on a stage inside the fiery pit, and an audience of sinners would be forced to watch-and listen-for eternity.  

 In the beginning we don't see how she can possibly be fixed, but eventually Eleanor is befriended by an awkward but kind man named Raymond who opens the door to Eleanor's new life.  It's hard and she almost dies before choosing to be healed.

This is a fantastic book for folks who've suffered childhood traumas that most normal people cannot imagine.  Eleanor finally faces the reality of an evil mother who is still controlling her.  And, in turn, finally is strong enough to put a stop to it.

Did I say that this is an incredibly funny book?

Reese Witherspoon thinks so and is teaming up with MGM to produce the film about our Eleanor.


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