Please - Read from this History Book

Greetings,

      As we went through the boxes from Roberta’s father’s apartment, we found a book which belonged to Roberta’s mother.  It was a history textbook which she had used at the Girl’s Latin School entitled History of the American People by David Saville Muzzey, Professor of History at Columbia University, published in 1929.  I was intrigued by the closing paragraphs of the book in which Dr. Muzzey, one of the most respected historians in the nation, commented on the state of the nation and the work and challenge before the high school students of that era.  His concerns are more than valid, indeed, he qualifies as a prophet.  The warnings are even more pertinent for this generation of students.  (It is also amazing to find a quote from “Silent Cal,” and to find that it is even appropriate.)  I urge you to take the time to read and carefully consider all of the implications of this message for us today.

“The Foes of our own Household.”     This rich and powerful Republic has no fear of foes from without.  But there are dangers that threaten within.  We are a wasteful people in the midst of our abundance, consuming the resources which we should be conserving for a future generation.  It is estimated that the hasty plundering of our mines, oil fields, and forests entails an annual waste of 750,000,000 tons of coal, 1,000,000,000 barrels of oil, 600,000,000,000 cubic feet of natural gas, and 5,000,000,000 cubic feet of lumber.  Strikes and lockouts, preventable illness and accidents, the maladjustment of labor supply to labor demand, result in the unemployment of about 15 per cent of the man power of the nation, and fully another 15 per cent of the workers are engaged in the manufacture of useless luxuries to flatter our vanity, or positively harmful “goods.”  More than three million people a year are made sick by food alterations; another million are drug addicts; and no one knows how numerous are the dupes of the patent medicines, cure-alls, and beautifiers which have made us the victims of “the gaudiest collection of quacks in the world’s history.”  Our preoccupation with material success threatens to blind us to the value of the patient, honest cultivation of mind and character.  The conquest of the forces of nature has far outrun the organization of intelligence.  If we have the enviable record of leading the world in economic prosperity, we have also the unenviable record of leading the world in recklessness, instability, and crime.  Every year our losses by preventable fires exceed the cost of the Panama Canal.  Fatal accidents claim one victim every five minutes.  The number of suicides mounts steadily (12,061 in 1925).  The losses paid by burglary insurance companies have increased 600 per cent in the last decade.  The number of divorces granted in the United States was 56,000 in 1900 and 175,000 in 1925 – or one divorce for every 6.7 marriages in the latter year, a ratio one and a half times as high as that of France and Japan, and more than fifteen times as high as that of England.  Murders increased in this country from 7878 in 1924 to 11,287 in 1925, when there were twenty- times as many as in England and Wales. 

American Ideals.     These are appalling facts.  They are sicknesses in the body of the nation and, like illness in the human body, they must be realized to be remedied.  If our Republic ever fails to fulfill the high hopes of the men who founded it and who sustained it in the days of weakness and trial, the fault will be with a generation that has lost the inspiration of their ideals.  We shall continue to go through the forms of democratic government in vain if we lose the sense of responsibility, individual and collective, which is the cement which prevents freedom from crumbling into license.  The fathers set up an ideal of liberty within the wholesome restraint of law, and “free government,” in the words of President Coolidge, “has no greater menace than disrespect for authority and continual violation of the law.”  They conceived of a Republic in which the opportunity to make the most of one’s talent and industry should be open to all, irrespective of birth, creed, or condition.  They forbade Congress to prohibit the free exercise of religion or to abridge the freedom of speech or of the press.  They declared that no person should be deprived of the rights of life, liberty, and property without due process of the law.  They expressly reserved to the people of the states the exercise of powers not specifically delegated to the central government, never meaning to interfere with local self-government or personal freedom.  These are the principles of American democracy, and they must be respected if America is to continue to be a land of liberty. 

Passing the Torch.     Paraphrasing the words of Abraham Lincoln, the teacher of American history today says to the boys and girls in the classrooms of our broad land, “In your hands, my young fellow students and citizens, lies the future of our country.”  If the coming generation is a little more faithful to the ideals of economy, industry, and honesty, of order, freedom, and disinterested service than the present generation has been, then we shall be going forward toward the fulfillment of the destinies of the Republic.  If the coming generation is a little less faithful to these ideals, then we shall be headed down the road to degeneracy, defeat, decay.  Could there be a more inspiring call than the stake of America’s very life and honor for the youth of our schools to pledge themselves to study her past history with diligence in order that they may judge her present policies with understanding and meet her future problems with courage!  A feature of the ancient Greek games was the relay race, in which the runner at the end of his lap handed on the lighted torch to his successor.  It is a parable of all education and a symbol of ever renewing life.  The torch of our history was kindled at the sacred altar of liberty.  Let it be your pledge and mine to bear it

            High like a beacon,

            Till our strong years be sped

            And sinews weaken;

            Till others in our stead

            Take from our loosening hand

            The torch full-streaming which we pass at Death’s command.

+      +      +      +      +      +      +      +      +      +      +

      This is also a challenge to both political parties and all of our elected officials and candidates for elected office.  However, the real challenge is to those of us who have a witness to make, who have truth and justice to uphold, who have peace to make and who have a Savior to proclaim and an eternal, resurrected life to share. 

Yours & His,

DED

The Nature of Heaven

Greetings,

      From the modern easy grace of Ann Weems yesterday to old and have to read carefully Edmund Spenser.  But the effort is worthwhile.  Read and reread and meditate upon it.

      From Spenser’s  The Faerie Queene, II,  Canto VIII, 1 and 2.

And is there care in heaven? and is there love

      In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move?

      There is: else much more wretched were the case

      Of men, than beasts.  But, O! th’exceeding grace

Of highest God, that loves his creatures so,

      And all his works with mercy doth embrace,

That blessed angels he sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,

      To come to succor us, that succor want?

How oft do they with golden pinions cleave

      The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,

      Against foul fiends to aid us militant?

They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

      And their bright squadrons round about us plant,

And all for love, and nothing for reward:

O! why should heavenly God to men have such regard?

      We give thanks to God for such love and care for us, and to quote one of Spenser’s contemporaries we pray, “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us.”

Yours & His,

DED

God’s Holy People

Greetings,

      The contemporary poet Ann Weems has an expressive way of conveying the Truth for today.  I find a vital connection between the thoughts of John Chrysostom in yesterday’s e-mail and Weems’ challenge for us today.

God’s Holy People

Here we are, you and I,

      called to be God’s Holy People.

You say you’re not the holy type,

      but I’m not talking about holier-than-thou.

            I’m not talking about religious ritual,

and the last thing I mean is self-righteousness!

Jesus chastised the self-righteous,

      the ones who spent their days doing religious thin

the ones who spent so much time in religious ritual

      that they didn’t have time for tenderheartedness.

I’m not talking about them;

      I’m talking about us.

I’m talking about paying attention

      to the things Jesus taught people,

            ordinary people, people like you, people like me

Look at the disciples: ordinary people

      called to follow,   

            called to be God’s Holy People,

called to live in this world with tender hearts.

Live holy lives…impossible?

Is anything impossible to God?

That old woman Sarah thought it impossible

      to have a child…

The lepers thought it impossible

      to be healed…

The disciples thought it impossible

      to feed five thousand with two loaves and

            five fishes…

Mary and Martha thought it impossible

      that their brother Lazarus was alive…

The lame thought it impossible to walk…

The blind thought it impossible to see…

Here we are, ordinary people,

      called to be the Holy People of God.

If you have eyes to see and ears to hear,

      see and hear God’s holiness in your life.

Yours & His,

DED

Our Role for Christ

Greetings,

      In our modern state of education, science, sophistication, and cultural diversity we have often lost sight of the basic truths which are the foundation of Christianity.  Because we no longer use that “old, formal, theological” language, we also tend to not read or to dismiss the writings of the great leaders of the Church from the past.  I certainly agree that in order to reach the current young generations we must use language which they understand and are willing to listen to, as well as the images and media which speaks to them.

      At the same time we must understand that the power of the Church to carry out the Will of Christ, our Head, is dependent upon our faithfulness to, and witness to those essential truths about Christ the Truth.  I would offer the following reflections on one of those truths.

      The Risen Christ has ascended to heaven, and we, the Body of Christ, are here to carry on the battles in the war against evil which Christ has already won.

      A shield before me is God.

      “I renounce thee, Satan.”  What has happened?  What is this strange and unexpected turn of events?  Although you were all quivering with fear, did you rebel against your master?  Did you look with scorn upon his cruelty?  Who has brought you to such madness?  Whence came this boldness of yours? “I have a weapon,” you say, “a strong weapon.”  What weapon, what ally?  Tell me!  “I enter into thy service, O Christ,” you reply.  “Hence, I am bold and rebel.  For I have a strong place of refuge.  This has made me superior to the demon, although heretofore I was trembling and afraid.  Therefore, I not only renounce him but also all his pomps.”

                                                                                                John Chrysostom   (Fourth century)

      Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil.  

                                                                                                                                                                 (Ephesians 6:11)

      Let us, therefore, take courage and strip ourselves for the contests.  Christ has put on us armor that is more glittering than any gold, stronger than any steel, hotter and more violent than any fire, and lighter than any breath of air.  The nature of this armor does not burden and bend our knees, but it gives wings to our limbs and lifts them up.  If you wish to take flight to heaven, this armor is no hindrance.  It is a new kind of armor, since it is a new kind of combat.

      Although I am human, I must aim my blows at demons; although clad in flesh, my struggle is with incorporeal powers.  On this account God has made my breastplate not from metal but from justice; God has prepared for me a shield which is made not of bronze but of faith.  I have, too, a sharp sword, the word of the Spirit.

                                                                                                John Chrysostom   (Fourth century)

      Take up the armor and the sword, for the battle continues today.

Yours & His,

DED

John the Baptist

Greetings,

      June 24 is the feast of the Birth of John the Baptist.  I certainly realize that most Protestants have ignored the various commemorations of the lives of the great leaders of the people of God.  However, to learn from these great people of faith is to profit from their experience and to be inspired by their teachings, their sacrifices, and their lives.  The following is from a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop:

      The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event.  We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it is significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and Jesus.  This day cannot be passed by.  And even if my explanation does not match the dignity of the feast, you may still meditate on it with great depth and profit.

      John was born of a woman too old for childbirth; Christ was born of a youthful virgin.  The news of John’s birth was met with incredulity, and his father as struck dumb.  Christ’s birth was believed, and he was conceived through faith.

      Such is the topic, as I have presented it, for our inquiry and discussion.  But as I said before, if I lack either the time or the ability to study the implications of so profound a mystery, he who speaks within you even when I am not here will teach you better; it is he whom you contemplate with devotion, whom you have welcomed into your hearts, whose temples you have become.

      John, then, appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new.  That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist.  Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come.  As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother’s womb.  For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary.  In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ’s precursor, before they ever saw one another.  These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty.  Eventually he is born, he receives his name, his father’s tongue in loosened.  See how these events reflect reality.

      Zechariah is silent and loses his voice until John, the precursor of the Lord, is born and restores his voice.  The silence of Zechariah is nothing but the age of prophecy lying hidden, obscured, as it were, and concealed before the preaching of Christ.  At John’s arrival Zechariah’s voice is released, and it becomes clear at the coming of the one who was foretold.  The release of Zechariah’s voice at the birth of John is a parallel to the rending of the veil at Christ’s crucifixion.  If John were announcing his own coming, Zechariah’s lips would not have been opened.  The tongue is loosened because a voice is born.  For when John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked: Who are you?  And he replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.  The voice is John, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word.  John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

         

Yours & His,

DED

The Pilgrim’s Regress

Greetings,

            I have been recommending some books for individuals to read for their spiritual enlightenment, and in particular last week C. S. Lewis’ The Pilgrim’s Regress.  The book is a “pilgrimage allegory” in the style of those by Langland, Bunyan and the old English poem “The Dream of the Rood.”  The central character—the pilgrim—is typically autobiographical, in this book it is John who represents Lewis’ personal pilgrimage to Christianity.   It’s been many years since I last read it through (try 30), but going quickly through it again caused me to recall a passage from the William Griffin book C. S. Lewis: Spirituality for Mere Christians (which was very enjoyable work).  The following is taken from page 61 ff.

            In a sense, Lewis began his work where Bunyan’s left off.  Christian [Bunyan’s pilgrim] had to face every temptation the seventeenth century had to offer.  John, setting out from Puritania [England/home], met, first of all, the eighteenth century in the character of Mr. Enlightenment; in the next seventy-two chapters he would meet personifications of just about every philosophical, literary, and political movement from that time right down to the 1930s.

            To root the allegory somewhere in the theological firmament, there had to be a creation story, and Lewis decided to have Mother Kirk [the Church] tell it to John…There was this Landlord who had a farm.  He “decided to let the county to tenants, and his first tenant was a young married man.”  Under the influence of the Enemy, who was one of the Landlord’s children, the farmer’s wife ate “a nice mountain apple,” something she’d been told not to do.  “And then—you know how it is with husbands—she made the farmer come round to her mind.”…”the sin of Adam”…At this blatant act the Landlord’s gorge rose; there was an earthquake, and the paradisal park became a gorge.

            Having traversed half the world in search of the Landlord, having been beguiled by a variety of temptations and interpretations of existence, but seemingly no closer to the island or mountain of desires, John uttered a cry for help.  He prayed, and “a Man came to him in the darkness” and spoke.

            “Your life has been saved all this day by crying out to something which you call by many names, and you have said to yourself that you used metaphors.”

            “Was I wrong, sir?”

            “Perhaps not.  But you must play fair.  If its help is not a metaphor, neither are its commands.  If it can answer when you call, then it can speak without your asking.  If you can go to it, it can come to you.”

            “I think I see it, sir.  You mean that I am not my own man; in some sense I have a Landlord after all?”

            Like a common criminal to a police sergeant, John turned himself in.  He accepted the veracity of the myth and the credibility of Christianity.  Equanimity restored, he found himself retracing his former steps.  The temptations and interpretations that had so tormented him before, he now saw with clearer eyes.

            Like the yachtsman in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, who’d sailed around the world only to discover that what he sought was on the coast of England, John arrived back in Puritania.  The pilgrimage was within, he concluded; the philosophical battles were fought quite independent of geography; and the many temptations had to be wrestled with on the topsoil of one’s own soul.

           

           

            I have found Lewis’ work not only personally challenging and inspiring, but also very useful in sharing faith with others.  I also love the connectedness one finds between the great Christian writers even when they are dealing with very different topics and out of very different situations.  Truth is Truth.

Yours & His,

DED

The Intersection with God

Greetings,

            Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a French Jewish writer, social and political activist, and religious seeker.  She left her job as a teacher to become a laborer in order to identify with the worker, and later joined the International Brigade against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.  She was forced to flee France in the Second World War, and ended up working for the Free French government in London.  She died at the age of 34 due to an empathetic, forced diet.  Her agnostic, anticlerical position was altered in the latter part of her life by a sincere attraction to Christianity.  Until her death she was torn between the two positions.  Her fascinating writings make clear that she continued “waiting for God.”  This excerpt is from her Waiting on God, English translation (1951), pp. 77f.

            “When we hit a nail with a hammer, the whole of the shock received by the large head of the nail passes into the point without any of it being lost, although it is only a point.  If the hammer and the head of the nail were infinitely big it would be just the same.  The point of the nail would transmit this infinite shock at the point to which it was applied.

            “Extreme affliction, which means physical pain, distress of soul, and social degradation, all at the same time, constitutes the nail.  The point is applied at the very centre of the soul.  The head of the nail is all the necessity which spreads throughout the totality of space and time.

            “Affliction is a marvel of divine technique.  It is a simple and ingenious device which introduces into the soul of a finite creature the immensity of force, blind, brutal, and cold.  The infinite distance which separates God from the creature is \entirely concentrated into one point to pierce the soul in its centre…

            “He whose soul remains ever turned in the direction of God while the nail pierces it, finds himself nailed on to the very centre of the universe.  It is the true centre, it is not the middle, it is beyond space and time, it is God.  In a dimension which does not belong to space, which is not in time, which is indeed quite a different dimension, this nail has pierced a hole through all creation, through the thickness of the screen which separates the soul from God.  In this marvelous dimension the soul, without leaving the place and the instant where the body to which it is united is situated, can cross the totality of space and time and come into the very presence of God.

            “It is at the intersection of creation and its Creator.  This point of intersection is the point of intersection of the branches of the Cross.”

Yours & His,

DED

A Good Beginning and a Good Ending

Greetings,

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, essayist, jurist, and statesman.  He was one of the earliest and most influential supporters of empirical (experimental) science and helped develop the scientific method of solving problems.  The following is from Essays, xxi, “Of Delays.”  It is not easy reading, but it is well worth the effort. 

Fortune is like the market; where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.  And again, it is sometimes like Sibylla’s offer; which at first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and still holdeth up the price.  For occasion (as it is in the common verse) turneth a bald noddle, after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken; or at least turneth the handle of the bottle to be received, and after the belly, which is hard to clasp.  There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.  Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them.  Nay, it were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they came nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep.  On the other side, to be deceived with too long shadows (as some have been when the moon was low and shone on their enemies’ back), and so to shoot off before the time; or to teach dangers to come on, by over early buckling towards them; is another extreme.  The ripeness or unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well weighted; and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argos with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands; first to watch, and then to speed.  For the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel and celerity in the execution.   For when things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.

Yours & His,

DED

Juneteenth

Greetings,

      Today is Juneteenth.  Given our busy schedule this month, we are not having the little celebrations of events and birthdays which we like to have, so we did not have a party this year.  However, we certainly join with our compatriots in celebrating all that this day represents.

      Juneteeneth or June 19, 1865, is considered the date when the last slaves in America were freed. Although the rumors of freedom were widespread prior to this, actual emancipation did not come until General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No. 3, on June 19, 1865, almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  The purpose of those who celebrate this day is "To bring all Americans together to celebrate our common bond of freedom through the recognition, observance and historic preservation of Juneteenth in America."   Many consider this the observance of America's 2nd Independence Day Celebration, the "19th of June,” Juneteenth Independence Day in America. 

            Frederick Douglass wrote (about 1855):

      “What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?  I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.  To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parades and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

      Juneteenth completes the cycle of Independence Day Celebrations in America, in the typical reversal of things which we see so often in the Gospels, beginning with the "4^th of July" and ending with the "19^th of June.”

      Juneteenth first became a state holiday in Texas.  Since then, many states have recognized it.  In the 1940s and 1950s the observance of it lessened, but with the Civil Rights Movement, the day was again lifted up.  In the 1970s and 80s it faded again, but since the 1990s there has again been a renewal of interest in Juneteenth.  Unfortunately there are always those people who use any celebration as the occasion for excessive misbehavior, but the positive message of the end of slavery and the need to recognize the rights of all people is a message to teach to our children and to celebrate throughout our society. 

Juneteenth is a day that stands for the dignity and equality of all citizens, regardless of race, so that all may share the blessings of freedom that America provides. — George W. Bush, presidential message, 2005

We Rose

From Africa’s heart, we rose

Already a people, our faces ebon, our bodies lean,

We rose

Skills of art, life, beauty and family
Crushed by forces we knew nothing of, we rose

Survive we must, we did,
We rose

We rose to be you, we rose to be me,
Above everything expected, we rose

To become the knowledge we never knew,
We rose

Dream, we did
Act we must

Kristina Kay  © 1996, Juneteenth.com

      As we have been talking about the qualities of leadership, this day always reminds me of the times when leaders of both political parties were able to work together to pass meaningful legislation and Constitutional amendments, and to exhibit real leadership through the use of Presidential Proclamations.  How we miss the leadership of Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson (what an unlikely pair).

Yours & His,

DED

Our Heart’s Prayer

Greetings,

Another of William Barclay’s prayers, this one based on the Church of England collect for the Third Sunday after Trinity.

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Epistle: I Peter 5:5-11                                                           Gospel: Luke 15:1-10

O God, our Father, we thank you that you have put into our

hearts the desire to pray.  We thank you that you have made

us such that in any time of trouble we instinctively turn to you.

We thank you that you have given us the gift of prayer,

            that your ear is ever listening

                        to catch our every word,

                                    and to hear even the heart’s unspoken cry for help;

            that the door to your presence

                        is never shut,

                                    to those who seek to enter on their knees.

We thank you that you have given us the confidence to

pray.  We thank you that you have told us,

            that you are our Father,

            that your name is love;

            that you love each one of us,

                        as if there was only one of us to love,

                                    and that no child of yours can be lost in the crowd.

We thank you that you have given us

            unanswerable proof of your love,

                        by sending your Son Jesus Christ,

                        to live, to suffer and to die for us.

Give us now an answer to our prayers.

            We do not ask that we should be protected from all

            pain and sorrow, from all danger and distress.  We ask

            for humility to accept whatever comes to us, and for

            courage, and fortitude and endurance to come safely

            through it, and to come out on the other side finer in

            character, and nearer to you.

            We do not ask that you should answer our prayers as

            we in our ignorance would wish, but as you in your

            mercy and love know best.

           

                        Into your hands we commend our spirits,

                                    because we know that

                                                you are love to care,

                                                mercy to bless,

                                                power to save.

Hear these our prayers for your love’s sake.  Amen.

Yours & His,

DED