Alternate universes

My friend Bill reminds me of Will Campbell. For most of his life, Campbell was a self-described “deep water Baptist,” as was his father. Campbell asked, “Daddy, do you believe in infant baptism?” Campbell’s father replied, “Believe in it? Hell, I’ve actually seen it.”

This week, Bill and I discussed alternate universes. Not the kind that are explored in physics classes. Both Bill and I would be in “listen only” mode in a science class about the Cosmos. But Bill and I have experienced close encounters with alternate universes of the human kind.

My hunch is that you have, too. Alternate universes can be found on the Internet, in neighborhoods, within congregations, and among family members. We can live, play, work or worship side-by-side yet never connect at a deep level, talking past each other about really important things.

Maybe a starting point is to ask, “How are things on your planet?”

From “‘Alternative facts’ tops list of 2017 notable quotes,” by Rebecca Savransky, The Hill, December 12, 2i017

Mothers’ Day

My late mother, born on June 22, 1924, was the third of seven children. She graduated from high school a month before her 16th birthday and began working at the local telephone company in Jellico, Tennessee. The switchboard was on the second floor of a downtown business. When working overnight, her sister (7 years younger) was sent by their mom to spend the night at the phone company–security in numbers, apparently. By 20, my Mom was married and working (with my Dad) on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. By 26, she was a full-time mom. She re-entered the work force at 33 when I entered first grade. She was a natural leader and one of my best teachers.

A poignant Heather Cox Richardson post about Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) in Letters from an American made me appreciate my Mom more. Howe was the fourth of seven children. She bore six children and in 1870 launched Mothers’ Day as part of the women’s suffrage movement, 38 years before Anna Jarvis began Mother’s Day to honor her mother. To honor my Mom as her 100th birthday approaches, I’m moving the apostrophe. From now on, for me it’s Mothers’ Day. Planet Earth needs more women leaders. Society has too much testosterone and not enough estrogen. It’s killing us, literally. This is how Richardson closed last night’s installment of Letters from an American:

(Howe) threw herself into the struggle for women’s suffrage, understanding that in order to create a more just and peaceful society, women must take up their rightful place as equal participants in American politics.

While we celebrate the modern version of Mother’s Day on May 12, in this momentous year of 2024 it’s worth remembering the original Mothers’ Day and Julia Ward Howe’s conviction that women must have the same rights as men, and that they must make their voices heard.

From “Meeting My Muse: A Switchboard Operators Story,” (an interview with Carol Bartle of the Tacoma Pioneer Telephone Museum), by Julia Levy, April 29, 2022, The Switchboard (Substack)

Georgia on my mind

In Myers-Briggs language, I’m uber intuitive and de minimis sensing. As 2024 approached, my intuition was ramped-up with a consciousness that 2024 would be very consequential. For me, and for many friends and loved ones, two events loomed large. The first event was the United Methodist General Conference meeting in Charlotte on April 23-May 3. The second event would have a more global impact–the November 5 US elections. I anticipated 2024 with more hope than fear, but just barely.

Somewhere in my deepest self, I believed this General Conference would be different because many delegates who opposed greater inclusiveness had disaffiliated. That proved to be correct, but I was not prepared for the Conference’s swift, thorough and decisive votes to remove one’s sexual orientation as matter of scrutiny for ordination eligibility.

It took decades for Methodists to decide in 1956 (by a vote of 389-297) that women would have full ordination rights. That 56.7% majority came after many decades of effort, personified by Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) a Methodist professor of theology. Much has changed. My congregation’s senior pastor is female, as is my presiding bishop and my newly appointed district superintendent.

Georgia Harkness is on my mind. So is the State of Georgia, which on January 5, 2021 elected a Black senator and a Jewish senator, effecting a peaceful transfer of power in the US Senate. That should have been the big story of the news cycle on January 6, 2021. Six months away from the November elections, it helps me to have both Georgias on my mind.

The struggle between hope and fear takes many forms. Regressive, fearful actions abound. Heather Cox Richardson’s May 6 Substack blog post at Letters from an American provides the historical context for current anti-immigration, anti-Chinese sentiments among us.

Grace wins, eventually

Our journey has many obstacles, including destructive climate change, widespread injustice and the proliferation of violence. They’re ours. We own ’em. I once naively thought we had evolved beyond the dictatorship phase of history. I underestimate our forgetfulness and our capacity for wrong choices.

Still, I believe grace (love-based reconciliation) ultimately wins. I’m not singing Que Sera Sera and I don’t see divine control over the granular details of every life. But, I believe we have agency, or free will, and–imperfect as we are–we can be stewards of a gracious Providence.

Yesterday, after celebrating our denomination’s removal of some restrictive language that had been inserted in our Book of Discipline in 1972 and 1984 (described in Friday’s post), I read the article below about Pope Francis and his gracious, reconciling relationship with some of society’s outcasts.

It’s encouraging to see glimpses of healing reconciliation, reminding us that grace wins, eventually.

From “How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers,” by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli, The Washington Post, May 5, 2024

40 years in the wilderness

In the big scheme of things, given the 2000+ year history of Christianity and the 200+ year history of its Methodist variations, debate about homosexuality is a very recent phenomenon. However, it has been a major reality of my lifetime (which began in 1950) and my clergy years (which began in 1970). I was a college student finishing my second year of parish ministry when the 1972 General Conference approved restrictive language about homosexuality. The New York Times reported: After heated debate, the general conference of the United Methodist Church declared today that homosexual had “sacred worth” but that homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

I attended the 1984 General Conference as one of ten monitors representing the Commission on the Status and Role of Women, networking with other progressive groups. A New York Times article, “Methodists Bar Homosexuals from Ministry” began with: The General Conference of the United Methodist Church passed legislation today that rules out the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals. The article’s third paragraph focused on what some participants called the “seven last words”:

The homosexuality issue was addressed when the delegates added a phrase to the Book of Discipline, which governs the church, that calls for ”fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” as a qualification for ordination to the ministry.

This week, in 2024, the General Conference removed these relatively recent restrictions to the Book of Discipline, ending my tribe’s 40 years in the “wilderness.” The Associated Press noted: This change doesn’t mandate or even explicity affirm LGBTQ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them.

From “United Methodists repeal longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy,” by Peter Smith, Associated Press, May 1, 2024

Who are your mentors?

Our son Rob spends most of his available energy doing medical research. He linked me to the best article on any subject that I’ve read in a long time. A post from Everything Is An Emergency by blogger Bess Stillman, “Debugging the Doctor Brain” is good reading if you’ve been (or might be) in an Emergency Room. It’s relevant to any vocation or avocation. Here’s an excerpt:

Do emergency medicine for 80 hours a week for three to four years —the length of an ER residency—and a resident doctor will have spent around 10,000 hours on direct patient care. It’s during those encounters that doctors are (supposed to be) guided towards developing and deepening the fundamental mental models that run in their cognitive background while evaluating each new patient.

Dan Luu’s Why don’t schools teach debugging got Stillman “thinking about the way science and medical education universally teaches the fundamentals: badly.” Stillman wrote, “In medicine, we often mistake the speed of initial understanding with a students’ capacity for mastery.” I believe this is true in every significant human endeavor. Stillman’s post will connect with your life’s experience.

Stillman reminded me of my student pastor days. Years 1-3 were my last three undergraduate years. Years 4-6 were my three seminary years. Stillman helped me see my student pastor time as a “theological residency,” with older clergy colleagues and gracious laity complementing my faculty and fellow students. They were my mentors. Who are your mentors?

From Massachusetts General Research Institute

Among the urgent

Tyranny of the Urgent was a 1967 InterVarsity Press booklet by Charles Hummel. Among the urgent issues before us in 2024, the sad embrace of religious nationalism by evangelical Christianity helps me understand a variety of related issues. Diana Butler Bass helps me understand the insidious temptations of religious nationalism and its impact behind many of today’s headlines.

Bass is a long-time observer of the influence of right-wing politicians over evangelical Christianity. She has a strong presence on YouTube. She’s written eleven books. Her posts from The Cottage are available at Substack. A January 25, 2024 post replies to: “I don’t understand how Christians, especially evangelicals, can support Donald Trump. I don’t understand any of this.”

From her introduction to The Cottage:

… I am a Christian (even though that label is more than a bit awkward these days) and I write from that perspective, with a generous heart toward wisdom wherever it is found. The “creed” that guides me most closely aligns with these 1,000 year old words from the mystical poet Ibn Arabi:

There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
An abbey for monks.
A table for the Torah,
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That shall be the path of my faith.

Or, in the simple words of Jesus: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Coffee with Diana

Technology helps me adapt an ancient faith rhythm–an early focus for the day, which I consider prayer, a consciousness that seeks to embrace all reality within the realm of self-transcending grace.

A cup of coffee accompanies Substack emails of the day, sent overnight from several trusted sources: Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, and Joyce Vance. Then follows a daily meditation (also emailed overnight) from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.

Yesterday, a second cup of coffee was accompanied by a Diana Butler Bass newsletter (which comes twice weekly via Substack email). Her passion is the history of religion and she always moves me deeper into a realm of consciousness that for me is a realm of prayer.

Bass knows evangelical Christianity’s foray into religious nationalism. (More about her on Friday.) Yesterday, Bass covered an evangelical battle among Congressional Republicans.

From “The Great Divorce? Evangelical Style,” in The Cottage, a newsletter via Substack by Diana Butler Bass, April 23, 2024.

Migrant

Jews, Christians and Muslims are spiritual descendants of Abraham. A biblical affirmation of faith in Deuteronomy 26:5-10 begins with a self-identification: “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean who went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation….”

The U.S., once proudly a nation of immigrants, inspired the French to honor us with the gift of a Statue of Liberty that graces New York Harbor, which inspired Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus.”

The Atlantic published an article with winners from the 2024 World Press Photo Contest. Venezuelan photographer Alejandro Cegarra inspired me with his photograph, “The Two Walls.”

From “Winners of the 2024 World Press Photo Context,” by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, April 18, 2024. (Extra credit if you can identify the railroad cars and their owner.)

Honeycomb

We try to camp a few days each month, with a 7-10 day trip in the Spring and a longer trip in the Fall. This week, we spent a few days at a campground in Honeycomb, Alabama, at the foot of Gunter Mountain on Lake Guntersville, a few miles from Grant.

A sign on US 431 points to Grant and the Kate Duncan Smith DAR School. We went to Grant (pop. 1,047) and drove around the school. It was formed in 1924 as a private school by the Daughters of the American Revolution, one of several envisioned by the DAR for remote sections of the former Confederacy.

The KDS DAR School is still owned by the DAR and is operated as a public school by the Marshall County Board of Education. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at a park, with barbecue and hand-dipped ice cream from Porky’s No. 2 on Main Street in Grant. I don’t know the whereabouts of Porky’s No. 1.

The KDS DAR School plans a centennial celebration for October 3-4.

From our campsite at the Honeycomb Campground (founded in 1964), which is another public/private partnership between Vista Recreation and the Tennessee Valley Authority.